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So camels didn't reach The Levant until several centuries after the bible mentions people riding camels.
Could this mean the bible is a work of complete fantasy? I think we should be told.
[url= http://www.****/sciencetech/article-2551511/Do-camels-prove-Bible-INACCURATE-Archaeologists-reveal-mammals-domesticated-900BC-centuries-Biblical-characters-rode-them.html ]Camel story[/url]
It's not a bad read to be honest, quite a likeable main character, carpenter turned magician, lots of good tricks. Bit of a slow start though, he doesn't even appear until half way through. SPOILER ALERT and he dies at the end (although there is a bit of a twist)
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More donkeys than camels though. I like donkeys.
Blasphemy!!
I saw a grainy video of the inside of a whale from back in the day, so it must be true
For your convenience, the body of the article reads as follows.
Camels are mentioned in Biblical stories involving Abraham, Joseph and Jacob as well as other famous characters.But archaeologists have found that the mammals were not domesticated in Israel until centuries after famous figures were said to have ridden them.
They claim this shows that text in the Bible was compiled long after the events described in it and challenges the holy book as a historical document.
Camels were not domesticated in Israel until centuries after the Age of the Patriarchs – when Abraham, Jacob and Issac are said to have lived - between 2,000 and 1,500 BC.
Dr Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the moment when domesticated camels arrived in the southern Levant.
They found camels came in the 9th century BC, not the 12th as previously thought.
The findings, described in the journal Tel Aviv, draw more attention to the disagreements between Biblical texts and verifiable history.
‘The introduction of the camel to our region was a very important economic and social development,’ Dr Ben-Yosef said.
‘By analysing archaeological evidence from the copper production sites of the Aravah Valley, we were able to estimate the date of this event in terms of decades rather than centuries,’ he said.
It is believed that camels were originally domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula for use as pack animals sometime towards the end of the second millennium BC.
The oldest known domesticated camel bones were discovered in the Aravah Valley, in the southern Levant, which runs along the Israeli-Jordanian border from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea and come from a time when the valley was an ancient centre for copper production.
Dr Ben-Yosef dated an Aravah Valley copper smelting camp where the domesticated camel bones were found in 2009 and discovered they dated to between the 11th and 9th century BC.
He led another dig in the area in 2013 to determine exactly when domesticated camels appeared in the southern Levant.
Together with Dr Sapir-Hen, he used radiocarbon dating and other techniques to analyse the findings of these digs as well as several others done in the valley.
In all the digs, they found that camel bones were unearthed almost exclusively in archaeological layers dating from the last third of the 10th century BC or later – centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the Kingdom of David, according to the Bible.
The few camel bones found in earlier archaeological layers probably belonged to wild camels, which archaeologists think were in the southern Levant from the Neolithic period or even earlier.
Dr Ben-Yosef and Dr Sapir-Hen think the Aravah Valley and would have been a logical entry point for domesticated camels into the southern Levant as it bordered the Arabian Peninsula.
They believe the first domesticated camels ever to leave the area may be buried in the Aravah Valley.
The arrival of domesticated camels promoted trade between Israel and exotic locations that were previously unreachable.
Camels can travel over much longer distances than the donkeys and mules that preceded them.
By the seventh century BC, trade routes like the Incense Road stretched all the way from Africa through Israel to India.
Camels opened Israel up to the world beyond the vast deserts to profoundly alter its economic and social history, the researchers said.
So, if there were no camels on "Noah's Ark", then, erm....
are we relying on camels to prove that the book is a work of fiction?
What about wombats and anteaters?
Must have been on the Ark, Noah managed to save kangaroos, polar bears and buffalo even though they were all thousands of miles away. It wasn't only domesticated animals he saved, it was the wild ones too so no conflict there, the story in the OP only relates to [I]domesticating[/I] camels, Noah would have had two wild ones.
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Wouldn't having just two of each animal cause some in-breeding issues post flood?
Like anyone listens to archaeologists anyway 😉
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Who's that ginger haired white bloke? No wonder he stood out in Israel.
What! No way. You'll be telling us there is no Santa Claus next.
Just god testing our faith again.
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Naughty naughty. You'll go to hell.
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^ haha. It's true I tell you!
Doesn't actually prove much though.
Read the Illiad, and you will see it is full of historical inconsistencies even though the central story is probable.
When you are dealing with oral tradition, which covers much of the bibles background, it is easy for it to get corrupted, for details to reflect the era of the writer, not the era of the story.
Not for a moment saying bible is completely true, just that some details don't matter
Meanwhile, in other news, [url= http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/05/mormon-church-uk_n_4729050.html?utm_hp_ref=uk ]a religious leader is summoned to court to prove that his book is not a fraud.[/url]
Will he have to swear on a bible before giving evidence and will the court first have to prove that the bible is not a fraud ?
Doesn't actually prove much though.Read the Illiad, and you will see it is full of historical inconsistencies even though the central story is probable.
