Archaeologists: There are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place

[TheMathieu]

There are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place.

Camels probably had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs as Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, who lived in the first half of the second millennium B.C., and yet stories about them mention these domesticated pack animals more than 20 times. Genesis 24, for example, tells of Abraham’s servant going by camel on a mission to find a wife for Isaac.

These anachronisms are telling evidence that the Bible was written or edited long after the events it narrates and is not always reliable as verifiable history. These camel stories “do not encapsulate memories from the second millennium,” said Noam Mizrahi, an Israeli biblical scholar, “but should be viewed as back-projections from a much later period.”

Dr. Mizrahi likened the practice to a historical account of medieval events that veers off to a description of “how people in the Middle Ages used semitrailers in order to transport goods from one European kingdom to another.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/camels-had-no-business-in-genesis.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=SC_CHN_20140211&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=0

[Motown_Johnny]

1. But it is the word of "God" so it must be correct.

Silly scholars, they need to watch more FOX News.





<------ for the sarcasm impaired

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. If they just watched the history channel they would know camels are alien ghosts

Last edited Tue Feb 11, 2014, 09:43 PM - Edit history (1)

who were reincarnated after they died when their flying saucer crashed into Sodom by order of god so escaped radiation would turn women who did not obey their husbands into pillars of salt so their husband could have incest with his obedient daughters and father generations.

I swear to god.

[Motown_Johnny]

8. Isn't that on Chanel #5

Sorry, I know it was just a typo but I couldn't resist.

[Agnosticsherbet]

49. You might be right.

[Motown_Johnny]

86. .

Channel has two "N"s

Chanel is the manufacturer of things like a perfume (Chanel #5)


It was a joke

[fadedrose]

67. Space pictures show signs of a huge nuclear blast

over the area. Sitchin tells that Nergal, a disgruntled son of Enki (god) looked for and found the hidden nuclear devices with Ninurtu, and they blew up everything.

Radiation forced people to flee underground where they could. Couldn't use spaceships because the spaceport near Sodom was destroyed...Enlil, son of Enki, went to Peru or somewhere in So. America and started building temples (spaceports, I think) there.

It all started because Enki didn't like Marduk, who took over Babylon (2000 bce).

Abraham's time was somewhere around 1500 bce, after and before..

Just getting into this and still haven't got my stuff straight. Using my huge "Timeline of History" book for verification, and it said when the old testament was finalized, but I don't feel like looking it up. I know it was not this earlly. The main prophets weren't even on the scene till at least 800-500 bce and they had would have known about the camels.

May not be true, but I like fooling around with this stuff and I am so bored with Christie and his traffic jam.

[Agnosticsherbet]

75. Make a good novel.

[justiceischeap]

2. I love the title of this.

However, when you leave it to a bunch of people who think dinosaurs carried baby Jesus on their backs....

[fadedrose]

77. Call it "When History meets Stupidity" . . .

[Coyotl]

88. Only one problem, no archaeologist ever said this.

What the archaeologists say is related to the data and its implications. Somehow the implication gets turned into fact in the pop press.

Archaeology is only a sample of the past, not so definitive.

[justiceischeap]

89. I still love the title, nonetheless. :) nt.

[Historic NY]

3. You mean they were at the manger.......

[frazzled]

4. Did anyone ever think it WASN'T written or edited long after the events it narrates?

Did anyone think it contained verifiable history?

There have been many theories about the writing of the Old Testament (remember even Harold Bloom's Book of J, surmising that one of the authors was a woman?). But even the standard Wikipedia entry suggests that the first five books date to far later than the events they recount:

The first five books – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers and Deuteronomy – comprise the Torah, the story of Israel from the Genesis creation narrative to the death of Moses. Few scholars today doubt that it reached its present form in the Persian period (538–332 BC), and that its authors were the elite of exilic returnees who controlled the Temple at that time

[jeff47]

10. Yes, virtually every Christian fundamentalist believes it's verified history. (nt)

[dipsydoodle]

12. Earliest known version here

[thucythucy]

50. Not as early as the "Twible"--

every chapter of the Bible written as a tweet.

