Camel bones suggest error in Bible, archaeologists say

I'm not religious and I'm definitely not supporting the bible here because IMHO it's hogwash, but the logical side of me is perturbed.

Logically to me, just because you found camel bones that does not date back to the records of the bible doesn't discount what the bible says. Maybe, and this is crazy talk, MAYBE you just have not found older bones yet. *GASP* who would have thought about that? I mean come on now, it's ridiculous IMO to jump to that already. Just look at our current history books on the human species, non of it it relevant anymore because be keep finding older and older hominids every other day that does not fit into mainstream scientific theory's anymore. I also just seen in another thread where we discovered new hominiods that are not even human or fit anywhere in the "evolutionary" tree.

People just need to simmer down a bit.

reply to post by nixie_nox


That COULD be the case after all 900/12 = 75 which is generally considered the common length of a person's life. But other math doesn't work out as nicely. What about the women having children in their nineties? 90/12 = 7.5. Are we to believe that women in that age were having children before they had hit puberty?

Maybe they never had a bunch of domesticated camels because they didn't have their own population of domestic camels. But since the Middle East is a trade crossroads and always has been, logic says any peoples living there would have interacted with a wide variety of other peoples, including peoples who did have domestic camels at that time.

Is it illogical to think that some people bought camels as from those who did have them but they never become widespread or popular in the Middle East until much later on.

Sorry If I am wrong but Wiki Camel and it says......

Wiki 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]

By at least 1200 BC, the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick

So if Wiki is somewhat correct then the claim cannot be justified.

If Horses are known to have been domesticated as early as 30,000BC .... Wiki Horse

And Camels are damn sight more stubborn to be domesticated.... I still don't believe we have only been able to domesticate them in the last 3 thousand years.... Maybe not 32,000 years but surely somewhere in the middle don't ya think?

reply to post by SgtHamsandwich


They did not find 2 camels and dated them, they did research on whole Arabian peninsula. This turns to be oldest evidence of domesticated camels. And again, true, if there is new evidence found, this might be altered, but at this point, apart from bible, which seriously can't be taken as historical book, unless you believe Earth is only 6008 years old, there is no evidence of use of domesticated camels.

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

Thank you! Well done research. Another example where there is no evidence for such a high figure in all Abrahamic religions.


reply to post by Maltese5Rhino

Based on new research, wiki should be updated. Good point!

ketsuko
Maybe they never had a bunch of domesticated camels because they didn't have their own population of domestic camels. But since the Middle East is a trade crossroads and always has been, logic says any peoples living there would have interacted with a wide variety of other peoples, including peoples who did have domestic camels at that time.

Is it illogical to think that some people bought camels as from those who did have them but they never become widespread or popular in the Middle East until much later on.

This is as bad as Kan Ham's note that if there is no single remains of Kangaroo going from Noah's ark in middle east to Australia, that still does not mean it did not happen. If there was trade and camels were around, I am sure that we will find remains. There are 'actually' people looking for those finds, and they just released paper based on their findings. What a coincidence...

Krazysh0t
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

That COULD be the case after all 900/12 = 75 which is generally considered the common length of a person's life. But other math doesn't work out as nicely. What about the women having children in their nineties? 90/12 = 7.5. Are we to believe that women in that age were having children before they had hit puberty?

I wish I could remember the specifics, but I read this like 25 years ago and have no idea how to find it. But in a nutshell, they may have counted years differently.

Camels were used in north east Africa and most of Arabia for almost 2100 years. I am sure some were traded or slipped into the Israeli area.
But from my understanding is that they were not fully domesticated in that area for sometime.

My question is how this historian who says that camels were not domesticated till 900 BC knows that for sure. Camels were domesticated by some people long before they were by others. Same with dogs. If he is trying to use evidence that has restrictions and saying that this evidence applies to everything, he is misusing science. I would bet that some people were utilizing camels for transportation many thousands of years before any writing we have. I am sure some lived with people there symbiotically like I do with the deer in my yard. The deer could be tamed to be super friendly and carry a kid around but I won't because we have deer hunters around that would take advantage of their extreme friendliness to gain a meal.

So I do not accept this new theory, I am sure it partially applies but can't say it has any credibility. I will take the bible as evidence that people domesticated Camels earlier, and even then I feel that some people used them long before. When was the first horse ridden, when the first written evidence of it appeared? I bet they have been ridden for hundreds of thousands of years, long before any evidence shows...by some people ...I include neanderthals and Cromagnum in my definition of people.

reply to post by rickymouse


It's not about the first domesticated camel, ever, or domesticated horse ever. It's about the introduction of domesticated animals into the regular and everyday life of populations of certain areas.

By identifying the introduction of the domestication of certain animal to certain areas, historians, anthropologists and archaeologists can observe human migration routes and interaction with various cultures.

I believe there are a number of very valid and important 'misses' for details within Egyptology fitting with timelines and records fitting to what we think we understand of who and what was in a given place for a given time. Not SO much as to really say deep history is worthless. It's certainly not....but damn sure enough to say I'll need a wee more than camel bones and questionable 3rd-4th person stories related to paper and recorded in the Bible. It serves as something of a historical record ...but not really. It wasn't intended to be that, even if it happened to function that way in many aspects, IMHO.

Heck, the books of Jesus weren't even recorded for meaning until a century or so after his death. Now how nit picky can we really be, given the known and documented human factor for it's failings here?

