One scholarly urge to identify the unicorns in the Bible with the Assyrian aurochs springs from a similarity between the Assyrian word rimu and the Hebrew word re’em. The aurochs’s highly prized horns would have been a symbol of great strength to the ancient Bible reader. These they anxiously seek after, and bind at the tips with silver, and use as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. Not even when taken very young can they be rendered familiar to men and tamed. Their strength and speed are extraordinary they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. . . . a little below the elephant in size, and of the appearance, color, and shape of a bull. 10 Julius Caesar described them in his Gallic Wars as. 9Įxtinct since about 1627, aurochs, Bos primigenius, were huge bovine creatures. On a broken obelisk, for instance, Tiglath-Pileser I boasted of slaying them in the Lebanese mountains. 8 Fighting rimu was a popular sport for Assyrian kings. 7 The aurochs’s horns were symmetrical and often appeared as one in profile, as can be seen on Ashurnasirpal II’s palace relief and Esarhaddon’s stone prism. The biblical unicorn could have been an aurochs (a kind of wild ox known to the Assyrians as rimu). 6Īssyrian archaeology provides one other possible solution to the unicorn identity crisis. 5 The unicorns in the Bible could have been the elasmotherium. 4 In fact, archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, in his 1849 book Nineveh and Its Remains, sketched a single-horned creature from an obelisk in company with two-horned bovine animals he identified the single-horned animal as an Indian rhinoceros. The elasmotherium’s 33-inch-long skull has a huge bony protuberance on the frontal bone consistent with the support structure for a massive horn. The elasmotherium, an extinct giant rhinoceros, provides another possibility for the unicorn’s identity. had a sharp point it was not attached to the bone of the forehead, but fixed only in the skin.” 3
One such report describes “a single horn, directly in front, about as long as one’s arm, and at the base about as thick. . . . It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.) Eighteenth century reports from southern Africa described rock drawings and eyewitness accounts of fierce, single-horned, equine-like animals. The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. The presence of a very strong horn on this powerful, independent-minded creature is intended to make readers think of strength.Ĭourtesy: Domenichino, Virgin and Unicorn,, Fresco, 1604–1605, Farnese Palace, Rome) (Consider the rhinoceros and narwhal.) The Bible describes unicorns skipping like calves ( Psalm 29:6), traveling like bullocks, and bleeding when they die ( Isaiah 34:7). Modern readers have trouble with the unicorns in the Bible because we forget that a single-horned feature is not uncommon on God’s menu for animal design.
An imaginary fantasy animal would have defeated the purpose of God’s illustration. God points out in Job 39:9–12 that the unicorn, “ whose strength is great,” is useless for agricultural work, refusing to serve man or “ harrow (plow) the valley.” This visual aid gave Job a glimpse of God’s greatness. Job had to be familiar with the animals on God’s list for the illustration to be effective. 1 In Job 38–41, God reminded Job of the characteristics of a variety of impressive animals He had created, showing Job that God was far above man in power and strength. The Bible refers to the unicorn in the context of familiar animals, such as peacocks, lambs, lions, bullocks, goats, donkeys, horses, dogs, eagles, and calves ( Job 39:9–12).
However, the unicorns in the bible were real animals, not imaginary creatures. Some people claim the Bible is a book of fairy tales because it mentions unicorns.
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