It's hilarious.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

100. Similarities between Sumerian myths and the first five books

That's why the myths of the first five books (Pentateuch) bear such great resemblance to the myths of the Sumerians and others who informed the Persian myths: the returning exiles came from Babylon (Mesopotamia, now Iraq).

The Babylonian captivity (or Babylonian exile) is the period in Jewish history during which a number of Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylonia. According to the Hebrew Bible, there were four deportations of Jews to Babylon: After the Battle of Carchemish during the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were among young Jewish nobility carried off by Nebuchadnezzer to Babylon.[1] The exile of King Jeconiah, his court and many others in Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year; Jeconiah's successor Zedekiah and the rest of the people in Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth year; and a later deportation in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year. These are attributed to c. 605 BCE, 597 BCE, c. 587 BCE, and c. 582 BCE, respectively. After the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 538 BCE, exiled Jews began to return to the land of Judah.

[Jamastiene]

108. Where I am from, that is LITERALLY what they believe.

Yes, there are people who believe that.

[frazzled]

110. Sure, but this is the New York Times

reporting. Not the Yahoo Gazette.

[Scuba]

5. They didn't ride camels, they rode dinasaurs. Ken Ham told me so!

[jsr]

9. Eh, neither:

[tomm2thumbs]

24. ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

See... iet's true. The internetz proves once again dinosaurs were around with peeeple.

I knew it. I just knew it.

[JRLeft]

41. LMFAO! How any could believe a T-Rex would not devour them

is unconscionable.

[JoeyT]

47. They claim the huge teeth weren't for eating meat, but

for cracking coconuts. I wish I was kidding.

[Arugula Latte]

90. That is true. They used smaller dinosaurs for opening cans, though:

[A Simple Game]

97. Just what are you trying to push on us? Anyone with any sense knows that picture can't be true.

If it were that would mean there was such a thing as evolution.

[fadedrose]

76. You know what everyone says about him, doncha Scuba?

They say he's full of shit.

Who is he anyway?

[Scuba]

85. Bible-thumpin' nutjob.

[fadedrose]

87. I thought better of my post

and decided to apologize for the use of the word "sxxx". It's a cheesy word that I shouldn't have used talking to you because (1) it's cheesy and (2) I don't know who Ken Ham is, and (3) was too lazy to look him up. Sorry.

He was born in Austrailia and I was surprised by that. One of my favorite "religious" authors is Dr. Barbara Thiering who is a professor at the U of Austrailia.

I wonder if her popular critical books there drove him to the US where there are more fanatics.

[BlueStreak]

7. What is most interesting to me is that this research came from Israel

Every Jewish person I know is very comfortable with the idea that the OT is mostly metaphor and should not be taken literally.

Christians, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to handle that concept very well.

[Big Blue Marble]

15. Your comments seem too broad brushed to me.

There are fundamental Jewish sects that do believe in the literal interpretation of the OT.
And there are many Christians, perhaps a majority that do not take the bible literally.

[BlueStreak]

55. In private, maybe, but from the pulpit, no.

Unless maybe we are talking about the Unitarians.

Obviously I can't speak for what every preacher does in every church on every Sunday morning. But as a professional musician, I attend services in 15-20 different churches every year. My experience is that the preachers are extremely selective about the fragments of the Bible they use in their sermons, but they almost always insist that those fragments, as preposterous as they might be, are literally the word of god.

Yes, you may be correct about the ultra orthodox Jews. I wouldn't know. they are not well represented in the Midwest. But there are plenty of "regular Jews" here, and my experience is that they are quite pragmatic about how they take the OT. They believe it is a book of lessons, and not so much a literal historical account. You see, they don't have a compelling interest to promote one particular personality as the centerpiece of their religion.

