Of Unicorns and Spirits

I found this post in a certain forum...


Hoyla! I recently acquired a book by Odell Shepard entitled "The Lore of the Unicorn." Here's something from it that I thought you people would be interested in, in light of reading Herodotus in GB1.

"In the King James version of the Bible there are seven clear references to the unicorn, all of which occur in the Old Testament. The animal is mentioned twice in the Pentateuch, once in Job, once in Isaiah, and three times in the Psalms. These passages read as follows:-

"God brought them out of Egpyt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn."
-Numbers 23:22

"His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth."
-Deuteronomy 33:17

"Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of unicorns."
-Psalm 22:21

"He maketh them [the cedars of Lebanon] also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."
-Psalm 29:6

"And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with their bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."
-Isaiah 34:7

"Wilt the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide in thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labor to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into my barn?"
-Job 39:9-12

I thought that was kind of neat. I went and looked up those references in my New King James Bible; they've changed "unicorn" to "wild ox." Go figure.

Any comments or insights?


The reason I found this so interesting, is because recently, I've been listening to some tapes by J.P. Moreland (the same guy I got the other two posts from), and he was talking about something that struck me as similar. The topic was about spirits and souls, and he was saying that you aren't your brain, and that's not where your memories are stored and stuff... well, it was all very interesting, but then he got to talking about animal souls. He said that in the King James version, in the old testament in multiple places, there is reference to the animal soul. But if you look in newer translations, it has been changed to 'life' or 'life-force' or 'vitality' or something of the sort, because it has kind of been assumed (on a scientific basis) that animals don't have souls. The post about unicorns seemed almost exactly the same. There is no such thing as a unicorn, so it must be an ox or something. Let's change that little word. An interesting little discrepancy don't you think?