Brit-Am Research Sources
# The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His Covenant" (Psalm 25:14).
5 April 2024, 26 Adar-B, 5784
Contents:
1. Unicorns in the Bible?
by Elizabeth Mitchell.
2. This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism.
3. When Ya'akov Became Two People by Rabbi Francis Nataf.
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1. Unicorns in the Bible?
by Elizabeth Mitchell,
https://assets.answersingenesis.org/doc/articles/aid/v3/unicorns-in-bible.pdf
Extracts:
Job had to be familiar with the animals on God's list for the illustration to be effective. 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. An imaginary fantasy animal would have defeated the purpose of God's illustration. Modern readers have trouble with the Bible's unicorns because we forget that a single-horned feature is not uncommon on God's menu for animal design. (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). The presence of a very strong horn on this powerful, independent-minded creature is intended to make readers think of strength. The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. 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. 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] had a sharp point; it was not attached to the bone of the forehead, but fixed only in the skin.'3 The elasmotherium, an extinct giant rhinoceros, provides another possibility for the unicorn's identity. 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.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.5 The biblical unicorn could have been the elasmotherium.6
Assyrian archaeology provides one other possible solution to the unicorn identity crisis. The biblical unicorn could have been an aurochs (a kind of wild ox known to the Assyrians as rimu).7 The aurochs's horns were very symmetrical and often appeared as one in profile, as can be seen on Ashurnasirpal-II's palace relief and Esarhaddon's stone prism.8 Fighting rimu was a popular sport for Assyrian kings. On a broken obelisk, for instance, Tiglath-Pileser I boasted of slaying them in the Lebanon mountains.9 Extinct since about 1627, aurochs, Bos primigenius, were huge bovine creatures.10 Julius Caesar described them in his Gallic Wars as: a little below the elephant in size, and of the appearance, color, and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied . . . . Not even when taken very young can they be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after, and bind at the tips with silver, and use as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments.11
One scholarly urge to identify the biblical unicorn with the Assyrian aurochs springs from a similarity between the Assyrian word rimu and the Hebrew word re'em. We must be very careful when dealing with anglicized transliterated words from languages that do not share the English alphabet and phonetic structure.12 However, similar words in Ugaritic and Akkadian (other languages of the ancient Middle East) as well as Aramaic mean 'wild bull' or 'buffalo,' and an Arabic cognate means 'white antelope.'
... the King James Version (1611), Luther's German E.Mitchell 44 Bible (1534), the Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate translated this Hebrew word with words meaning "onehorned animal."13
... The deer, which was born a year ago in captivity, is believed to have a genetic flaw, although its twin has two horns. Deer missing a horn are "rare but not unheard of," reports AP, but the positioning of this deer's single horn in the center of its head is what is notable.
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2. This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism (see above).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/map-shows-places-world-where-us-military-operates-180970997/
(January 2019)
The infographic reveals for the first time that the U.S. is now operating in 40 percent of the world's nations
Stephanie Savell and 5W Infographics
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3. When Ya'akov Became Two People by Rabbi Francis Nataf.
https://www.jewishpress.com/judaism/parsha/redeeming-relevance-in-the-bible-francis-nataf/when-yaakov-became-two-people/2023/11/30/
By
Rabbi Francis Nataf
In actual fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that the existence of a double identity here is precisely what the Torah wants us to recognize. The careful reader will notice a constant and unique duality that exemplifies the life of Ya�akov and thereby makes him exceptional. His two (sets of) wives are only the beginning, if perhaps the most important indicator, of his double personality. The duality denoted by his very different wives is in turn institutionalized through the rivalry for leadership among their sons, primarily represented by Judah and his descendants on the one hand and Joseph and his descendants on the other. In the end, this rivalry and the different approaches represented by the two parts of Ya'akov-Yisrael may have been a very significant factor leading to, and reinforcing, the division of the Jewish nation into the northern (Ephraim) and the southern (Judah) kingdoms.
Isaiah ch. 11 speaks of the Jews (Judah) and the Ten Trbies (Ephraim) as shown below.
Similarly, Ya'akov's usurpation of his twin Esau's birthright and blessing can represent a taking on of Esau's personality alongside his own. In this sense, the rabbinic tradition that the wrestler that Ya'akov subdues is actually Esau's guardian angel fits in well. Ya'akov wants confirmation of his status as the true first born. This confirmation is best represented by his older brother's guardian angel, so long as Esau still has his own angel, Ya'akov has not completely taken on Esau's essence. Thus, the struggle at the Jabbok embodies the notion that, having taken on Esau's role as the firstborn, he should now subdue Esau's guardian angel in order to seek his protection (alongside that of his own original guardian angel).
Finally, there is a cluster of clues to this duality specifically around the narratives of Ya'akov receiving his new name (which, we by now might have predicted, occurs twice). The story is significantly prefaced by his visit to Mahanayim - the double camp (Gen. 32:3), and bracketed by his two visits to Bet El (Gen. 28 and 35). Moreover, Ya'akov's preparation for his meeting with Esau includes the sending of two delegations and the division of his camps into two parts, so that if one is destroyed, the other will survive.4 Survival of a half is only conceivable if it is not wholly dependent on the other half, which should not be taken for granted in view of the later frequent comparison of a nation to one body requiring all of its parts.
Isaiah (NKJV) 11:
12 HE WILL SET UP A BANNER FOR THE NATIONS,
AND WILL ASSEMBLE THE OUTCASTS OF ISRAEL,
AND GATHER TOGETHER THE DISPERSED OF JUDAH
FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH.
13 ALSO THE ENVY OF EPHRAIM SHALL DEPART,
AND THE ADVERSARIES OF JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF;
EPHRAIM SHALL NOT ENVY JUDAH,
AND JUDAH SHALL NOT HARASS EPHRAIM.
The expression "OUTCASTS" OF ISRAEL is understood to refer to the Lost Ten Tribes who were driven out and outcast from their Land but relatively speaking remained together as a coherent group or separate groups that re-coalesced with each other.
This is in contrast with "THE DISPERSED OF JUDAH" who were scattered.
The expression in Hebrew for Scattered" ("nefutsot") and Driven Out ("nIdchai") are also found in Deuteronomy 30: