Are unicorns in the Bible? Because I grew up with a conservative evangelical Christian father, I learned the Bible quite well—though not the passages he wanted me to learn. Instead, I learned passages that contradicted his passages, or at least his interpretation of them. Now, as an adult who writes satirical novels that include Jesus as a character, my biblical knowledge continues to grow.
If you regularly read the editorial page of any daily newspaper, sooner or later you will read a letter from some right-winger claiming the Christian religion is superior to the Muslim religion because, unlike the Koran, the Bible doesn’t have any passages requiring the killing of nonbelievers.
Wrong! While writing Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! I found and worked into my novel this passage from 2 Chronicles 15:13: “That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.”
Now I’m busy working on the third novel in the series, Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for 16 Seconds. In the chapter I’m writing now, Marty Mann, Nellie Dixon, Jesus Christ, and Walter Payton have time-traveled back to ancient Mesopotamia to search for Noah. Just before they find him, Marty Mann cracks a joke about Noah serving them unicorn for dinner, only to be surprised when Jesus informs him that according to Psalms 92:10 (King James and other old translations), unicorns do exist!
So I’ll leave it up to debate whether I actually learned about unicorns through background Bible study for the novel or because my liberal Jesus character took over my fingers and typed it (as my characters often do). But novel #3 will have unicorns!