Christianity is more of a rock star thing. Christianity is built entirely around their Christ (obviously). And the only real evidence for that story is the NT, which was written decades or centuries after this star was to have lived. The authors were rather sloppy in assembling this story line, which puts today's Christians in a bit of a bind. In my experience, most Christians take the position that they have to defend every word of it as being the literal truth, no matter how nonsensical that is and no matter how many contradictions that brings to light. They are afraid if they acknowledge that it is just a collection of stories written by regular people centuries after the fact, based mostly on an oral tradition, the essence of their whole belief system crumbles. So they soldier on insisting it is literally true.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

92. American Right Wing Christians are Authoritarians and GOD is the ULTIMATE boss....

Don't worry about this guy:



This guy (or his kids) are the ones that go on killing sprees:

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Cause the Patriarch did not exist

and it was commissioned in the seventh century BCE

Did I mention Camels were plentiful then?

[Vashta Nerada]

13. Oh, I can't wait for the day when my field disproves the rest of the bible.

[dipsydoodle]

14. Maybe Abraham’s servant was smoking a Camel on a mission to find a wife for Isaac.

:shruG;

[warrant46]

29. Joe Camel, a Giant in Tobacco Marketing, Is Dead at 23

Joe Camel represented an icon that refueled the moral outrage of the anti-smoking movement,'' said Eric Solberg, executive director of Doctors Ought to Care, an anti-tobacco group in Houston. Reynolds has always denied that Joe Camel -- introduced to Americans in 1988 after more than a decade of selling cigarettes to Europeans -- was anything but a standard marketing tactic meant to persuade adult smokers to switch to Camel from bigger brands like Marlboro.

[Big Blue Marble]

16. Oh No, somebody let the camel out of the bag. N/T

[freshwest]

17. Genesis was oral tradition written down to chronicle events of millions of years before.

After hundreds of thousands of years of stories repeated by nomadic tribalists sitting at night around the campfire, it was bound to contain a lot of errors. They may have also been a bit tipsy at the time. Word of mouth, each mouth giving its own version and mutating the story. Gotta give credit for their imagination.

But once it was written on papyrus, skins or paper, that's what made if 'official' and not to be trifled with! Just like the 100,000 people marching in NC never happened since it wasn't on the official memory source of today, television.

Let's just get it over with and adopt telepathy. Well, that wouldn't work, either. Guess we'll never know, since the knowledge base from science is now being attacked from so many sources to ensure the masses accept The Idiocracy.

[aquart]

26. The story of Lot, his wife and daughters is a ribald shaggy dog pun in Sumerian.

So the Bible oral tradition crossed a few cultures and languages on its way to sanctification.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. Well Noah itself went through a few interesting changes

that said, we do know from archeology that there was a flood, just not global... it was the Euphrates around the 10th century BCE. And yes, we do know, again from archeology and oral tradition left in tablets, that a young man was blown off to sea, with an ark, containing family members and a few chickens and goats. Oh and he was a prince by the way.

They had no space for lions or snakes, let alone Rex.

Why this could not happen...



Of course I will not go into how many similarities are between that other story of three days and three nights, and resurrection and the greatest rage of the med at the time (Mitraism)

[eppur_se_muova]

94. Love that pic ! nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

95. It is an internet meme classic

[Wounded Bear]

109. I always smile when I hear the Fundie argument...

about how the flood story occurs throughout so many ancient traditions, so the Bible story must be the real one.

Funny coincidence. Ancient societies tended to develop in places that had reliable sources of water. You know, river valleys that tend to flood periodically. So there are flood stories from Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and China. Imagine that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

111. odly they never bring up the one that matches the flood story

from the Maya tradition. you know the Pupul-Vuh. I guess since those fine folks were into human sacrifice that is way too wild.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

62. That's just not true...

The Bible was written down from the beginning, and I have the receipt from the Bethlehem Kinko's to prove it...

