Jehovah and Unicorns

BH had a great comment on my last post, so I wanted to repost it here:

"I don't know, Taran. I've read your multiple-entry treatise and found it fascinating. But your final push for striking the word altogether seems a little extreme. I think people using a word ignorantly but honestly and with the same intensity of worship as they use other (correct) words does God no ill service. He sees our hearts, and he can see we are honoring Him. To call for a ban on the word is to tempt a rift. I say the following advisedly, and with no malice: Sometimes our education can come between us and a meaningful experience with our greatest loves."

Thank you for reading the posts. My fear in blogging, as in F2F conversations, is that at best, I often communicate only narcolepsy. I am pleased that you shrugged off the effects of extended exposure to my writing style.

My concern in even raising the misuse of Jehovah is that it is a bit pedantic for this lite little blog and even the risk that it seems condescending. To advocate education cuts a bit against the grain of evangelical thinking. Part of this comes from our Protestant forefathers. Luther said that reason was a whore that will serve any master. Of course, as one of my profs once said…Luther turned around and slept with her. Luther (for whom I literally thank God) was a skilled polemicist, who often powerfully utilized reason, but I disagree with him on this point.

Reason is fallible and flawed, as are everything else in this fallen world. But the alternative is obscurantism. While there are many problems with the development of biblical studies over the last 300 years, I believe that it has greatly increased our understanding of the biblical world and the biblical text. If impassioned ignorance is equal to piety, then cheeziness and empty words will overtake our churches and our pulpits. Indeed I fear they already are gaining ground.


Let me put it another way: Do you believe in unicorns?



How is this tangential and rather silly question revevant? Did you know that the interpreters of the KJV in 1611 not only believed in them but translated unicorns into the biblical text? I own a facsimile of the 1611 and this webpage is correct.

Why do the modern translations not mention unicorns? What could cause them to break the traditional rendering of this word?

Simply because subsequent linguistic study demonstrated that the English understanding of the Hebrew was incorrect. Should unicorns be kept out of their rightful place in worship merely because of our "education"? ;)


Yes they should. So should the term Jehovah.


Your final sentence is important and I will respond to it in my next post. Thank you for the conversation.