Commenting on the use of “unicorn” in some translations of the Bible (e.g., the KJV), Catholic apologist Trent Horn noted:
The Hebrew word the KJV translates as “unicorn” is re’em which modern scholars have identified with an auroch, or a large horned cow that is now extinct. The ancient Assyrians also referred to these animals by a similar name, rimu. So how did the Hebrew word re’em become “unicorn” in the King James Version?
The translators of the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, used the Greek word monoceros (literally “one-horn”) in place of the Hebrew word re’em. In the fifth century. St. Jerome translated the Septuagint into the Latin Vulgate and used the Latin equivalent of “monoceros,” or unicornis. Eventually, this word became “unicorn” in English.
But why did the Septuagint translators use a word that literally meant “one horn” instead of something like “wild ox”? One theory is that they may have been thinking of another animal that also fits the description found in passages like Numbers 23:22. The first-century Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder described a real animal from India called a monoceros:
[It] has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits in length. This animal, it is said, cannot be taken alive. (Pliny the Elder. Natural History 8.31)
Today, in northern India, there is a very strong animal with feet like an elephant, a large body, and one horn that protrudes from its head. If we allow some leeway in Pliny’s description (which is necessary in ancient descriptions of unique creatures), we can identify this creature as the modern India rhinoceros. Indeed, monoceros means “one horn” and rhinoceros means “nose horn” (rinoceros). A rhinoceros would make sense in these biblical passages because, unlike unicorns, they are known for being very strong beasts that can’t be domesticated.
In order to remain faithful to the original language, and to avoid confusion with the medieval concept of a unicorn, most modern translations of the Bible render the Hebrew word in these passages as “wild ox” and not “unicorn” or “one horn.” (Trent Horn, Hard Sayings: A Catholic Approach to Answering Bible Difficulties [El Cajon, Calif.: Catholic Answers, 2016], 68-69)
While reading Horn's book today and this particular section, I was reminded of one of my favourite books by Umberto Eco, which I think some readers of this blog will find interesting:
