Zarathustra77

Just wondering why religious folk don't believe in all the mythological creatures that the Bible says are real but yet they readily believe in all of the miracles.

(Numbers 23:22) God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.
(Numbers 24:8) God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.
(Deuteronomy 33:17) His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns
(Isaiah 34:7) And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
(Deuteronomy 32:33) Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
(Job 30:29) I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
(Psalm 74:13) Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
(Psalm 74:14) Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
(Psalm 148:7) Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps
(Isaiah 13:21) But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.
(Isaiah 13:22) And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.
(Jeremiah 8:17) For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.
(Isaiah 11:8) And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
(Isaiah 14:29) Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
(Isaiah 59:5) They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
(Isaiah 27:1) In that day the LORD with His severe sword, great and strong, Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.

There are more dragon entries (23 in total), but I think you get the point.

Unicorns, dragons, satyrs, leviathan, cockatrices, and of course, the giants. Reads alot like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure sometimes. I know these are all a part of the newer constructs in the translated King James version of the Bible, but that is the version that most all english speaking people refer to when they are talking about the Bible or reading from it.

So my problem is this; If it's extremely obvious that the english version has taken some rather blatant liberties with it's translation, how do you know which parts to believe? Do you just take for granted that the basic themes are true and ignore the specifics or do you go back and research the true hebrew translations before making any reference to the Bible? If these kinds of liberties were taken with the english translation then how do you know that the same kinds of liberties weren't taken with earlier translations/revisions? How do judeo-christians actually figure any of this out before they make a decision about what to believe? Because if they simply believe that the God as found in the english version of the Bible is correct then they really need to believe in all the other mythological creatures it mentions.

GakuseiDon

Strong's says that the word used for unicorns is "probably the great aurochs or wild bulls which are now extinct. The exact meaning is not known."

Anyway, most of the expressions are figurative, e.g. "he has the strength of an unicorn". "He is as white as a ghost" can be used, without believing in ghosts. So your list can be shortened somewhat.

Alternatively, if they didn't care about the precision of the English translation, then why should we?

bacht

Is this still true? Probably was a century ago, but hasn't there been a profusion of translations since then (eg the New KJV)? Catholics still use translations based on the Vulgate don't they? And the Jews have their own English versions of the Old Testament :huh:

If you're a student of English lit then you can't avoid all the KJV citations. But for study and public worship aren't there several translations in use?

ughaibu

No holy ghost, then. Come to that, why believe any of it?

Roger Pearse

This appears to be the fallacy of the omitted middle; "either believe my strawman version of your beliefs, or abandon yours."

The question of how the OT should be interpreted was being discussed before Jesus was born. When some atheists get excited about such things, whisper "Origen" to them.

Zarathustra77

Not at all, I'm admitting that the strawman (King James Bible) version isn't valid at all since it's obvious there are so many liberties taken with it. But I think that this version of the Bible is the version that most laymen (non-scholarly folk) refer to or read from in everyday life. Maybe the assumption is wrong in general for the rest of the population, but this is the version I most often see people with in the small sample area I live in. I'm well aware this is a fallacious assumption, but I have no other information to go on, feel free to let me know if your own experience differs.

I'm also aware of the various literal translations from the Hebrew, unicorn (auroch), cockatrice (adder), leviathan (whale), etc... but I don't think the "average" person is aware of these since I assume they usually read the King James Version (if they even read the Bible) and do no homework at all. So what do they think to themselves when they read a passage that says God is going to send cockatrices after them? If they accept that God is real based on that version of the Bible then don't they also have to accept that cockatrices are also real?

Or if they do some research and realize such liberties have been taken with the Hebrew texts, in fairly recent history, how can they be so absolutely certain that it has never happened before and that they are reading a truly accurate description of events?

Just trying to figure out why some religious people can be so sure that what they're reading is real when it's obvious that some of the descriptions they're reading have been sensationalized to some degree in recent history. It just seems to me that if it has been done recently (when a fairly large group of literate people allowed it to happen) then it has almost certainly been done in the past (when a smaller number of people had control over the text).

Roger Pearse

Erm, do people "usually read the KJV"?

I don't think the problem with the argument is any better, whichever translation might be involved. Surely we're interested in the text, not a modern version, anyway?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

John Kesler

Here are two previous threads, related to the current topic:

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=242639


http://www.freeratio.org//showthread.php?p=4009905

You may also enjoy this article about the various races of giants mentioned in the Bible.

Zarathustra77

thanks, neither thread looks very resolved though... :constern01:

lpetrich

That's only a problem with those who idolize the King James Version as a perfect documentary.

Unicorn -> ox makes a lot of sense in your first examples:

(Numbers 23:22) God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an ox.
(Numbers 24:8) God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an ox: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.
(Deuteronomy 33:17) His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of oxen.
(Isaiah 34:7) And the oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

Oxen are proverbially strong animals, and in the last two examples, they fit in well. Those are examples of parallelism, a common stylistic quirk in the Bible. Stating something, then stating something similar.

From the verses quoted, dragons and cockatrices seem like venomous snakes.

Behemoth? A large herbivore, most likely a hippopotamus.

Leviathan? A mythological sea monster, perhaps inspired by a Nile crocodile.

BTW, I would not get too worked over the identity of the sea monster that swallowed Jonah. I'd prefer calling it a sea monster and leaving it at that.