Genesis errs on domesticated camels

[ficino]

Radiocarbon dating shows (so far) that the camel was not domesticated in Palestine until centuries later than the time portrayed in Genesis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/scien ... paper&_r=0

[semiopen2]

There is also a thread in FRDB on this.

The Camel -

Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia and southern Arabia, around 3,000 BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC,[14][62][63][64] as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.[65]
In accord with patriarchal traditions, cylinder seals from Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia showed riders seated upon camels.[66][67]

This was considered a rare win by religious fundamentalists but the truth is probably closer to the position that they are an anachronism as the article suggests.

[Maximos]

I guess this has been known for some time now.

http: / / fre ethoughtnatio n.com/camels-in-the-bible-an-anachronism-proving-its-late-composition/ Camels in the Bible prove its late composition

http:// freet houghtnatio n.c om/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4615

[Andrew]

Isn't this kind of old news by now?

[semiopen2]

This is not an easy debating point.

If you google camels anachronism you get a selection of fundamentalist views.

Were camels domesticated in the time of Abraham? -http://bibleapologetics.wordpress.com/2 ... f-abraham/

It is recognized domesticated camel caravans must have passed through Egypt at an early date, even though the Egyptians made no reference to them at this time. [17] [18] Bulliet observes that evidence for the early domestication of the camel in Mesopotamia cannot be ignored on the basis of their absence in Egyptian evidence.[19]

He agrees with Albright that evidence for Syrian domestic camel use during the 3rd to 2nd millennium is absent,[20] and argues the undisputed evidence of their use elsewhere in Mesoptamia indicates they entered the area on a very small scale as pack animals by rich traders, rather than being herded in large numbers.[21] [22]

Firm evidence for very early camel domestication in Egypt has caused some scholars to reconsider the Biblical narrative.[23] [24] [25]

http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askr ... camels.htm

Rabbi Simmons is an amazing idiot, but he says

All this changed with the turn of a sho ... reality."

Actually Kitchen's slave price claim is just stupid, if slaves were much more (or less) expensive in say the 6th century BCE maybe there would be some point to this line of reasoning. We know a lot about slave prices and there is nothing in the price to place the Joseph story specifically in the second millenium BCE.

Rabbi Simmons demonstrates his stupidity in another question where he claims that God told Moses the exact number of days in a lunar month. - which was then passed down to the Talmudic sages Actually this was known from the Greeks from about the fifth century BCE.

Anyway if a fundamentalist starts talking patriarch camels, it's not a slam dunk to beat him.

[DCHindley]

Radiocarbon dating shows (so far) that the camel was not domesticated in Palestine until centuries later than the time portrayed in Genesis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/scien ... paper&_r=0

For two archaeologists at Tel Aviv University, the anachronisms were motivation to dig for camel bones at an ancient copper smelting camp in the Aravah Valley in Israel and in Wadi Finan in Jordan. They sought evidence of when domesticated camels were first introduced into the land of Israel and the surrounding region.

And what relationship should we expect to find between camels and copper smelting?

The archaeologists, Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the earliest known domesticated camels in Israel to the last third of the 10th century B.C. — centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the kingdom of David, according to the Bible. Some bones in deeper sediments, they said, probably belonged to wild camels that people hunted for their meat. Dr. Sapir-Hen could identify a domesticated animal by signs in leg bones that it had carried heavy loads.

How many camel remains did they find? How many of these showed unmistakable evidence of being used to carry heavy loads? How do they know this? A few, say 6 or less, is much different than 20-30+ sets of remains. The sample might very well be too small to be significant. They obviously found older bones but explained them away as camels hunted for "food." What was the criteria? Cut marks as evidence of butchering? Domesticated camels are butchered for food, even now!

I think this article is too vague and subjective to prove anything.

DCH (lunchtime, boss)

[semiopen2]

Actually we know that the Pentateuch was written no earlier than the 10th century BCE and more probably after the 6th. So whether the Patriarchs had camels or not is not all that important.

However, they almost certainly did not have camels. The press, of course, doesn't go into a lot of details.

http://www.academia.edu/4800043/The_Int ... vah_Valley

is a copy of the paper in question.

If I thought the Patriarchal Narratives was actually God's (or Moses') account I probably would read it more carefully but -

When focusing on the Negev sites (Table 2), this pattern becomes clearer: Camels are absent from Iron I contexts at Beer-sheba (Strata IX ‒
VIII, Hellwing 1984) and TellMasos (Stratum III, Tchernov and Drori 1983), which are located directly on the principa ltrade route from the Aravah Valley to the Mediterranean coast. Camels first appear in the Negev during the Iron II, and there is a gradual increase in their exploitation.

The article didn't really stress (not that I read it carefully) the apparently careful study of earlier archaeological investigations.

They also explain why the Aravah Valey copper smelting sites are important.

Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The dataindicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE andmost probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region—attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I—raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade.

Basically they are saying that no camel remains have been found before Iron II, and that they have a shitload of them from Iron II on.

The paper looks convincing, as I said, not a big fundy destroyer because of the complexity of the subject. It will convince anybody who already knew Genesis wasn't written in the Bronze Age.

[Mental flatliner]

Radiocarbon dating shows (so far) that the camel was not domesticated in Palestine until centuries later than the time portrayed in Genesis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/scien ... paper&_r=0

Sorry, but the trade routes between Arabia and Mesopotamia -- via 800 miles of desert, date back to the 5th millennium BC.

Camels most certainly were known in the areas covered by Genesis (Judea, Transjordan, Edom, Arabia and the Sinai). They were the only pack animals that could make the trip.

You don't have to have a carbon dated sample of a camel in the 19th century to prove it; all you need is evidence of spices in Ur and ask "how did these get here?"