Did fantastical beasts like the unicorn and phoenix use to exist?

[El_Machinae]

Wait, is the OP serious? I thought he was having a lark.
No, there's no reason to believe in these fantastical animals.

 

[bugwar]

Did fantastical beasts like the unicorn and phoenix use to exist?

Whadaya mean, “used to”?

 

[timtofly]

The problem still is in which genus this creature comes from. It will never be of the horse family which most people place the unicorn. It is the mythological artistic renderings that are wrong, not any translation errors from antiquity. Graphical renditions tend to stick in the memory banks and harder to correct than the written word.

 

[strijder20]

Now, Jesus wouldn't go talking about stuff that didn't exist, would he?

He believed he was the son of God, so he could have made up the unicorns and phoenixes too, right?

 

[warpus]

Unicorn and bicorn thank you very much It's latin.

If it were greek it would be monoceros and diceros(?)

I'm sorry, I'm sticking to duocorn

The problem still is in which genus this creature comes from. It will never be of the horse family which most people place the unicorn. It is the mythological artistic renderings that are wrong, not any translation errors from antiquity. Graphical renditions tend to stick in the memory banks and harder to correct than the written word.

It was probably like a horse standing in front of a rhino or a narwhal and some guy was drunk, ran back to his village, and they believed him because he's the high priest.

 

[Borachio]

No, there's no reason to believe in these fantastical animals.

A valid reason to believe in them might be the possible enrichment of one's imaginative life.

Though I'll grant this is looking at the issue somewhat tangentially.

 

[timtofly]

It was probably like a horse standing in front of a rhino or a narwhal and some guy was drunk, ran back to his village, and they believed him because he's the high priest.

I think the difference would be in the hooves, but I am not an expert on the topic. I am not sure how many people would pay that much attention to hooves any way. I am sure that if the rhino looked like a buffalo, they would not have mistaken it for a bear. If one is trying to sale the creature, they would want to slim it down, so it would make the upkeep look more attractive, perhaps even put more emphasis on the horn also. Do you think that modern men have a monopoly on attractive art work?

 

[warpus]

I don't know man, people used to think that the Earth was created a couple thousand years ago and that our planet is flat and sitting on an infinite chain of turtles. People will believe anything. A rhino hiding behind a horse? That's a unicorn.

 

[Kyriakos]

Uh, not many non-savages thought 'our planet was flat'. Already in the 3rd century BC there were experiments by Eratosthenes considering the circumference of the planet. Using calculations involving two wells 500 KM apart, he concluded that the circumference of the earth was 39350 kilometers.
Today that circumference is measured as being around (depending on the distance from the poles) 40,000 kilometers.

http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/marykay/assignments/eratos1.html

http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzcircumference.htm

So to claim the ancient people thought the earth was flat is just ignorance

 

[warpus]

Yeah dude, I know about the Greeks and all teh stuff they figured out, from the non-flatness of the Earth to how many bits are in a megabyte.

That doesn't mean that there never existed people who thought that the Earth is flat.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I take David Bowie's word over Jesusesus. The only reason the starman hasn't met us and blows our mind is that you guys refuse to sparkle.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Now, Jesus wouldn't go talking about stuff that didn't exist, would he? He's definitely no daydreamer or espouser of men's overactive imaginations.

Actually Jesus was a furry. These "beasts" were just characters in his erotic fan-fic that he used to write and then hide under his mattress until his mom found them which caused him to turn emo.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Unicorn.

Well, Diceros bicornis, I know. But cut a myth some slack!

By the time some traveller gets back from Africa, a tale gets taller.

Why bring Africa or its Bicorns into this?

The earliest descriptions of Unicorns (Monoceroi) were clearly of the Asian Rhinoceros, Monoceros Unicornis:

It is not at all clear that the the creatures whose Hebrew name is translated as Unicorn only has one horn anyway.

 

[Wrymouth3]

Jesus rode a unicorn.

White Jesus, Black Jesus, Arab Jesus, Jew Jesus, or the guy who hangs out on the street corner selling stuff, that looks like Jesus?

 

[Phrossack]

The Bible is the OP's only source for the existence of unicorns. However, we know the Bible cannot be true because it contradicts the Avesta, which is true. We know the Avesta is true because the Avesta says it is true.

 

[warpus]

Wait, there are unicorns in the Bible?

Now I feel like Borachio, because I'm confused. I am also very sleepy.

 

[Borachio]

Why bring Africa or its Bicorns into this?

Well, the Monocorn must have slipped my mind, somehow. It happens.

It is not at all clear that the the creatures whose Hebrew name is translated as Unicorn only has one horn anyway.

How many horns does it have? If it's two, I'm sticking with the Twihornus Africanus.

 

[Kyriakos]

How many horns does it have? If it's two, I'm sticking with the Twihornus Africanus.

Surely you mean to say The Amphiceraton of Libya?

 

[Borachio]

Do I?

I might have meant that.

But if I did I wasn't aware of it.

What's one of those?

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, it is a being which has (probably) two horns, and lives in Libya, which is the proper name for Africa