Leolaia
BTW, I've eaten camel (specifically the hump), and well, it's not my favorite.
That's nothin, my grampa used to smoke um
Camels werent domesticated during Abraham's time?
by cyberjesus 32 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Deputy Dog
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troubled mind
I was reading a geology report the other day and was surprised to learn Camels existed in Colorado 13,000 yrs ago ! They have unearthed tools in Boulder ,CO. that tested positive for camel protiens of that era . Cool huh ?
Sorry that had nothing to do with your thread ,I just don't have anyone else to share that tidbit with at the moment , Carry on .....
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ninja
there are no camels in scotland
closest we came when I was on a donkey in saltcoats and my testes were swollen
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cyberjesus
Abraham's Camels, by Joseph P. Free © 1944 The University of Chicago Press.
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cyberjesus
Anachronism #1: Domesticated Camels
In our first example. note that there are two references to domesticated camels in the story of Abraham:Genesis 12:14-16
[W]hen Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.Genesis 24:10-11
And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water.As noted earlier, Abraham’s lifetime has been estimated anywhere between the 25th century BC and the 16th century BC. The above passage implies that camels were already domesticated and in use during that time.
However, based on every other available evidence we have, tame camels were simply unknown during Abraham's time. Egyptian texts of that era mentioned nothing of them. Even in Mari; the kingdom that is situated next to the Arabian deserts; which would have had the greatest use for camels; and of which archaeologists have a large collection of documents; not a single mention is made of camels in contemporaneous text.
In fact, it was only in the 11th century BC that references to camels started to appear in cuneiform texts and reliefs. After the 11th century, references to camels become more and more frequent. [4] This suggests that camels were domesticated around the 12th or 11th century BC. [b]
Thus there could have been no domesticated camel during Abraham’s lifetime. It must be, then, that the above stories are later additions to the legend of Abraham.
Back to the top
Anachronism #2: The Arabic Camel Caravan Trade
The next anachronism concerns the story of how Joseph's brothers planned to sell him off to slavery. The brothers initially threw Joseph into a pit (Genesis 37:22-23). They then left the pit for a while and this is how the next phase is narrated
Genesis 37:25-28
And they [Joseph's brothers] sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camelsbearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.Before analyzing further we need to make known some archaeological facts.
In the first place, as we have shown in anachronism #1, camels were not yet domesticated during that time. Furthermore excavations in the southern coastal plain of Israel found that camel bones increased dramatically only in the seventh century BCE. More importantly these bones were of adult camels, as one would expect of beast of burden used in traveling to different places. For if they were bred there one would expect to find a scattering of young camel bones as well. This means that camels were commonly used in the caravan trades during that time.
This is further supported by Assyrian sources that mentioned camels being used as beast of burdens in caravans during that time. The items being traded, gum, balm and resin, [written as "spicery, balm and myrrh" in the KJV above] were Arabian exports that were traded commonly only from the eight and seventh century BCE under the control of the Assyrian empire.
Now on to a bit of chronology. Even if we accept the rather unusually long ages of the patriarchs, we will see that the incident referred to must have happened only around 260 after Abraham was born (refer to the biblical chronology). Thus during the time of Joseph, camels were still not domesticated, there were still about (at the very best case) another five hundred years before Arabic (Ishmaelites was the Bible name for Arabs) camel caravan trade in gum, balm and resin, could be referred to in an "incidental manner" as above. [5]
Thus the story of Joseph's abduction, specifically the mention of the Arab camel caravan trade and the Arab traders buying Joseph, is also littered with anachronisms.
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cyberjesus
"The patriarchs first appear in our story with the journey of one of them, Abraham, who, the story tells us, led members of his tribe from the city of Ur, west towards the Mediterranean, to the "promised land" of Canaan, sometime between the 19th and 18th centuries B.C.E. Or so the story goes.
The problem is that we don't really have any good archeaological evidence to support the Abraham story, and there is much archaeological evidence to contradict it. The land where Abraham supposedly settled, the southern highlands of Palestine (from Jerusalem south the the Valley of Beersheba) is very sparse in archaeological evidence from this period. It is clear from the archaeological record that its population was extremely sparse - no more than a few hundred people in the entire region, and the sole occupants of the area during this time were nomadic pastoralists, much like the Bedouin of the region today. We know from clear archaeological evidence that the peoples known as the Phillistines never even entered the region until the 12th century B.C.E., and the "city of Gerar" in which Isaac, the son of Abraham, had his encounter with Abimelech, the "king of the Phillistines" (in Genesis 26:1) was in fact a tiny, insignificant rural village up until the 8th century B.C.E. It couldn't have been the capital of the regional king of a people who didn't yet exist!
This isn't the only problem with the account of the Age of the Patriarchs, either. There's the problem of the camels. We know from archaeological evidence that camels weren't domesticated until about the late second millenium B.C.E., and that they weren't widely used as beasts of burden until about 1000 B.C.E. - long after the Age of the Patriarchs. And then there's the problem of the cargo carried by the camels - "gum, balm and myrrh," which were products of Arabia - and trade with Arabia didn't begin until the era of Assyrian hegemony in the region, beginning in the 8th century B.C.E.
Yet another problem is Jacob's marriage with Leah and Rachel, and his relationship with his uncle, Laban, all of whom are described as being Arameans. This ethnic group does not appear in the archeological record prior to 1100 B.C.E., and not a significant group until the 9th century B.C.E." -
B-Rock
http://nabataea.net/camel.html
Jus sayin'
THE CAMEL
ANCIENT SHIP OF THE DESERT
And the NabataeansFor centuries the Nabataeans moved goods in the desert by camel caravan. The camel was the backbone of their merchant enterprise, and it is only through understanding the camel, that we can better understand the Nabataeans. While the Nabataeans are mostly remembered in the west for the ancient city of Petra, the Nabataeans themselves etched graffiti on many of the rocks and wadi walls of the Middle East. Many of these inscriptions bear reference to or pictures of camels and are the items that the common people left behind in their own memory.
As one begins to understand the camel, and how the life of desert merchants revolved around the camel, much like the life of the Bedouin of the last century revolves around the camel, then many obscure aspects of Nabataean life come to light.
Origin of the Arabian Camel
The Bedouin of Arabia have a strange legend about the origins of the camel. According to them, it was the Jews, not the Bedouins who had camels first in antiquity. The legend says that the Jews lived in the mountains of the Hijaz, while the Bedouins lived in the deserts. They Bedouins kept horses and rode them in their raids, but they avoided the mountains for fear of losing their way in the mountainous ravines. For some reason, the Bedouins once mounted a raid on the Jews in the mountains, because they had a guide who claimed to know every mountain and pass. But the Bedouin had no sooner entered the mountains that their guide lost his way and they began to wander aimlessly. After several days, they became so starved that they killed some of their horses and ate them. After some time, they came across a traveler who led them by night along winding canyons until they came to a plain where the Jews lived.
When they came to the plain, surrounded by hills, they discovered the many tents of the Jews. In front of the tents were strange animals that the Bedouin had never seen before. These were camels, known to the Bedouin as al-vil. The Bedouins hid until sunrise and then attacked the Jews in the early morning by surprise. The Jews fled by every possible means, and with them, they took their female camels, which the Bedouin call maghaatiir. The Bedouin then looted the Jew's tents, and what camels remained. They noticed that all the camels that remanded were zurq camels, those which had some black hairs mixed in with their white coats. These camels had not fled with their masters and the Bedouin were loath to keep them. Their leader ordered the camels slaughtered because they had remained behind their masters. The Bedouin then chased the group of Jews, defeated them, and took their female camels. Since that time the Jews have had no camels to raise, and instead became farmers or tenders of sheep and goats. The Bedouin however slaughtered all white camel calves with black hairs from that day forward. The Bedouin also say that the Jews used to fill containers with water, and put them outside their homes, hoping their camels would return. From this story the ancient Bedouin proverbs developed for something one does not expect to attain or achieve, rajw al-hihuud min al-bil. or "the Jews hope for the camels."
