Camels? In Israel? Sorry, Bible.

[houghtam]

And now this: a scientific report establishing that camels, the basic mode of transportation for the biblical patriarchs, weren’t domesticated in Israel until hundreds of years after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are said to have wandered the earth.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/0...ack/?hpt=hp_t2

I had all teh lulz.

[DenverBrit]

Everyone knows they rode dinosaurs, not camels.

[DenverBrit]

This was an interesting find. Seems those pesky A-rabs wrote the ark story 4000 years ago.

That faint humming sound you’ve heard recently is the scholarly world of the Bible and archaeology abuzz over the discovery of the oldest known Mesopotamian version of the famous Flood story.

A British scholar has found that a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet from what is now Iraq contains a story similar to the biblical account of Noah’s Ark.

The newly decoded cuneiform tells of a divinely sent flood and a sole survivor on an ark, who takes all the animals on board to preserve them. It even includes the famous phrase “two by two,” describing how the animals came onto the ark.

But there is one apparently major difference: The ark in this version is round.

We have known for well over a century that there are flood stories from the ancient Near East that long predate the biblical account (even the most conservative biblical scholars wouldn’t date any earlier than the ninth century B.C).

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/0...out-noahs-ark/

[houghtam]

This was an interesting find. Seems those pesky A-rabs wrote the ark story 4000 years ago.



http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/0...out-noahs-ark/

Which of course doesn't at all invalidate the idea that there was a flood thousands of years ago...just that it happened exactly as described. Which then invalidates everything held to be word for word truth in the bible. Which then turns the bible into just another collection of stories to teach lessons...like Aesop...and as we all know, some lessons are timeless, and some are outdated. Legislating with the bible as a guide is about as dumb as it gets.

[Pony Boy]

It's an official Scientific Report .......

Two archaeologists at Tel Aviv University (Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen).

[cutthemdown]

Is carbon dating that exact on dates? I thought it was give or take 500-1000 yrs lol? Them not knowing exactly how much carbon was in the atmosphere, at the exact time those camels died, I believe also skews the test.

I'm no expert but is this study just cut and dry, beyond a reasonable doubt? I doubt it.

[houghtam]

Is carbon dating that exact on dates? I thought it was give or take 500-1000 yrs lol? Them not knowing exactly how much carbon was in the atmosphere, at the exact time those camels died, I believe also skews the test.

I'm no expert but is this study just cut and dry, beyond a reasonable doubt? I doubt it.

Here's how it works.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/env.../carbon-14.htm

You are correct that radiocarbon dating doesn't produce an exact result, but rather a range. The range of the study shows that camels arrived in that area sometime between the 12th and 9th Centuries BCE. The margin for error is already worked in. The timeline for the Patriarchal Age (in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are purported to have lived, and in which camels are mentioned) is 1950-1500 BCE.

The two aren't even close.

And here is the study published:

http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page...ticle&id=19673

With the relevant parts bolded:

Camels are mentioned as pack animals in the biblical stories of Abraham, Joseph, and Jacob. But archaeologists have shown that camels were not domesticated in the Land of Israel until centuries after the Age of the Patriarchs (2000-1500 BCE). In addition to challenging the Bible's historicity, this anachronism is direct proof that the text was compiled well after the events it describes.

Now Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures have used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the moment when domesticated camels arrived in the southern Levant, pushing the estimate from the 12th to the 9th century BCE. The findings, published recently in the journal Tel Aviv, further emphasize the disagreements between Biblical texts and verifiable history, and define a turning point in Israel's engagement with the rest of the world.

[cutthemdown]

I'm not religious, but if i was i would just argue the times and years of the bible don't match up that well with our calendar today. I mean cmon we know humans don't live 900 yrs right? IMO them saying humans lived 500 yrs is more damning then being off a 1000 yrs on when camels were used.

Also my one friend just says the Bible says all the way through God will test your faith. Dinasours, things like Camels being domesticated 1000 yrs later etc, are just to test it.

Not saying it's logical just letting you know things like this are only relevant for athiests and people who for some reason have it out for the church.

[Pony Boy]

Is carbon dating that exact on dates? I thought it was give or take 500-1000 yrs lol? Them not knowing exactly how much carbon was in the atmosphere, at the exact time those camels died, I believe also skews the test.

I'm no expert but is this study just cut and dry, beyond a reasonable doubt? I doubt it.

It's not the carbon dating that skews the report, it's the claim that he can look at camel bones from a copper smelting pit from around 2000-1500 BCE and tell if the camel carried a load or not........ nothing like pure science to prove your point.

The only time I go to Church is for marrying and burying so I don't have a dog is the race to disprove the Bible but if you are going to use science make sure it's not just some idiots from Tel Aviv University.

[BroncoBeavis]

This is funny.

Science can't tell you within many thousands of years when dogs were domesticated. But these kids suddenly want to pretend like they can draw lines in centuries as opposed to millenia.

[Arkie]

They may be off thousands of years on a timescale of millions of years, but they should be able to easily pinpoint centuries within the last four thousand years.

[Rigs11]

[Rohirrim]

Abraham was a Sumerian who worshipped the sun god, Bel Marduk.

[DenverBrit]

It's not the carbon dating that skews the report, it's the claim that he can look at camel bones from a copper smelting pit from around 2000-1500 BCE and tell if the camel carried a load or not........ nothing like pure science to prove your point.

The only time I go to Church is for marrying and burying so I don't have a dog is the race to disprove the Bible but if you are going to use science make sure it's not just some idiots from Tel Aviv University.

Now what makes those two Phd's 'idiots'??

[Fedaykin]

Is carbon dating that exact on dates? I thought it was give or take 500-1000 yrs lol? Them not knowing exactly how much carbon was in the atmosphere, at the exact time those camels died, I believe also skews the test.

I'm no expert but is this study just cut and dry, beyond a reasonable doubt? I doubt it.

Radiocarbon dating is very well calibrated against known data points (such as lake bed layers, ice layers, and more interesting things like the victims of Vesuvius in Pompeii).

Though, radiocarbon dating is only good for about ~50,000 years, after which other forms of radiometric dating (Pa-Ar, Ar-Ar, etc.) are needed.

But this is a rather pointless topic to get to involved in. There is no doubt that the biblical timeline and major events are B.S. I mean come on, how dumb does a person have to be to believe all the worlds animals & plants were collected and cared for by one family for nearly a year on a 300ft wooden boat?

Nitpicking about camels is not necessary to show the mythical nature of the Bible.