Posted on 02/05/2014 5:24:50 PM PST by workerbee
Archaeologists from Israels 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 Bibles 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 werent domesticated in Israel until centuries later, more like 900 BC.
In addition to challenging the Bible's historicity, this anachronism is direct proof that the text was compiled well after the events it describes, reads a press release announcing the research.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
This article has a bizarre conclusion. Camels in Somalia, in Saudi, and in Mesopotamia in early to middle Bronze Age (3000-2000BCish), but somehow they're not permitted to be in an area that's at the juncture of all those areas.
Something or someone's logic smells shallow to me.
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]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel#Domestication
Unfortunately, Helen Thomas died last year.
Concur.
I would add that when dating things such as the domestication of animals, evidence indicates an "on or before date". The lack of previous evidence does not prove anything, although certain presumptions might be made if a substantial amount of nonsupporting evidence exists. The problem in archeology is that alternative explanations almost always exist, and there is strong temptation for archeologists to agree, so that they can move on to assembling the rest of the puzzle.
For example, if a civilization without a written language worshipped Jaguars, but also forbade the depiction of their God (the Jaguar), archeologist might come to some spurious conclusions.
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