Zoologists tell us that the camel is not of Arab origin despite it's long connection with Arab life. They maintain that in earliest times, before its domestication the camel was unknown in Arabia. Its original habitat was America, where fossils of ancient camels are found, along with the camel's close brother, the Llama survived. (Hitti, Jurji, and Jabbur, History of the Arabs page 22)
The Camel's History
Camel fossils are also found in India, Kashmir, and Algeria. There is a good possibility that the camels of Arabia were originated in North Africa. (Arthur G. Leonard, The Camel, London and New York, 1894, page 2)
Scholars state the earliest known representation of the camel dates back to the Stone Age. This is found in two carvings in a place called Kilwa in Jabal Tubayq on the eastern boarder of Jordan. In one of the inscriptions the camel appears clearly in the background behind an ibex, and is of the same single humped variety known today as the Arabian camel. (Hitti, History of Syria, page 52)
It is interesting to note that the camel is hardly ever mentioned in any of the Assyrian texts, even though they contain tens of thousands of letters and economic narratives dating from between 1800 to 1200 BC. (Harold A. McClure, The Arabian Peninsula and Prehistoric Populations, Miami, 1971, page 49, and Gauthier-Pilters, Hilda and Dagg, The Camel,, pages 115-116)
It seems that the camel must have been domesticated in North Africa and then made its way into Arabia during antiquity. Some have speculated that it may have been Abraham that brought camels from Egypt to Arabia, but there is no evidence to substantiate this.There is a picture of a camel, with a rider on its back, found in the ruins of Tall Halaf in Iraq, which dates back to between 3000 and 2900 BC. (M.F. von Oppenheim, Der Tell Halaf, Leipzig, 1931, page140). In Byblos, in Lebanon, small Egyptian figurines of camels have been found that dates back to around 2500 BC.
The Old Testament tells us in Genesis 12:16 that Abram had camels in Egypt. Later in Genesis 24:10-11, 30:43; 31:3 also mention camels in relation to Abraham's family life.
In the biblical story of Joseph (Genesis 37:25) tells us of the Ishmaelites who used camels to carry tragacanth gum, spices, balsam and myrrh to Egypt. Later in Judges 7:12 we read how Gideon killed who of the leaders of the Midianites, Amalekites and the other people of the east, who had innumerable camels. Gideon took the crescent shaped ornaments that were on the necks of the camels. (8:21). It also mentions that the camels of the easterners had collars on their necks. (8:26)
The Bible also mentions camels in the account of the queen of Sheba, and in the book of Job, who had 3000 camels before his troubles and 6000 afterwards. (Job 1:3, 42:12). The Bible also mentions that the Reubenites and Gadites and the half tribe of Manassa plundered 50,000 camels from the Hagarites. (I Chronicles 5:18-21)
Later, the Assyrian king Salmanasser III left an inscription with reference to his campaign into Syria and his clash with the armies of its rulers at Qarqar, north of Hamah in 855 BC. The inscription mentions that he destroyed ten thousand camels of Gendibu (Jundub) the Arab (Hitti, History of the Arabs, page 37).
It seems that by this time the camel was already an indispensable part of Arabian life.
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BurnTheShips
Brocko, could you format this better?
However, based on every other available evidence we have, tame camels were simply unknown during Abraham's time . Egyptian texts of that era mentioned nothing of them. Even in Mari; the kingdom that is situated next to the Arabian deserts; which would have had the greatest use for camels; and of which archaeologists have a large collection of documents; not a single mention is made of camels in contemporaneous text.
In fact, it was only in the 11th century BC that references to camels started to appear in cuneiform texts and reliefs. After the 11th century, references to camels become more and more frequent. [4] This suggests that camels were domesticated around the 12th or 11th century BC. [b]
Thus there could have been no domesticated camel during Abraham’s lifetime. It must be, then, that the above stories are later additions to the legend of Abraham.
All the above is false.
Here some archeological evidence why:
In July 1998, a small party of colleagues from Andrews University, 1 undertook an expedition to Wadi Nasib (the valley of the stone altar) to visit Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions found by Dr. Georg Gerster in 1961 (Gerster 1961: 62; Albright 1966: 3). 2 .....
.....Two meters (six ft) to the right of Gerster No. 1, however, is an Egyptian rock-inscription in the form of a stele from the 20th year of Ammenemes III (Gardiner and Peat 1952; pl. XIV; no.46; 1955: 76). 3....
A third, and perhaps best, way to date a petroglyph is when it is accompanied by inscriptional evidence. In the case of the Wadi Nasib camel petroglyph, we have already noted at least two datable inscriptions that appear on the same rock face. The first is the rock stele of Ammenemes III of the 12th Dynasty. The second inscription is the Proto-Sinaitic inscription known as Gerster Inscription I. As noted, there is virtually universal agreement that these inscriptions date to the 15th century BC, about the transition from the Late Bronze Age I to Late Bronze Age IIA. The date of the inscriptional evidence at Wadi Nasib correlates precisely with the archaeological data that show that the peak of activity was during the 12th and 18th Dynasties of Egypt. There is evidence for later activity during the 19th and 20th Dynasties over at Serabit el-Khadem, although this was at a reduced scale when compared with the earlier expeditions. At Wadi Nasib proper, there is presently no evidence for activity later than ca. 1500 BC.