[snooper2]

18. That's probably the LEAST of the problems with the "holy" bible

LOL

[rickyhall]

19. When was young

and still going to Synagogue I was taught that the Torah was passed down by word of mouth for centuries before it was codified and until I was grown and met fundies thought EVERYBODY knew that. And, apparently so was the New Testament since witnesses wrote none of it. I was taught it was the "inspired word of G-d".

[aquart]

27. OT is not inspired word of God. It's what we've got from our past to lead us forward.

[Arugula Latte]

99. Lead us forward? The OT is one fucked-up book of twisted tales.

Yikes, that mythology collection is NOT a good guide for the future.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

93. It's a lot of old folklore which is why an American Bible should include Paul Bunyan.

[jmowreader]

20. There are also too many other modern contrivances

Seriously, guys: do you think your average person two thousand years ago had a closet with a door on it to go in and pray, like the Bible tells you to? Or earrings to surrender to Aaron to be melted into a golden calf?

[justiceischeap]

21. I think earrings are pretty old

The oldest mummified body to be found with pierced ears and expanded earlobes (7-11mm in diameter) was found frozen in an Austrian Glacier, and tests show it to be over 5,000 years old!

http://tribu.co.uk/pages/history-of-body-piercing

[dballance]

22. I think the point is

Why would the Israelites who had been in captivity as slaves in Egypt have enough gold to melt into some sort of golden calf? It makes sense that slaves had enough gold to make a big golden calf.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. two thousand years ago, yes, absolutely

ten thousand years ago, yes, we have mummies that are that old with evidence of earrings. So given that we believe it was commissioned by King Hossiah in the seventh Century and written by four groups of scribes... yes the story is consistent with seventh Century BCE knowledge, and that includes the camels. Those were fully domesticated by the seventh century BCE.

Now the first person that we think actually existed that was actually mentioned by name in the bible was King David, more like Chieftain David, head of one of the many mountain tribes, and the Exodus never happened. So Aaron never really existed, nor did Moses, or the patriarchs. Don't get me started with the whole genesis story.

Yes, I know, I will burn in the non existing hell that is part of Judaism. (There is no hell, but I just committed heresy by not accepting articles of faith)

[thucythucy]

52. I've read that the exodus happened

but that it was the experience of a relatively small band of nomads who were eventually absorbed into the larger tribes of Palestine. But their oral tradition became a dominant one--accepted as if it had happened to them all. That tends to happen to really good yarns. But all the details--the various plagues, Red Sea parting, etc.--are all myths. A bunch of slaves escaped from somewhere (probably not Egypt), fled into Palestine, intermarried with the locals, told some good stories which grew more elaborate over time, until the Exile when the various oral traditions were transcribed and compiled as a way to build tribal and religious unity.

The Genesis stories (there are two of them in the Bible) were quite widespread in the ancient Near East. The whole Garden of Eden myth was popular throughout Mesopotamia.

Really, Bible "history" is fascinating stuff. A very interesting look into the minds of the Bronze Age elites of a particular set of communities. But as actual history it's about as reliable as Hesiod (meaning: not at all).

Best wishes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. Now I would like to read that about this small tribe

as far as we know, or I know, from my reading, since I find it fascinating... is that this was a political masterpiece of propaganda by the king since he was having troubles with Egypt. I mean like that land has been fought over for ever. So if you have info on that, I will thank you.

And yes, the song of songs is Egyptian, Noah is Sumerian, the Garden is all over.

And if we look at the new Testament and death and resurrection, Mitraism was a new form of a myth (starting with Horus) going for 10K years or so. Now that is what I call staying power!

Like you I find it fascinating. And if there is any miracle in it, is that these things survived so long. But history, no, not really. Though the grains of actual historical truth are salted here and there, but salted is the right term. And usually they are embellished, see Noah and the flood. There was a noah, we think, there was a flood, we know (archeology) after that... they were damn good creative writers!