TextMore 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 Krazysh0t


You are a little harsh in accusing all of the many authors and vast literature as being a lie. You seem to not understand that we are in the realm of theology when we discuss biblical literature. There could be many explanations of a literature being not understood by modern people. Here is one that may connect your thinking into a different avenue. Who knows?

In a study of “Dating The Book Of Job by G.L. Bartholomew” has offered some very interesting things to consider.

Noticing the longevity of the biblical characters has led me to believe that the calendar of the ancients was a calendar of our six months and not the calendar of our twelve months. Has anyone noticed the length of lifespan that the ancients attained before they had children?

Let me quote Stephen E. Franklin in his work of “Alignment of Hebrew, Egyptian, and Assyrian Chronologies”. Quote - “The Hebrew calendar of ancient times had two new years (in the Fall and in the Spring-each corresponding with the first new moon after the autumnal and vernal equinoxes respectively) and if the ancient Hebrews were using both of these new-years in the calculations of their spans of time, several things start to make a lot more sense; both internally with respect to the bible and externally in aligning the dates of significant events as recorded in the bible with some of the more ancient records from nearby civilizations. Un Quote ----

Now this is a deep study so I won’t go any further with this than to say (in Lay person terms) that (in my opinion) the dates that we use today might just not be right. In other words this Abraham might not have lived 120 of our years at all. He could have lived 60 years of our reckoning if the year was indeed a six month year. The bible tells us that Shem lived 100 years and begot Arphaxad. Could it be more reasonable that Shem lived fifty years and begot Arphaxad? The bible tells us that Abrams father (Terah) lived 70 years and begot Abram. Could that have been more reasonable to assume that Terah was 35 years old and begat Abram?

So as you can see KrazyshOt, this misunderstanding in our perspective may not be a lie but simply that we are not as smart as we need to be in understanding our discoveries. If the ancients knew how to stack big stones and we cannot do the same today then does that mean that the great pyramids are a lie? No, it simply means that we are not as smart as we think we are.

Now let us consider Noah in this same venue. Could it have been that Noah was 150 years old when he went into his ark and not 300 years old? I realize that is quite old but it would be more believable than 300 years old. Could it be that the flood was but 6 months of our understanding instead of 12 months? Could it have been that all of the animals were babies in the ark and could it have been that milk and fish were fed to those babies? Plenty of fish wasn't there? If there is a God then would it be so hard for Him to provide for His creatures?

Any way this is just food for thought and not shoving an argument.

reply to post by SuperFrog


The only plant I can find in my appartment is a plastic Christmas tree I bought last year which I intend to keep standing until next Christmas. Using the logic of these researchers or (more likely) the newspaper interpreting their result-- Christmas trees were not introduced in Scandinavia until 2013, and only plastic replicas, probably indicating that the Harmagheddon had happened at that point since no biological trees were found. Besides, Abraham came from Ur and had contacts in Egypt, so this study proves nothing relating to Biblical records of camels. Then again getting that message through could possibly be likened with stuffing camels through the needle of the eye, so swallowing a camel is probably a simpler solution all together.

Here's some evidence to the contrary
Contrary

reply to post by Seede


That reads as just trying to make the illogicalness of the bible make sense. There are people in the bible that are cited as having lived 900 years. Even with your correction, that would still be 450 years. I'd be more willing to believe nixie's idea that a year was a month to them and that 900 years to them was 75 to us, though I also pointed out the inconsistency of this idea as well.

Also, it's not just the dating that I have issue with (that can be chalked up to oral reciters not remembering the numbers correctly), it's the fantastical stories that archeology is more and more showing not only aren't as fantastical as written, but also never even happened to begin with. Noah's Ark (impossible, explain to me how Noah housed termites on his ark or fed the carnivores or what happened when an animal got sick and died), Exodus of Moses (no records of a mass exodus of slaves from Egypt, no evidence in the desert of any large traveling band of people wondering for 40 years), Tower of Babel (the idea that all people on Earth shared the same language at one point is just ludicrous), Jonah and the Whale; these are all stories in the bible that belong more in a fairy tale then a book of history.

The bible and the religions it inspired need to go the way of other ancient religions like the Pantheon of the Greeks. People who try to come up with explanations for these things like in the article you linked are just trying to desperately keep the bible relevant in lieu of overwhelming evidence to its lies.

reply to post by dashen


Heres a bunch more cited examples of how this is a false theory
Hump day

reply to post by dashen


Okay it looks like a bunch of people were duped by this one. This guy tested:, bones from a couple parts of Israel and then decided that's certain bones are domesticated and the bones that proves that, domestication is older than his theory he just called wild camels.
"Science"

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
The bible sucks big time for historical accuracy.............................
If people can be convinced that "God" inspired it, it can say the moon is green cheese and SOME will believe it anyways................

reply to post by dashen


Your "apologetic" links are not credible either, in my opinion. They are using the Bible to prove to the Bible, and their evidence is sorely missing.

Using a couple strands of camel hair as an example of domestication is like saying eagle feathers indicate that Native Americans had domesticated the eagle, or that cavemen domesticated bears, because they wore bear skins!

Let me guess what all this information will boil down to.

reply to post by windword


"Apologetic" indeed. The op's named "researcher" engaged in the lamest type of crap science. He chose a crap sample study. Ignored and suppressed evidence to the contrary of his "theory"
My links provide archeological PROOF in the form of ancient tablets that record the trade of camels in ancient Canaan predating abraham
.
so your junk science vs facts.