Archaeologists claim Bible wrong because of carbon dating of camel bones
Israeli archeologists have claimed that despite the mention of camels in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the animals were not domesticated in Israel until the 9th century B.C. and therefore should raise questions of the Bible’s accuracy.
According to a university statement, “In addition to challenging the Bible’s historicity, this anachronism is direct proof that the text was compiled well after the events it describes.”
The Old Testament contains references to camels as domesticated beasts, starting in Genesis’ accounts of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, which have traditionally been placed between 2000 and 1500 B.C.
Scholars who assume that Moses authored the first five books of the Bible have claimed that the book was written 1446 and 1406 B.C.
“The introduction of the camel to our region was a very important economic and social development,” said Dr. Ben-Yosef. “By analyzing 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.”
As the archeologists began excavating camel bones in what is now modern day Israel, they realized that they were “almost exclusively [finding bones] in archaeological layers dating from the last third of the 10th century BC or later,” centuries after the life of Abraham and decades after the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon.
While Ben-Yosef and Sapir-Hen located camel bones that predated the 10th century, they believe that those belonged to wild animals from the Neolithic period or earlier.(Emphasis added, BBJ The Dispatch)
The report details the arrival of camels from India during expanded trade opportunities with these exotic animals.
[…] now you may have heard about a new archaeological discovery detailing when camels came into usage in the Southern Levant. Dr. Ben-Yosef noted that the […]
[…] now you may have heard about a new archaeological discovery detailing when camels came into usage in the Southern Levant. Dr. Ben-Yosef noted that the […]
[…] recent report by a team from Tel Aviv University challenged the Biblical accuracy by stating that camels were not […]