The camel petroglyph from the Wadi Nasib, nevertheless, adds to the growing body of evidence for the use of domesticated camels (albeit on a modest scale) in the ancient Near East prior to the 12th century BC. Borowski, Zarin, and others, thus appear to be correct in not dismissing the reference to camels in the patriarchal narratives as merely anachronistic.
BTC
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BurnTheShips
The more they dig, the more the tropes fall by the wayside....
They sat with pharaohs and kings. They defeated kings in battle.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were traders, made wealthy by the new transportation technology of the era: the camel.
The Genesis account of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob suggests all three were wealthy men. While scholars generally view references to camels in relation to these patriarchs as anachronistic, author Stephen Casear points out that is not the case. He adds that the mention of camels actually helps explain the source of the patriarchs’ wealth. — Ed.
The almost unanimous opinion of Biblical scholars is that mention of domesticated camels in the Patriarchal narratives (Gn 12:16; 24:10; 30:43) constitutes an anachronism. Camels, they say, were not domesticated until late in the second millennium BC, centuries after the Patriarchs were supposed to have lived. Even the great William F. Albright, well known for his support of the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives, concluded that references to camel domestication in the book of Genesis were incorrect (1964: 153, n. 2).
Recent discoveries, however, have shown that this dismissal is unwarranted. Excavations in eastern Arabia, an area once believed to be a cultural backwater unworthy of archaeological investigation, have turned up evidence that camels were first domesticated by Semites before the time of Abraham. Much of this evidence has been examined by M. C. A. MacDonald of the Oriental Faculty at the University of Oxford and an epigraphist specializing in ancient North Arabian and Aramaic inscriptions. He wrote:
Recent research has suggested that domestication of the camel took place in southeastern Arabia some time in the third millennium [BC]. Originally, it was probably bred for its milk, hair, leather, and meat, but it cannot have been long before its usefulness as a beast of burden became apparent (1995: 1357).
With this third millennium date for camel domestication in mind, let us look at the approximate date of the Patriarchal era. According to Exodus 12:40, the Israelites dwelt in Egypt for 430 years; according to 1 Kings 6:1, the Temple of Solomon was built 480 years after the flight from Egypt. Since most archaeologists date the construction of the Temple to the tenth century BC, simple arithmetic brings us back to the period of the 19th or 18th centuries BC, well after the first domestication of the camel. When we juxtapose the Biblical date for the Patriarchs with MacDonald’s date for the earliest camel domestication, the claim of anachronism evaporates.
There is an additional point raised by these recent findings. A map accompanying MacDonald’s article pointed out that the principle area of extensive early camel domestication was the Syro-Arabian desert, due west of Ur, Abraham’s birthplace (1995: 1356). Additionally, MacDonald noted that Semitic pre-Patriarchal domestication of camels near Ur eventually made possible direct traffic between major centers of civilization and trade across regions previously regarded as impassable. The inhabitants of the Syro-Arabian desert thus held the key to the crossing of these regions, giving them a commercial and strategic value to surrounding rulers that was out of proportion to their economic and military strength (MacDonald 1995: 1357).
According to MacDonald, the newly domesticated camel was used to traverse rough inhospitable terrain such as that between Mesopotamia, where Abraham was born, and Canaan, where he and his offspring eventually settled. This, of course, is in keeping with the frequent mention of camels in the Biblical story of three individuals who expended considerable effort traveling between Mesopotamia and the Levant (e.g., Gn 12:4–5; 24:10ff; 28:2–5).
Additionally, MacDonald noted that possession of camels by Semitic travelers endowed them with a special advantage over those who did not, particularly in economic and political terms. This conforms to the Genesis image of the Patriarchs as wealthy, respected individuals who could hold their own against monarchs and chieftains. Bible scholars have long known that the popular image of the Patriarchs as penniless, simple pilgrims is without Scriptural justification; Genesis makes it clear that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were wealthy in cash, livestock, and agriculture. Abraham was powerful enough to engage in battle against the kings of the east, using a large body of hired men as his army (Gn 14:14–16), and he had no difficulty buying a plot of land for 400 pieces of silver (23:8–6). In fact, the men from whom he purchased the land referred to him unequivocally as a mighty prince among us (23:6). Isaac was noticeably wealthy in produce, livestock and servants, much to the consternation of the locals (26:12–4). Moreover, he had little trouble standing up to the King of Gerar (26:1–11). Jacob, too, was conspicuously wealthy (30:43), and Esau considered him his equal, despite the fact that the latter was recognized as the region’s local chieftain (33:1–15). The Book of Genesis, thus, unambiguously portrays the three Patriarchs as wealthy, influential persons.
