Unicorns in the Bible

The Book of Job has many interesting give and takes in dialog. From discussing the meaning of life, the existence of evil, and even the nature of God, the Book of Job is considered one of the greatest literary works of Mankind in and of itself.

All too often, when the discussion of Job turns to its historicity and its place as an actual event, even Christians can be want to dismiss it as Hebrew poetry. Nothing can be further from the truth.

As a literalist, I approach the Bible with a firm reliance that what I am reading is historical fact… not merely based on history or mythologized stories. Not to say that when the Bible relates information that is meant to be taken as poetry or symbolism I twist it into some sort of weird fact starved caricature, I read the Bible as any other book is read, in the manner it was intended.

Such is the case with Job, it is presented as “matter of fact” and gives us a glimpse of the past when the Spiritual World and the Physical World were in much greater contact. It also gives us a window into some of the Creation of God that is no longer extant today.

Enter the unicorn. Today it is pictured as a sleek, nimble, and slender racehorse with a magnificent spiraled horn protruding from its head. But that is a far cry from the beast described in Job 39:9-12 (KJV)

Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by 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 labour to him?
Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?

We get a picture of brute strength, not subtle grace.  We get a picture of fierce wildness and independence, not servitude and tameness.  We are a victim of our own mythology and false picture of what a unicorn is and was in history!

What happens (and what happens far too frequently, especially in historical studies) is we take present conditions and sensibilities and transfer them onto the past, irrespective of the conditions and sensibilities of the time we are studying.  In a nutshell, what our culture defines as “unicorn” characteristics are read into the word unicorn in Job and we then summarily toss out verses 10, 11, and 12… the actual description of what a unicorn was.

In reality, there WAS a beast alive in ancient times that fit the Biblical description of unicorn.  The elasmotherium was a creature of great strength and wildness and had a single horn protruding from its head.

It is believed that Elasmotherium died out in prehistoric times. However, according to science writer and cryptozoologist Willy Ley, the animal may have survived long enough to be remembered in the legends of the Evenk people of Russia as a huge black bull with a single horn in the forehead.

Elasmotherium sibiricum. There is also a testimony by the medieval traveller Ibn Fadlan which has been interpreted to indicate that Elasmotherium may have survived into historical times.

Ibn Fadlan’s account states:

There is nearby a wide steppe, and there dwells, it is told, an animal smaller than a camel, but taller than a bull. Its head is the head of a ram, and its tail is a bull’s tail. Its body is that of a mule and its hooves are like those of a bull. In the middle of its head it has a horn, thick and round, and as the horn goes higher, it narrows (to an end), until it is like a spearhead. Some of these horns grow to three or five ells, depending on the size of the animal. It thrives on the leaves of trees, which are excellent greenery. Whenever it sees a rider, it approaches and if the rider has a fast horse, the horse tries to escape by running fast, and if the beast overtakes them, it picks the rider out of the saddle with its horn, and tosses him in the air, and meets him with the point of the horn, and continues doing so until the rider dies. But it will not harm or hurt the horse in any way or manner.

The locals seek it in the steppe and in the forest until they can kill it. It is done so: they climb the tall trees between which the animal passes. It requires several bowmen with poisoned arrows; and when the beast is in between them, they shoot and wound it unto its death. And indeed I have seen three big bowls shaped like Yemen seashells, that the king has, and he told me that they are made out of that animal’s horn.

It certainly can be argued that the survival of Elasmotherium into historical times may be the source of the unicorn existence, as the animal’s description could be argued to fit with the Persian karkadann unicorn, the Chinese zhi unicorn, and the Biblical account in Job.