[thucythucy]

58. I'll have to dig this up for you.

It's been a while.

My recollection is that the legends of the exodus had been knocking around for a long time before they were transcribed, and that the identification of Egypt as the enslaver didn't happen until long after the original story (or stories) were told. The Exodus might even be an amalgam of various escape stories, and bands of escaped slaves might have fled into Palestine from all directions--since Palestine was a relatively lawless crossroads on the fringes of various more powerful and centrally governed empire states. So the idea that the Exodus story was codified as political propaganda to serve the interests of those who eventually took it down is not at all inconsistent with its earlier history, kind of like how Homer's epics--also amalgams of various myths and legends from an oral tradition-- were eventually used by the Greek elites of the 4th century BCE to inculcate pride in Greek culture and Greek nationalism in the face of Persian encroachments.

I'll have to hunt down the original cite on my reading, and it may take a while. Sorry about that.

Best wishes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

64. Not a problem. And Homer's works and the Bible

have many, many parallels... even grains of truth here and there.

[thucythucy]

79. Back again, at least for a bit.

The best I can do is the chapter on origin stories in "Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs" by David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt, 2003. But I know there's other sources, and better ones, I just can't put my finger on them (a lot of my books are in storage). Also, I seem to recall a Nova from a while back on recent archaeology of Hebrew Scripture sites, and one of the takeaways from that was that the whole "Hebrew tribes coming out of Egypt to conquer Canaan" narrative is probably, perhaps almost certainly untrue, that rather than the Hebrew tribes coming from elsewhere, they had in fact been settled in the region far sooner, and that rather than conquering the original inhabitants the Hebrew tribes intermarried with and evolved from them. That there was far more assimilation than conquest. Wish I could be more specific about all this.

I recently re-read the Book of Ezra, and found it a fascinating slice of that time--if somewhat depressing (the whole "now that we've been released from exile in Babylon let's exile all the folks we intermarried with who aren't directly descended from our bloodlines" story). It's like the only thing the leadership learned from being conquered and exiled (and then released and restored to their home) was that they had to be even MORE ethnocentric and suspicious of the outside world. But the story itself is compelling, of people returning after decades to a devastated homeland, and together with reading the Psalms of the exile and the Book of Lamentations, it really brought home for me how much of the Bible is about oppression. The Lamentations about Hebrew women and girls being raped by occupying soldiers, about homes being sacked, people forced to become refugees, had such a modern ring to it. In that context, the infamous psalm that ends with the lines about how wonderful it would be to bash the heads of our enemy's babies against a wall--well, it just demonstrates for me the hate and the fury generated by foreign occupation, wars of intervention, "counterinsurgencies" and the like. A lesson we might well heed today.

If you look at the Hebrew Scriptures, not as the "infallible word of God" but rather as the record of one people or grouping of peoples and their struggle to make sense of the universe, it really is quite a moving set of texts. To me, framing it as some divine hand-me-down or even as literal history is an insult to the humanity of the people who originally felt compelled to tell and eventually record those stories. Rather than setting the Bible up on a pedestal, I think it becomes more profound as a record of the authors' humanity.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Thanks again for the posts and the vids. See you around DU sometime soon.

[nadinbrzezinski]

81. See you again, and I agree with you on this

If you look at the Hebrew Scriptures, not as the "infallible word of God" but rather as the record of one people or grouping of peoples and their struggle to make sense of the universe, it really is quite a moving set of texts. To me, framing it as some divine hand-me-down or even as literal history is an insult to the humanity of the people who originally felt compelled to tell and eventually record those stories. Rather than setting the Bible up on a pedestal, I think it becomes more profound as a record of the authors' humanity.

And yes, I recall recent scholarship that is pointing to early settlement from the hills.

One of these days re-read genesis, with a political map of the ME of the 7th century BCE. It is full of nuggets there.

