Jamiet,

He didn't. Fortunately, the means were left to analyze and realize that it was an error. Actually, that was basically true at every point in history, and as mentioned by dub, above, even when the KJV was translated, "unicorn" didn't mean exclusively what it means today. So the period of time when it would have been misunderstood as a magical horned horse is pretty brief.

(b) It's also a pretty unimportant error. It's the sort of thing that doesn't cause any interpretation problems until you become worried about the fact that unicorns don't exist, and the minute you do, you have enough textual and historical evidence to realize that a unicorn in our modern sense was not intended. So not only did God foresee this error, He also foresaw that it would create no serious problem in the history of Christianity (and Judaism), which has in fact been the case. The biggest problem so far, in fact, is occasional trumpeting about it by internet atheists who are ignorant of ancient languages and cultures. And actually, it's one of the weakest points they could possibly be making, so in that sense, it's leading to good.

Um..

In your first paragraph, you say "He didn't" [forsee the error].

In your second paragraph you say "not only did God forsee this error".

So he didn't forsee the error, but he did forsee it?

Jamie, be fair to semck. You asked how god failed to foresee, not, did god foresee. Semck said he didn't fail.

Ack you're right. My bad. Why didn't god forsee my error though? (jk)

"2. Assuming the bible to be the word of god, then either (a) god intended the bible, as his word, to contain a mention of unicorns,"

Jamie, this still isn't a problem, unless you consider the BIble to be an exhaustive encyclopeia of zoology, which no one does. If, on the other hand, the Bible purports to be a bit of communication from God to humanity in form of history, parable, prophecy, poem, poetry, wisdom, and maybe some other literary forms, then I don't see why it's embarassing to Christianity at all if God did mention unicorns in a clearly poetic passage.

"No, but I am under the impression that the Christian concept of god is inherently self-contradictory, and the idea of the bible being "the word of god" is a good example of this."

You're probably under this impression because you have an atheist's impression of God, not a Biblical impression of God.

"If things are unclear, that's either God's fault, or it isn't. If it isn't, then God as he is commonly presented probably doesn't exist."

This is a very curious argument indeed. What about God, "as he is commonly presented", does not leave room for human error? Honest, non-rhetorical question here, as you and I likely have a pretty different idea of the common presentation of God.

@ FlemGem: Why would he deliberately design-in human error in such a way that would make his intended communication unclear?

My understanding is that it's human /choice/ that is designed-in. That puts the responsibility for the error on the human.

The unicorn thing is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to "communication problems" vis-à-vis the "word of god" issue. Considering the fact that untold numbers have killed each other over disagreements about biblical interpretation, and the fact that the original canon was selected in a highly politicized fashion to conform to a certain dogma (against, for example, th

*the Gnostics, it's clear that this so-called "god" has a problem communicating to his followers.

It must be fun being god. You get credit for all that goes right. And you never have to take responsibility for absolutely anything that goes wrong. The buck never stops with god, that's for sure. Always somebody else's fault.

@ FlemGem: "My understanding is that it's human /choice/ that is designed-in. That puts the responsibility for the error on the human."

Erm, no, because that implies the human translator /chose/ to make the wrong translation, which would just be silly.

"The unicorn thing is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to "communication problems" vis-à-vis the "word of god" issue."

Agreed. But the unicorn thing is, in my estimation, illustrative of the issue. The "problems" are largely red herrings and straw men, of which the unicorn issue is one of the silliest.

"It must be fun being god. You get credit for all that goes right. And you never have to take responsibility for absolutely anything that goes wrong. The buck never stops with god, that's for sure. Always somebody else's fault. "

On the other hand, you'd be surrounded by incompetent people all the time...no good help...always cleaning up someone else's mess...I dunno if I'd call it "fun".

@Jamie - not necessarily. I think the Biblical idea is that not only are there individual screwups, but the whole system is broken. So, for example, we have a nasty, mixed-up economic system that no one except Putin can prescribe a fix for, and no one is listening to Putin. The /system/ is broken, so even if I want to work justice I don't have a very high income, so I'm stuck shopping at Wal-Mart. In this case, the system of communication - translation in particular - is broken. No surprise or "drop dead" argument there. Humans have trouble communicating, whether it's about God or money or sex or whatever.

@ "Humans have trouble communicating, whether it's about God or money or sex or whatever."

So if he designed us, why did he design us to be so crap?

What "mess" has god cleaned up? For all you and everybody else has told us, god doesn't actually do anything, let alone clean up messes. It's all left to 'human choice'. Why don't we cut out the middle man?

Christian apologists is just one excuse after another for why god appears to be completely asleep at the switch.

...

Putin's wealthy friends:

http://www.nu.nl/buitenland/2976592/jacht-van-kim-jong-il-bijgezet-in-mausoleum.html

@Jamie - read Genesis 11: 1-9