Camel bones suggest error in Bible, archaeologists say

Archaeologists from Israel’s top university have used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the arrival of domestic camels in the Middle East -- and they say the science directly contradicts the Bible’s version of events.

Camels are mentioned as pack animals in the biblical stories of Abraham, Joseph and Jacob, Old Testament stories that historians peg to between 2000 and 1500 BC. But Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures say camels weren’t domesticated in Israel until centuries later, more like 900 BC.

*Source - www.foxnews.com...

I know this most likely will be all discarded because those scientist were not there to see it them selves and lots of people of faith don't trust radiocarbon dating technique.

For me its very interesting and just shows how bad of 'historical' book bible and its stories really is.

More lies from the bible, not surprising. It's also easy to see how this lie could be made. When the people who wrote the OT wrote the OT, camels were probably already part of everyday life. They probably just assumed that was always the case and obviously didn't have the intricate historical record keeping that we have today.

reply to post by SuperFrog


The Bible's actual composition, as in when the various books were written, finalized and brought together is much later than many Christians have been led to believe. Many still actually believe the books of Moses were written by Moses. Its not surprising really that the older books of the Old Testament would contain historical errors like this, especially when the same stories have 90 year old women giving birth and men living to be several centuries old.

reply to post by SuperFrog


I haven't read the sourced paper, but earlier finds of almost everything that's been found seem to pop up eventually. I doubt there is any way to prove that camels weren't used as slave animals much earlier, evidence just hasn't surfaced (literally) as yet.

reply to post by SuperFrog


as an atheist - I read this with an irge to head butt the desk

just WTF ???

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

the dating of camel bones to 900 BCE does ONLY one thing :

demonstrate that domestic camels were at that site in 900 BCE

the bible has so many errors - its not funny - but this is not one of them

From the link

To find the first camel, Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef used radiocarbon dating to analyze the oldest known camel bones in the Arabian Peninsula, found at the remains of a copper smelting camp in the Aravah Valley, which runs along the border with Jordan from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea.

So there could be older unknown ones they haven't found yet?

(Not saying I believe the Bible camel thing but this proves nothing. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence).

reply to post by ignorant_ape


It does not really matter if you are an atheist or not, research done by scientists is either done properly or not. First, lets for a second focus on scientists themselves. Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen, is an archaeozoologist. She obtained degrees both in Archaeology and Biology. Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef studied archaeology and geology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (B.A., B.Sc., M.Sc.) and archaeology and anthropology at the University of California, San Diego (M.A., Ph.D.).

If you followed link from news, you would find this:

To find the first camel, Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef used radiocarbon dating to analyze the oldest known camel bones in the Arabian Peninsula, found at the remains of a copper smelting camp in the Aravah Valley, which runs along the border with Jordan from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea.

The bones were in archaeological layers dating from the last third of the 10th century BC or later — centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the Kingdom of David, according to the Bible, the researchers said. The few camel bones found in earlier archaeological layers probably belonged to wild camels, which archaeologists think lived there during the Neolithic period or even earlier.

Sure, there might be some older camels remains that we just did not find yet, but at this point there is no evidence of domesticated camels living there before 1K BC. There is no written records or any other finds that predates 1K BC.

We are not just talking about Israel, but whole Arabian peninsula. I am sure that both scientist would love to find older ones, but so far, this is what it is. No evidence means exactly that - no evidence, just the same as current evidence means - we have evidence.


reply to post by khimbar

Yes, there might be some older camel found there, but not domesticated. By your logic, there is no evidence that people of that time did not use cell phones to communicate, is there?

reply to post by SuperFrog


The bible does take certain liberties when it comes to facts, no doubt. The book of exodus will have you believe more than half a million slaves followed Moses out of Egypt, when the true figure is probably less than ten percent of the original claim.

But it won't stop the die hard devotees from swaying in their opinion. After all there are many good lessons that can be taken from the bible, it's only when preachers and evangelists start taking every single word literally is when you get problems. A seemingly innocuous passage suddenly becomes gospel when the likes of Kenneth Copeland or Billy Graham get their hands on it.

SuperFrog

Yes, there might be some older camel found there, but not domesticated. By your logic, there is no evidence that people of that time did not use cell phones to communicate, is there?

edit on 6-2-2014 by SuperFrog because: (no reason given)

Yes. That's quite correct. Why?