[zeemike]

36. Yes they did.

But it don't mean the same today as it did then...it is an english translation after all.

CLOSET

kloz'-et:

Is the rendering in the King James Version of

(1) chuppah, and

(2) tameion, also tamieion.

Chuppah, derived from chaphah, "to cover," was probably originally the name of the tent specially set apart for the bride, and later (Joel 2:16) used for the bride's chamber. The word tameion, originally storeroom (compare Luke 12:24, the King James Version "storehouse"; the Revised Version (British and American) "storechamber&quot , but since for safety it was the inner rooms of the Hebrew house which were used for storage purposes, the word came to mean inner room, as in Matthew 6:6; Luke 12:3, in both the King James Version "closet" (compare Matthew 24:26, the King James Version "secret chamber&quot . In all cases the Revised Version (British and American) uses "inner chamber."

And you might think that it was a solid golden calf...but that has never been true....gold was overladed on wood or stone carvings, and an ounce of gold can be beaten into a lot of gold leaf, as it has been done for thousands of years.

[Art_from_Ark]

84. Certainly gold leaf was used in the days of King Tut

I had always thought that the golden artifacts from King Tut's tomb were solid gold, until I visited the King Tut Exhibit in New York and found out that many of them were gilt, or gold-plated, rather than solid gold.

[tomm2thumbs]

23. I'm sure the term 'camel' actually meant 'klondike bar'

I mean you've heard the phrase 'I'd walk a mlle for a Camel... '

Seriously, what wouldn't you do for a klondike bar ?

[cvoogt]

25. then what about

all those camelite monasteries?

[cinnabonbon]

28. That is so interesting! nt

[thelordofhell]

30. "So I guess the whole, Camel Through The Eye Of A Needle thing is false"

Says the .1%

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Well by the time that parable was written they did have camels

we are talking 10 century BCE and 1st century CE.

[stopbush]

83. There are some interesting interpretations of that bon mot.

One is that the "eye of the needle" was an entry way into Jerusalem where camels had to bow their heads to get through. Another is that the Hebrew word for "camel" actually refers to a thick rope that was threaded through a large needle that was used to bind boats together.

"An alternative linguistic explanation is taken from George M Lamsa's Syriac-Aramaic Peshitta translation which has the word 'rope' in the main text but a footnote on Matthew 19:24 which states that the Aramaic word gamla means rope and camel, possibly because the ropes were made from camel hair. Evidence for this also comes from the 10th century Aramaic lexicographer Mar Bahlul who gives the meaning as a "a large rope used to bind ships". (cf. http://www.aramaicnt.org/HTML/LUKE/evidences/Camel.html)

In either interpretation, the message is that while getting a camel through the eye of a needle is difficult, it is not impossible.

See here: http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm

[sammythecat]

131. I always get a bitter laugh

out of the contortions, distortions, and convoluted scholarly explanations the "faithful" use to get around that one.

"I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Oh boy, I don't know about anybody else but my head is just spinning. Whatever did he mean when he said this. So confusing. Better go find a theologian.

Later... found one! Glad I did or I never would've figured this one out on my own. He talked about some guy's Syriac-Aramaic-Peshitta translation, main texts, footnotes, ancient lexicographers, and how the camel was really a rope and the eye of a needle is really a gate in some corner of Jerusalem or something. It all pretty much came down to if an NBA player could stoop to get in your house a rich man could get into heaven. Really not difficult at all. Hardly worth mentioning. In short, it meant: Nothing.

Actually, it's a wonder it's in the bible at all. Just a bit of rambling by Jesus. Theologian said not to worry. Don't drink, don't smoke, go(with money) to church on Sunday and you're golden.

[nadinbrzezinski]

135. Thanks both of you

I always love learning something new.

[stopbush]

137. That saying isn't really about the rich or indicting the rich.

The rich are being used as an example to get across the idea that no man gets into heaven by his own volition. In other words, it would be easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven based only on his riches.

