The Latest Challenge to the Bible's Accuracy: Abraham's Anachronistic Camels?

christianitytoday.com ^ | February 14, 2014 | Gordon Govier

[daniel1212]

Two researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) studied the bones of camels found in an area of ancient copper mines in the Aravah Valley, south of the Dead Sea. Using radiocarbon dating and other techniques, they determined that camels were first used in the mining operations near the end of the 10th century BC.

They state that this is the first evidence of domesticated camels in ancient Israel.

This would be almost 1,000 years later than the time of the patriarchs, when camels first appear in the Bible.

Their study was quickly used to claim that the Bible was written or edited long after the events it describes.

But evangelical scholars say the claims are overblown...

He also believes the TAU researchers not only ignored evidence from outside Israel, they also assumed too much about their own research. "All they really tell us is that at that particular place where they were working they found some camel bones that they interpreted as in a domesticated context between the ninth and 11th centuries BC," Kennedy said. "It doesn't tell us that camels couldn't have been used in other nearby areas earlier than that."

[daniel1212]

A poster named Paul Holmes writes,

For the late second millennium we have the following: From Egypt, south of Memphis, the figure of a kneeling camel loaded with two jars (hence, domesticated) from a tomb of the later thirteenth century; from northwest Arabia, on painted pottery from Qurraya (so-called Midianite ware), the broken figure of a camel, of thirteenth/early twelfth century; and a camel on an early thirteenth century sherd from Pi-Ramesse.

There are other traces of camels much earlier, e.g., in Egypt and Arabia in the third millennium, and also in our overall period. But the examples just given should suffice to indicate the true situation: the camel was for long a marginal beast in most of the historic ancient Near East (including Egypt), but it was not wholly unknown or anachronistic before or during 2000-1100. And there the matter should, on the tangible evidence, rest.

From Wikipedia: 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]

[Viennacon]

Of course, these camels have engraved onto their bones “First ever domesticated camels”.

Is this Pilate and the Hittites all over again? You’d have thought these idiots had learned their lesson.

[oldbrowser]

It is sad what passes for science in today's world.

[onedoug]

Back to school, boys.

[Hostage]

Yeah but those TAU dudes are so cool, they use BCE and CE and all that of kind cool new modern progressive stuff.

/stupidity

[wideawake]

Domesticated camels are attested in Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age.

Where does the Bible say Abraham came from? When does the Bible imply he came from there?

[RightOnTheBorder]

It is sad what passes for science in today's world.

These are the oldest camel bones our science team, with our limited resources and scope, have found. They must therefore be the first camels in Israel.

How does this theory not get them laughed out of the room.

[Bogey78O]

In the 30th century, archeologists will uncover a copy of Superman #1 dated 1000 years old and thus debunk claims of the existence of a man called Guttenberg.

[SgtHooper]

The internet. Pre-internet, they actually had to work their way up through a vetting/review process before any notoriety could be given. Now, just post it on the web.

[dasboot]

Them who are under conviction take much comfort in the notion that they may safely disregard THE WORD, for reasons most spurious. Successful liars assuage desperate believers. Human nature....same as it ever was.

[chajin]

Is this Pilate and the Hittites all over again?

Well, they had to get a new drummer, but most of the original band will be back together for their first revival tour since they broke up, the same year they had their swing hit "Bethsaida Boogie Woogie." www.pilateandthehittites.com

[daniel1212]

Domesticated camels are attested in Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Where does the Bible say Abraham came from? When does the Bible imply he came from there?

Are you asking or arguing?

Chaldees = kaśdı̂y kaśdı̂ymâh (Occasionally shown as the second form with enclitic; meaning towards the Kasdites); patronymic from H3777 (only in the plural); a Kasdite, or descendant of Kesed; by implication a Chaldaean (as if so descended); also an astrologer (as if proverbial of that people): - into Chaldea, patronymicallyn. from H3777 (only in the plural); a Kasdite; or descendant of Kesed; by implication a Chaldan (as if so descended); also an astrologer (as if proverbial of that people):

Not only is there much debate in interpreting Ur Kaśdim as Abraham's birthplace, but also identifying this location.

n 1927 Leonard Woolley identified Ur Kaśdim with the Sumerian city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, where the Chaldeans had settled around the 9th century BCE;[1] Ur lay on the boundary of the region called Kaldu (Chaldea, corresponding to Hebrew Kaśdim) in the first millennium BCE. It was the sacred city of the moon god and the name "Camarina" is thought to be related to the Arabic word for moon qamar. The identification with Ur Kaśdim accords with the view that Abraham's ancestors may have been moon-worshippers, an idea based on the possibility that the name of Abraham's father Terah is related to the Hebrew root for moon (y-r-h). - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_of_the_Chaldees

Abraham was from the city of Ur according to Genesis 11:31. The problem is that there are several places called Ur. It is identified as "Ur of the Chaldeans." The problem with "Chaldeans" is that it is a late word used in the Neo-Babylonian times...

