I found the following discrepancy in Psalm 22:21 between the King James and the Revised Standard Versions of the Bible....

RSV Psalm 22:21: Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen!

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

Unicorns??????

From the 10+ versions I just checked all of them (of course besides the KJV) had wild oxen.

I thought all the unicorns drowned in the Flood? Weren't they all out playing and ignored the summons? (old Irish Rovers song)

RSV is a little better than the KJV, but remember, it is a revision of the American Standard Version, published in 1901, which was a revision of the King James Version, published in 1611. It's kind of a oddball version with many verb tense mistakes, and other problems. Even the New American Standard is better than it IMO.

The NRSV (New RSV) has oxen.

quote:

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“Why does the Bible contain references to such mythological creatures as the ‘unicorn’ (Num. 23:22), and the ‘satyr’ (Isa. 13:21)? How can such allusions be harmonized with the claim that the Bible is the infallible word of God?”

Unicorn

The term “unicorn” is found nine times in the King James Version of the Bible (Num. 23:22; 24:8; Dt. 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psa. 22:21; 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7). “Unicorn” does not appear at all in the American Standard Version, nor in most other more modern versions. This should be a signal that the “problem” is one of translation, rather than a problem with the original, biblical text.

In ancient mythological literature, the unicorn was a horse-like animal with a prominent horn protruding from the center of its forehead. There is no evidence that this creature is alluded to in the scriptures.

In the Hebrew Old Testament, the word that is found in the texts referenced above is re’em, which is translated “wild ox” in the later versions. Most scholars believe the term refers to a large, fierce ox of the ancient world – a beast that now is extinct.

The translators of the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) rendered re’mes by the Greek term monokeros (“one horn”), on the basis of certain pictographs which were among the ruins of ancient Babylon. The carvings depicted the “wild ox” in profile form, thus seeming to suggest that the creature had but a single horn (see Wycliffe Bible Dictionary, C. Pfeiffer, H. Vos, & J. Rea, Eds., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999, p. 83). Out of this background derived the “one horn” perception.

Biblical evidence, however, indicates otherwise. Note that in Deuteronomy 33:17, the re’em is described as having “horns” (plural), not a single horn. No mythology can be charged to the Bible in connection with the term “unicorn.”

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http://www.christiancourier.com/questions/unicornQuestion.htm

quote:

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The term “unicorn” is found nine times in the King James Version of the Bible (Num. 23:22; 24:8; Dt. 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psa. 22:21; 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7). “Unicorn” does not appear at all in the American Standard Version, nor in most other more modern versions. This should be a signal that the “problem” is one of translation, rather than a problem with the original, biblical text.

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Thanks for the link...I have been studying the bible for over 40 years, and I had never run across any unicorns in it before. The writer above says that it is a problem with translation, not original text, which begs the question "what else in the KJV is mistranslated"?

73 -- a couple of useful resources if you're interested in the history and reliability of the KJV:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801024277/qid=1118758486/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/002-9064493-5824016?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556615752/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/002-9064493-5824016?v=glance&s=books&st=*

KJV Matthew 2:16: Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

I didn't know Bethlehem had all of those "coasts" !!

The RSV has it as "regions", rather than coasts...

Aggieology,

DA Carson is a great reformed scholar.

Notafraid~

Indeed.

B Blessed

R U S S

I definitely prefer the RSV over KJV.

NotAfraid --
I know who D.A. Carson is. Thanks for the background, though.

....The quality and methods of printing in the seventeenth century were rather primitive in comparison to today. This lead to many printing errors in these early books, although they are not theological or transnational mistakes, they are still is worth a smile, and worthy of noting. King Charles I ordered 1,000 Bibles from an English printer named Robert Barker. Only after the Bibles were delivered did anyone notice a serious mistake. In One of the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20:14], a very small word was forgotten by the printers. The word "not". This changed the 7th commandment to say Thou shalt commit adultery! King Charles was not amused by the "Wicked Bible," as the infamous printing mistake was called. He ordered the Bibles recalled and destroyed, took away Barker's license to print Bibles and fined him 300 pounds [a lifetimes wages in those days]. Barker was out of business. Only 11 are left today. www.showtown.net/bible/current.htm