Olifanten staan niet in de Bijbel — maar hun ivoor wel

Elephants are not in the Bible. The animal is never named, in any book — but its tusks are, repeatedly, and where they turn up says something uncomfortable and worth hearing. Are elephants mentioned in the Bible? No. Not in the law, the histories, the poetry or the Gospels. Some older translations rendered the creature in Job as an elephant, but the Hebrew word there is uncertain and modern versions do not. Israel’s writers described the animals of their own…