Archaeologists Carbon-Date Camel Bones, Discover Major Discrepancy In Bible Story

[Brainstormy]

Personally, I'm shocked.


Researchers Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef from Tel Aviv University have discovered what may be a discrepancy in the history laid out in the Bible.

Using carbon-dating to determine the age of the oldest-known camel bones, the researchers determined that camels were first introduced to Israel around the 9th century BCE.

The Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament refers to camels as pack animals as early as the story of Abraham. Though there is no archaeological evidence of Abraham's life, many in the religious and scientific communities, including Chabad and the Associates For Biblical Research, cite the 20th century BCE as his time of birth. If the new evidence is correct, however, this suggests discrepancies between the Bible and human history as explained by science.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/carbon-dated-camel-bones-bible_n_4737437.html

[LostOne4Ever]

1. Between this

the lack of an ark on any mountains, and the fact that there is no dead Egyptian army under the Red sea (or any evidence that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt at all) one might come to the conclusion that its all one big myth!!!

Can't have that now can we?

[onager]

2. Interesting, thanks. They came later to Egypt...

When I lived in Egypt and toured all the tombs etc., I had the same question as many tourists while viewing the carvings/paintings in the tombs - where are the damn camels?

The tombs showed every other animal in ancient Egypt, especially the humble, hard-working donkey. Along with crocodiles, hippos, bulls (a sacred animal), ibis, etc. etc. But no camels.

The answer was obvious - when those tombs were built, the camels weren't there yet. The experts think they came in around the 7th/6th century BCE, probably with Persian invasions.

Other than the prop camels used for photographing tourists at the Pyramids, I never saw many camels in Egypt. The only exception - around the time of the two big Islamic feasts, when young camels were killed and eaten. Then I would see a couple of them tied up at butcher shops.

End camel trivia...begin dead-Egyptian-army-in-the-Red-Sea trivia...

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo contains the ONE mention of Israel in its 5000 years of recorded history, on the Merneptah Stele.

Pharaoh Merneptah's Stele says he first marched west into Libya, to put down an insurrection. During this campaign, the Israelites did something to annoy him. So he turned his army east, marched into Palestine and gave them a thumping. IOW, the Israelites didn't have to go to Egypt. Egypt went to them. No plagues, armies drowning in the Red Sea, etc. etc.

And no slaves. What the Egyptians DO have in all that history is letters from Pharaohs to their construction bosses, griping about labor costs on the Pyramids. The workers weren't paid a salary as we know it, but they and their families were given food and housing. (Some of the worker housing is still there today.) There are also letters from prominent Egyptian families, offering their sons as laborers. The Pyramids were seen as a national treasure, and it was an honor to work on them. Or so I was told by Actual Egyptians, many of them men and women with college degrees who had to moonlight as tour guides to feed their own families.

[JNelson6563]

3. Very interesting!

I always enjoy when you share what you've learned in your travels.

Julie

[whatthehey]

4. Bit of an issue here

Abraham is reported as having come from Ur of the Chaldees. Location is debated but closest to a consensus indicates SE Turkey. Now I don't remember the story exactly but I know he went to Canaan somewhere in the modern West Bank and Egypt on his travels too. Where is it he is said to have picked up the camels, or reported as using them? If they were nonexistent in all those places the point is good, but if they were in one of those places it's the same as saying an American cannot possibly have a right hand drive car even if he shipped one from a former home in Japan.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. First mention in the Bible - Genesis 12, when a Pharaoh gives him some

and got infected, for his trouble:

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

Personally, I think the story about Abraham's nephew escaping Sodom and Gomorrah being smitten by divine wrath, and his wife being turned into a pillar of salt just for looking, was a bit of a bigger clue that the stories about Abraham weren't strictly accurate.

[whatthehey]

6. Well yes there is that.

But on this topic we need to know when camels first appeared in Egypt, or realms with which they traded really.

There are certainly previous absurdities, but they can be claimed as miracles. A random non-believer casually giving Abraham animals that were not yet domesticated or maybe even available to him is a bit tougher to explain, if the 9th BCE holds for Egypt too.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Carbon dating?

Who believes in that! Isn't that some kind of science-y kinda thing. No one can prove that carbon dating is accurate. If science were as good as it thinks it is, those scientists would find a way to prove the Bible stories instead of working so hard to disprove them. Heathens.





Just in case

[Gore1FL]

13. I dated carbon a few dimes

It just never worked out between us.

[Trajan]

8. Israel Finklestein and Ze'ev Herzog

have authored similar literature that exposes other inconsistencies and incongruities in the biblical narrative.

Jericho was destroyed by an Israelite army?

Archeological evidence reveals that Jericho was actually befallen by numerous earthquakes over the centuries, with many layers heaped upon layers as the village was rebuilt over successive ruins ...

40 years wandering the desert during the Exodus?

No evidence has ever been found in the Sinai or elsewhere that shows a large population of people residing in that desert. No artifacts or residues from 40 years of food preparation for thousands upon thousands of Israelites, who presumably ate food whilst hanging out outside the gates of the cities of Canaan for decades ... nothing of the sort has ever been found ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed

[uriel1972]

9. Still got that book...

Sod the 'Bible is History' crowd.

[onager]

10. The Sinai thing never made sense to me either.

Wandering in that desert for 40 YEARS? The whole Sinai peninsula only measures about 20,000 square miles. Again, reading about ancient military campaigns shows that even back then, a large land army could get across the Sinai pretty quickly.

As in the Merneptah Stele I mentioned earlier. And in the 4th century Alexander The Great did a Bronze Age Blitzkrieg on that whole area, marching his army from Syria to western Egypt. (Bringing camels with him, BTW).

So HTF did Moses and his crew get lost and wander around in there for 40 years? Wander north and they would have walked into the Mediterranean Sea in a few days. West, they're back in Egypt. South, they would have ended up at the Red Sea, with which they allegedly already had some experience.

But eventually, after 40 leisurely years, God's GPS finally started working and they wandered into the Promised Land. Only to find it already occupied by people who worshipped the wrong God(s), and had to be dealt with the good old fashioned way - massacre and occupation.

Good thing we live in a modern enlightened age. Or maybe not. I recently saw a TV show about the 1967 Six Day War. The commander of the first Israeli unit to take Jerusalem said he got a visit from the Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Army...who told him he should destroy the mosques in Jerusalem immediately, including the Dome of the Rock. The commander was outraged at that idea, responding that his orders didn't include the destruction of mosques. The show commented that before the Six Day War, Israel was known as a secular state. But after the 1967 "miracle" of re-taking Jerusalem, it got a lot more religious.

[dorkulon]

11. Is it really necessary to find MORE discrepancies in the Bible?

I would figure we'd found enough already. I doubt this one will be the straw that broke the camel's back (har har).

[Iggo]

12. Wait.

You mean to tell me that book might be bullshit?