Recently published research conducted by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel-Aviv University suggests camels may not have been in domestic use in Israel and its surroundings until the 10th century BCE. According to the press release issued by the university, this calls into question biblical accounts of our forefathers owning camels.
The two archaeologists were interested in identifying when camels came into domestic use, so they studied the strata of copper smelting sites in the Arava Valley in Israel and Wadi Finan in Jordan. They discovered camel bones starting in layers carbon dated to the last third of the 10th century BCE.
“Camel bones were unearthed almost exclusively in archaeological layers dating from the last third of the 10th century BCE or later,” and “all the sites active in the 9th century in the Arava Valley had camel bones, but none of the sites that were active earlier contained them,” they reported.
“The introduction of the camel to our region was a very important economic and social development. By analyzing archaeological evidence from the copper production sites of the Arava Valley, we were able to estimate the date of this event in terms of decades rather than centuries,” said Ben-Yosef.
Biblical critics and rationalists alike have jumped on the discovery, claiming it further proves that the bible was written long after believers think. Indeed, the university’s press release even promoted the story that way. However, several critics have weighed in on the matter, casting doubt not on the findings of the two young archaeologists, but on the application of those findings to the bible.
Rabbi Natan Slifkin, the notable “zoo rabbi” and expert on animals in the bible, explained in his blog, “A journalist contacted me for my comment, but I had nothing to say. I’m not a zooarcheologist and I have no means of refuting this claim. Nor do I know how to reconcile such a thing with the Torah. Rav Kook writes that ‘we should not immediately refute any idea which comes to contradict anything in the Torah, but rather we should build the palace of Torah above it,’ but I don’t know how to apply that in this case.” He goes on to say it is okay to have unresolved questions about the relationship between science and the bible; it is more problematic to insist there is no question and the science is automatically wrong.
Blogger Aaron Koller gives an in-depth challenge to the conclusion that the Tel Aviv University archaeologists’ discovery undermines the validity of the bible. He points out that biblical camels were not used for carrying supplies, the way we would imagine today, but are ornamental, a sign of wealth. “…the whole point is that they were rare and exotic, not in common use, in the Patriarchal Age,” he writes. This fact, along with the scholarly belief that camels were domesticated in the southern Arabian peninsula (though not Israel) around 2000 BCE, could explain how Abraham came to be in possession of camels. As one commenter to the New York Times put it, “Patriarchs, in terms of their personal worth, might well have been their ages’ equivalent of today’s multi-billionaires, and camels might have been a luxury vehicle. One can find twenty or more references to Lamborghinis or Rolls Royces in magazines, but when was the last time you saw a carcass of one of these in a junkyard?”
Keeping in mind that Abraham’s camels were given to him by Pharaoh, and there is no clear mention of camels in anyone else’s possession in Israel, perhaps both the bible and the archaeological evidence are correct.
