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."

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks daniel1212, additional: Camel bones suggest error in Bible, archaeologists say.

[daniel1212]

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

Indeed. Meanwhile if this "find" placed any doubt on Global Warming then it would be castigated, variegated, obliterated, and marginalated (new word) and the research money threatened.

[daniel1212]

Thanks

[sasportas]

Thought provoking post, daniel. Your map, however, for someone who only knows English, is not very helpful. Where on your map are all these cities mentioned, Haran, Ura, Urfa, Ur Kasdim, and the names of cities “corresponding to Abraham’s relatives: Peleg, Serug, Nahor, and Terah?” All of which are supposed to be nearby to Haran.

[daniel1212]

I have not researched this much, but if this is correct, Harran was a major ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia whose site is near the modern village of Altınbaşak, Turkey, 24 miles (44 kilometers) southeast of Şanlıurfa. The location is in a district of Şanlıurfa Province that is also named "Harran". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harran#Harran_in_scriptures

[sasportas]

Thanks, Daniel, I notice a place name, “Urkish,” not far from Harran on your map. Maybe traceable back to Abraham’s Ur? If so, it doesn’t look like he made that big of a trip from Urkish to Harran.

[daniel1212]

And CT adds,

Archaeologists usually remember that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” The absence of evidence for Hittites once fueled some 19th-century debates over the Bible—until the vast Hittite empire was discovered in Anatolia. Questions about the Book of Daniel once focused on the absence of the prominently featured Belshazzar from Babylonian king lists—until it was discovered that Belshazzar was actually the son of Nabonidus, and co-regent. - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/february-web-only/latest-challenge-bible-accuracy-abraham-anachronistic-camel.html?paging=off

[SunkenCiv]

The name Hittites was in fact taken from the Bible when the so-called ‘Forgotten Empire’ was discovered. There was a 19th c school of so-called thought that went so far as to say that the existence of Abraham had been disproven for all time, which is of course a profoundly anti-scholarly view. The search for Nineveh and other Assyrian cities mentioned in the Bible led to their discovery, and also turned up a large library of cuneiform tablets, remains of the much earlier Sumerians and an avalanche of other information that isn’t in the OT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Siddim#Identifying_the_kings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription#Translation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform#Decipherment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineveh#Excavation_history

[daniel1212]

Now about those missing ballots..

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[Bob Ireland]

In you #12 you state: 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... Is your reference to the supposed worship of the Urartian god Khaldi [Chaldi]?

I see in the Jewish Encyclopedia that the city of Haran is believed by some to have been the first city built following the flood... would either of you know a source for this belief - who believes such a thing?

I am working on a page for my Bible Mysteries web site - which I have woefully neglected for some time due to health problems and other such frustrations -- a page on the mystery of Haran and why it became such a hub for the Terah/Abrahamic clan. Perhaps it is not a mystery that can be cracked in depth... but it is worth looking into.

[daniel1212]

That is not something i can answer right now.

[Bob Ireland]

***...not something i can answer...***

The Chaldia thing or the Haran thingy . . . or both?
Thanks at any rate for the response.

[daniel1212]

Both. You might try emailing http://www.tektonics.org/ or http://www.christian-thinktank.com/