And just clarify for me, which part of the thousand year old bones is labelled 'Domesticated' or 'Wild' again?

reply to post by khimbar



Because at this point you are talking about probability of something.

There is clear chance that they might used cellphones and star trek teleportation for travel, but probability of both claims is very close to 0.

Probability that there might be domesticated camels that predates their find is greater then that, but still very low, or should I say, enough low for those two scientists to complete their paper.



reply to post by Thecakeisalie


There is no single piece of evidence of exodus, even after many biblical scholars looked almost everywhere for it. It does not mean that we might not find it, but probability of it very slim. All of those books were written much later then believed, and many stories got changed a lot due to oral tradition transformation to written story. (unless you think that God wrote all of them)

I've read things in the Bible that seem way off, but like others here have posted, I believe that they will find older evidence in line with the Biblical account.

I have found references to corn in the old testament. Of course, corn is a New World crop unknown until European's brought it to the Old World, however, the word corn here is used as a general term for grain crops. Just one example of way off Bible stuff that can cause confusion.

Over all, except for the earliest accounts, I'd say that the Bible is a pretty good historical source document.

ETA: After reading that really short article, I can see that it must be a pretty comprehensive study. Perhaps the Biblical dates are off, or this one got added in by later scribes, but if they found no camels before this earliest date, that is a pretty strong argument against the Biblical account. Hopefully no one is with holding evidence or doing bad archeology on this one.

reply to post by SuperFrog

There is no written records or any other finds that predates 1K BC.

the bible ???

no I am not joking - as hideouslly error ridden as it is

but reputable research dates parts to at least 1500 BCE

with less evivence for claims of earlier authorship

How do they know which sets of bones are domesticated or wild?

ignorant_ape
reply to post by SuperFrog

 

There is no written records or any other finds that predates 1K BC.

the bible ???

no I am not joking - as hideouslly error ridden as it is

but reputable research dates parts to at least 1500 BCE

with less evivence for claims of earlier authorship

You took my quote out of contest - I am not talking about Bible there, but about the records on domesticated camels. For example, from earlier period we have finds in Egypt of domesticated horses, chariots, stables, records...

Didn't Abraham come from Egypt? They surely had camels there.

Even finding evidence to prove some murder is very very hard work today which just recently happened.
It often comes in the end of believing something or not.

reply to post by EyesOpenMouthShut


I think they are assuming domesticated because of the site they were found in.....

Dr Ben-Yosef dated an Aravah Valley copper smelting camp where the domesticated camel bones were found in 2009 and discovered they dated to between the 11th and 9th century BC

So could mean 'domesticated' or 'living food' or even 'fuel for the smelting fires' IMO lol

Actually if the bones where burnt...... would make perfect sence to use for smelting. Horse fat can be used to get tempretures hot enough for smelting. mmmmm I wonder....

reply to post by SuperFrog


... because most of the biblical canon was stolen from other cultures, plagiarized, rebranded, and adopted as the origin story of a group of desert nomads around 500BC.

Most of the Historicity of these stories has been telephone gamed across time from a perspective and understanding in 500BC where visits to cities that existed in 500BC are detailed in times well before the cities, and even entire cultures existed.

Here we have example again. Camels were common domestic stock in 500BC, so, the story tellers assumed these animals were always domestic livestock.

Plugin
Didn't Abraham come from Egypt? They surely had camels there.

Even finding evidence to prove some murder is very very hard work today which just recently happened.
It often comes in the end of believing something or not.

That is really good question. Even better question is - did Abraham even exist?! You should be able to find topics here on ATS just on this subject. Again, no evidence for his existence really does not have to mean that such a high figure in Bible stories did not exist... or ....

Just as I sad in opening post, people will doubt first research (even done by scientist who are mastering their fields) and many will not really care about it, just because correctness is not something they are after.


reply to post by AliceBleachWhite

I completely agree.

SuperFrog
Even better question is - did Abraham even exist?!

Did Abraham Exist - ATS Thread
Yep .. here it is.

Titen-Sxull
reply to post by SuperFrog

 

The Bible's actual composition, as in when the various books were written, finalized and brought together is much later than many Christians have been led to believe. Many still actually believe the books of Moses were written by Moses. Its not surprising really that the older books of the Old Testament would contain historical errors like this, especially when the same stories have 90 year old women giving birth and men living to be several centuries old.

I believe that is because they counted years differently. It has been a long time but they may have counted the monthly moon cycle as a year, or something like that. That is why they claimed people were 900+ years old.