There is no debate over where Haran is located, 10 miles north of the Syrian border in Turkey along the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates River. Haran is an important Hurrian center, mentioned in the Nuzi tablets. The moon god, Sin was worshiped here. If Ur were located in Southern Iraq, why would Abraham travel 60 miles way out of his way to go to Haran?

There are two cities not far from Haran; Ura and Urfa. Local tradition says that Abraham was born in Urfa. Northern Ur is mentioned in tablets at Ugarit, Nuzi, and Ebla, which refers to Ur, URA, and Urau (See BAR January 2000, page 16).

The names of several of Abraham's relatives like Peleg, Serug, Nahor and Terah, appear as names of cities in the region of Haran (Harper's Bible Dictionary, page 373). Abraham sent his servant back to the region of Haran to find a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24:10).

After working for Laban, Jacob fled across the Euphrates River back to Canaan (Genesis 31:21). If Ur were in Southern Mesopotamia, then Jacob would not need to cross the Euphrates. Laban is said to live in Paddan-Aram, which is in the region of Haran (Genesis 28:5-7), which seems to be the same area as Aram-Naharaim, Abraham's homeland (Genesis 24:10).

All this evidence taken together seems to indicate that the Ur of Abraham was in the same region as Haran in Northern Mesopotamia, and not the famous Ur in Southern Mesopotamia. - https://www.bibleandscience.com/bible/books/genesis/ur.htm

Josephus and Rabbi Maimonides believed that Ur Kasdim was in Northern Mesopotamia, in what is today Syria or Turkey.

There is no debate over where Haran is located, 10 miles north of the Syrian border in Turkey along the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates River. Haran is an important Hurrian center, mentioned in the Nuzi tablets. The moon god, Sin was worshiped here.

There are two cities not far from Haran; Ura and Urfa. Local tradition says that Abraham was born in Urfa. Northern Ur is mentioned in tablets at Ugarit, Nuzi, and Ebla, which refers to Ur, URA, and Urau (See BAR January 2000, page 16).

The names of several of Abraham's relatives like Peleg, Serug, Nahor and Terah, appear as names of cities in the region of Haran (Harper's Bible Dictionary, page 373). Abraham sent his servant back to the region of Haran to find a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24:10).

Gen 24:4 You must go back to the country where I was born (nativity) and get a wife for my son Isaac from among my relatives."

Gen 24:10 The servant, who was in charge of Abraham's property, took ten of his master's camels and went to the city where Nahor had lived in northern Mesopotamia (Aram Naharaim) . (GNB)

More: http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/ur.html

Unlike the Akkadian speaking Assyrians and Babylonians, the Chaldeans were certainly not a native Mesopotamian people, but were migrants to the region. They seem to have appeared there c. 1000 BC, not long after other new Semitic peoples, the Arameans and the Sutu appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of foreign peoples invading and settling in the land.^[4]

Though belonging to the same West Semitic ethnic group, they are to be differentiated from the Arameans; and the Assyrian king Sennacherib, for example, is careful in his inscriptions to distinguish them.

When they came to possess the whole of southern Mesopotamia, the name "Chaldean" became synonymous with "Babylonian" for a short time, particularly to the Greeks and Jews, despite the Chaldeans not being Babylonians.

the traditional identification with a site in Assyria [Centered on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia(Iraq)], would then imply the later sense of "Babylonia", and a few interpreters have additionally tried to identify Abraham's birthplace with Chaldia [[ northeast Anatolia (modern Turkey)], a distinct region in Asia Minor on the Black Sea. According to the Book of Jubilees, Ur Kaśdim (and Chaldea) took their name from Ura and Kesed, descendants of Arpachshad. Though conquerors, the Chaldeans were rapidly and completely assimilated into the dominant Semitic Akkadian Babylonian culture, as the Amorites, Kassites and Arameans before them had been, and after the fall of Babylon in 539 BC the term "Chaldean" was no longer used to describe a specific ethnicity, but rather a socio-economic class. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldea

[daniel1212]

Is this Pilate and the Hittites all over again?

Or Bethlehem.

[wideawake]

I’m pointing out the foolishness of the revisionists.

[Tucker39]

Naw! Every generation you get a brand new crop of idiots!

[Tucker39]

Because the rest of the idiots in the room also hate God and the Scriptures.

[mel]

I wish we had like buttons u would get one from me

[kaehurowing]

The Bible also says he went to Egypt, so it seems logical he could also have brought camels back from there.

[Lee N. Field]

Unlike the Akkadian speaking Assyrians and Babylonians, the Chaldeans were certainly not a native Mesopotamian people, but were migrants to the region. They seem to have appeared there c. 1000 BC, not long after other new Semitic peoples, the Arameans and the Sutu appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of foreign peoples invading and settling in the land.[4]

Sunday school this morning read through Genesis 20, the "table of nations" descended from the sons of Noah. I noticed something that I'd never noticed before. The cities that would later be prominent as Assyria and Babylon, are Hamitic, not Semitic. Aram, on the other hand, is Semitic, and northward of Caanan.

[kaehurowing]

Now checking Genesis, it specifically says Pharaoh gave Abraham camels. (Gen. 12:16)