Of course, none of it matters as heaven doesn't exist outside of mens' fantasies.

[zeemike]

31. "Camels probably had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs "

And now probability becomes a fact...

And we know just how many camels they had 2000 years ago and who had them...

The zeal to disprove something that does not need to be dis proven has become funny to me the more I hear about it.

[The Straight Story]

34. This is actually quite old. Have read similar things from back in the 1800's

And even they were quoting earlier sources wondering about such things.

Here is a decent breakdown of some of the items relating to 'Did Moses exist'

http://www.perankhgroup.com/moses.htm

[zeemike]

39. I have read many things like that before.

But it can only be speculation, not fact....because we have only a tiny fraction of what was written back then and really know very little about how people lived beyond the scant writings of the time that survived time.

I don't mind speculation at all...in fact I do a lot of it myself, but I don't claim my speculation about something I know little about is a fact and proves anything...and would never present it as anything but speculation.

[The Straight Story]

48. Thing is, some people 'want' to believe something instead of wanting to find facts

I have been reading religious texts and the like most of my adult life. Check out http://www.sacred-texts.com/ sometime.

I don't go looking to make history fit any religious work anywhere in the world.

Read up what Jewish scholars living over in Israel have to say on these issues - from the camels to the bricks to the known timelines. And that is just a small part of it all.

I label myself a Christian, but that does not mean I buy the old testament much. For all I know personally Jesus never walked the earth himself, but I still buy into many of the core ideals surrounding faith.

The bible is not the word of god but a word about god. Imperfect people wrote it, it is filled with all sorts of problems (like the hundreds of thousands wandering the desert for forty years no one else seems to know about, how long a column of that many people would be, logistics, etc).

There are kernels of truth in many things. As the bible says we should study it - not just read it, but seek to understand it. Part of that is it's origin, what is truth, what is not.

I'll accept there is a god on faith alone. I won't accept everything some people have written. To me, God deserves more thought and effort than that.

[zeemike]

53. So have I...going back to the 60s.

And many of the Buddhist and Hindu text...as well as the bible.
But I read the bible not as a sacred document but as a book...or rather many books, for the story it tells and made no judgment as to what if any of it was true or not...because I know that I cannot know that...and none alive today can ether, they can only speculate just like me.

And I am familiar with that site and have used it as a source in the last few years.

But Jewish scholars have no more incite into things than any other scholars...they speculate too and know not much more than we do about life 3000 years ago...everything has changed sense then including the language.

Time erases history and leaves us tiny scraps to speculate about...and scholars present us with these scraps and their speculation and many insist they know all about it, and I am sure they do not.

[bklyncowgirl]

124. The Per-Ankh article about Moses is pretty speculative but touches on some key points.

Josephus believed that the Hyksos were the ancestors of the Jews.

There was a very real exodus--The Hyksos--who had once dominated Egypt were overthrown and expelled by a native dynasty culminating in the reunification of Egypt under the Pharoah Ahmose. Since there is no major destruction level at the Hyksos capital at Avaris, it is likely that Josephus' story of a negotiated surrender and expulsion of the Hyksos is correct.

We know that Ahmose later besieged the Hyksos at Sharuhen in southern Palestine. He eventually took the city. Aside from some being carried off as slaves there's no record of what happened to the rest of the Hyksos. It's possible that Ahmose did not get them all and as Josephus said, moved north out of the range of the Egyptian armies and may have merged with the people who eventually became the Jews.

The Egyptians never forgot the Hyksos. Later pharaohs mentioned them as one of many hostile ethnic groups living in Western Asia. They seem to have been an all purpose bogeyman, rather like al Queda today. Queen Hatshepsut, in her Speos Artimideos inscription claims to have fought them (most scholars consider this highly unlikely though it's possible she did have to deal with hostile nomadic tribes in the Delta and used the term Hyksos as a handy catch phrase) and restored many of the temples that were destroyed during the war. Her nephew and co-regent,
Thutmose III claimed that Hyksos were among the coalition of hostile nations he faced at the Battle of Megiddo when Syria and Palestine blew up after Hatshepsut's death.