As MacDonald mentioned, Semites who traversed the harsh land between Mesopotamia and Canaan owed their extraordinary wealth and power to their use of domesticated camels. The rich, influential Patriarchs may have been this very type of Semitic merchant whose camels traveled between the Levant and the Land of the Two Rivers. Decades ago, scholars of the ancient Near East made this connection—despite the fact that they rejected the historicity of domesticated camels in the Patriarchal narratives. For example, Cyrus Gordon, former Chairman of the Department of Mediterranean Studies at Brandeis University, connected Abraham with the tamkaru (singular tamkarum), a class of merchants in Mesopotamia:
One can say with confidence that Abraham is represented as a tamkarum from Ur of the Chaldees... Like many others from Ur, he embarked on a career in Canaan. But unlike the others, he succeeded in purchasing land and laying the foundation for his descendants’ settlement there (1962: 35).
He went into detail:
Abraham is repeatedly described as wealthy in gold and silver as well as in livestock and slaves. In Genesis 23:16, his commercial interests are hinted at by the phrase “current for the merchant” describing the four hundred shekels of silver that he paid out. The commercial pursuits of the Patriarchs are explicitly mentioned in two different contexts confirming their commercial activities: once when the Shechemites invite Jacob’s family to join the Shechem community (Gn 34:10); the other when Joseph provisionally welcomes his brothers to settle in Egypt (Gn 43:34). On both occasions, trading privileges are offered. Abraham could afford to turn down a personal share in the plunder [after battling the kings of the east, Gn 14:21–24] because he had a peaceful and adequate source of income; viz., legitimate trade: an occupation that his descendants continued for at least three generations according to the text of Genesis (Gordon 1962:286–287).
Elsewhere, he noted that (Gordon 1966:27):
Abraham and Sarah are plainly described as the founders of a royal line (Gn 17:6, 16), and the circle in which they move is aristocratic. Socially, they deal with Pharaoh and the Philistine King of Gerar. Moreover, in role Abraham is a king, functioning as commander in chief of a coalition against another coalition of kings (Gn 14).
Dr. Albright (1983: 15) concurred with this image of the Patriarchs. Expanding on Dr. Gordon’s last point, he observed:
...neither this chapter [Gn 14] nor Genesis 23 [in which Abraham buys land for a large sum] is intelligible unless we recognize that Abraham was a wealthy caravaneer and merchant whose relations with the native princes and communities were fixed by contracts a
He further pointed out that the words “merchant” in Genesis 23:16 and “trade” in 34:10 come from the Hebrew root word SHR, which is related to Old Assyrian terms meaning to trade, barter and goods for barter (Albright 1983: 12–13). With these facts in mind, it is not difficult to see the connection between the Patriarchs and camel ownership. As MacDonald pointed out, owners of camels were wealthy caravaneers who were able to deal on an equal basis with local rulers, precisely how the Book of Genesis portrays Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
To encapsulate, Prof. MacDonald’s findings have an enormously important bearing on the Patriarchal narratives. First the pre-Abrahamic date for domesticated camels nullifies the claim that their mention in Genesis is anachronistic. Second, ownership of camels would have greatly facilitated the Patriarchs’ frequent travels between Mesopotamia and Canaan. Third, domesticated camels in that era gave their owners an extraordinary economic advantage vis-à-vis the ruling classes of their day; this, as Drs. Gordon and Albright pointed out some time ago, is in perfect keeping with the general image of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as wealthy merchants who dealt on equal footing with the various local petty-kings they encountered. Thus, the early domestication of the camel not only eliminates a major objection to the historicity of the Patriarchal stories, but also clarifies the somewhat uncommon—but nonetheless accurate—picture of the Patriarchs as wealthy, influential caravaneers who were truly “mighty prince[s] among us.”
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Mad Sweeney
Dear cyberjesus, your 1944 book reference is old light.