When you are dealing with oral tradition, which covers much of the bibles background, it is easy for it to get corrupted, for details to reflect the era of the writer, not the era of the story.
Not for a moment saying bible is completely true, just that some details don't matter
Like the resurrection, virgin birth, turning water into wine, feeding of the 5000, the bit about homosexuality, or just Jesus in general?
Even if the bible is 100% true it is a hateful book and should be avoided.
Like the resurrection, virgin birth, turning water into wine, feeding of the 5000, the bit about homosexuality, or just Jesus in general?
depends on which bits of the bible you think matter. I read it as cultural and historical text. Jesus probably existed, did he feed the 5000, maybe it was 50 and he had some decent caterers in.... Water into wine, easy to mistake two jugs when your pissed....
Even if the bible is 100% true it is a hateful book and should be avoided.
you may not believe it but it makes sense to know what drives the nutters.
[url= http://www.creationtoday.org/carbon-dating/ ]Creationists [/url]already have some crackpot arguments about carbon dating, some nonsense about the decay of the magnetic field.
does that mean that the catholic church will let police arrest the paedos they are protecting?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26044852
Like anyone listens to archaeologists anyway
Anything involving dinosaurs = palaeontologists, comrade... not the esteemed profession of Indy Jones. Who I resemble in every way, of course. 8)
I [i]love[/i] Creationists. Idiots as they are, I love how they place themselves at the centre of the universe.
From the article
"They claim this shows that text in the Bible was compiled long after the events described in it..."
You mean that Adam and Eve stuff isn't a contemporary account? I'm shocked. I felt sure they kept diaries.
I felt sure they kept diaries.
"Dear Diary, ate apple."
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Laugh. Out. Loud.
Quality. 😆
It's only the bible, it's not gospel.
Wouldn't say the bible is a complete fiction, we'll you can't particularly call it a book anyway, it's about 70 odd books. But while the stories in them have been nicked and changed a thousand times, I'd reckon alot of the stories would have some form of historical basis. Well, perhaps historical basis is a bit of a stretch, historical imspiration is probably more accurate..
Some of the programmes you get on the tele now and again that look at the bible from a scientific perspective can be quite interesting.
perhaps historical basis is a bit of a stretch, historical inspiration is probably more accurate.
Or, hugely modified to fit a political end? Like, the Romans were struggling to maintain/defend their empire so they got that Saul of Tarsus to modify and promote a cult that had sprung up among the Jews recently?
Definitely, but alot of the stories are alot older than the romans, and would have been modified numerous times before they came on the scene and made it to the bible..Or, hugely modified to fit a political end? Like, the Romans were struggling to maintain/defend their empire so they got that Saul of Tarsus to modify and promote a cult that had sprung up among the Jews recently?
Yeah, most of the Old Testament stories from Genesis have equivalents in other cultures and religions.
It's the Gospels and Epistles that are most likely to have been invented/written for political ends. It's interesting to look at the OT and see what sort of Messiah the Jews were expecting, and then compare those expectations with what the New Testament describes.
You can tell how liberal a Christian is likely to be by looking at the emphasis they give to the Gospels, rather than the OT or Paul's letters.
What about the miricals, I liked some of those.
I hope they are still real 🙂
thats ace trimix
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are we relying on [s]camels[/s] the Daily Mail to prove that the book is a work of fiction?
are we relying on camels the Daily Mail to prove that the book is a work of fiction?
A Google news search for "camel bible" brings lots of not-Mail results.
I still love reading the story of Noah.
Aparently they took seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of non clean animals (not sure what the difference is)
The best bit is at the end when he came out of the Ark and built an alter so he could make burnt offerings of the clean animals to god.
So basically they had a BBQ 🙂
"....and God said to Moses: Come Forth!
But Moses came fifth and won a plastic teapot."
Seriously though, we worry about militant Islam and the like but I think fundamentalist Christianity is far more worrying; it has successfully infiltrated most of the Americas and large parts of Europe and has spawned some unpleasantly extreme cults. For centuries it has run countries by proxy and even now it runs places like Spain and Italy. I was employed by the Opus Dei when I taught English near Seville but they were OK with me and my Opus boss, Don Juan Grande did sort out my residence permit problem with the local Police - this was in the days before the Common Market. A few of my African customers are involved with the Opus though, which concerns me as they are so completely trusting.
Trimix - Member
I still love reading the story of Noah.Aparently they took seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of non clean animals (not sure what the difference is)
Hippo's?
globalti - Member
I was employed by the Opus Dei when I taught English near Seville but they were OK with me and my Opus boss, Don Juan Grande did sort out my residence permit problem with the local Police - this was in the days before the Common Market. A few of my African customers are involved with the Opus though, which concerns me as they are so completely trusting.
You might worry about militant Islam but that sounds suspiciously like you were already recruited into something, even if you think you didn't know it. 😀
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