I'm not saying that Josephus was right. Though he had access to sources that we do not have today, he was very much a propagandist and has to be taken with a giant grain of salt. It is possible however that some Hyksos refugees ended up in northern Palestine and intermarried with tribes already there and brought the story of a great trek from Egypt with them.

We'll probably never know the truth.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. The more research done the more we find the patriarchs

were created of whole cloth, Noah did exist, and there was a flood, just not global... and not as punishment... it is a Sumerian tale by the way

We are also finding out that this nice bronze age faith was created as a state religion, the Exodus has very little to do with actual history, as in moses never existed and four groups of scribes wrote the old testament. Though the story of the baby in the basket is also a sumerian tale.

I find that far more fascinating than anything else. Once you realize when it was likely written the camels make sense. They were common and domestic by the seventh century BCE... not so much by the 10th, to 12th centuries BCE when all these "happened."

[zeemike]

38. Well if they have some facts I want to hear it.

But I don't like to be baffled with bullshit.

And camels have been common in the middle east for a long time as beasts of burden...and the trade with the east continued right along in history on the silk road and they passed right through the middle east as far as Eygipt...so yes there were camels then and they were well known and used because other beasts of burden were impractical in the arid land.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. Yes they were domesticated

Dromedaries were probably domesticated in coastal settlements along the southern Arabian peninsula somewhere between 3000 and 2500 BC. The earliest reference to camels in Arabia is the Sihi mandible, a camelid bone direct dated to ca 7100-7200 cal BC, or about 8200 RCYBP. Sihi is a Neolithic coastal site in Yemen, and the bone is probably a wild dromedary. The earliest camels in Africa are from Qasr Ibrim, Nubia, 9th century BC.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/cterms/g/camels.htm

The stories are supposed to have happened at least a hundred years before the earliest domestic camels in Africa, that be the 10th century. Some of the stories go as far back at the 12th century, that is 300 years. And the document is suspected to have been written in the 7th century, so that is already anywhere from 300 to 600 years. By the time it was written, camel technology had become common, and like everyday life, if we have cars now, why not a hundred fifty years ago? We know from documents that we did not have them 150 years ago. This is the equivalent.

Why their presence in the Old Testament is not surprising, just wrong time wise. This is what archeologists are saying.

And the more we find, I realize this makes people of faith nervous, since if the book is wrong... then the whole thing could be seen as bullshit. Well, the ethics and morals are not to be rejected just because we know some of the events are allegories at best.

[zeemike]

44. "the bone is probably a wild dromedary"

Again with the probably.

But what do they base that on?....a single document written in the 7th century...and that could not be wrong or mistaken or just not informed about what was going on in the rest of the world...the latter I am sure of...
But that single document is taken as proof of their speculation...something no science would ever do.

But it don't make me nervous at all...because I am not invested in it in one way or the other...I have an open mind on this and have no need to prove the bible wrong to prove my belief right.

Edited to ask the question....why is this in GD, when something showing evidence for the bible would be locked?

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. That single document is the whole bible

we know it was commissioned by King Josiah and written by four groups of scribes. We know this. It is not a mystery. So the document mentioned camels that were domestic and going back and forth in caravans, because they were. By the seventh century they were pretty much every day technology of trade.

We also know that likely the first actual person mentioned in the whole old testament was King David, more like Chieftain David, who did live in the 10th century and did drive the original inhabitants from Jerusalem. Yes, archeology supports this. Now David kill the giant. maybe, maybe not. I personally think some scribes had one too many that day when they wrote that.

We even know the motive for the king, and why the story of Exodus was important. He was having some issues with his neighbor Egypt, who for some strange reason coveted the holy land, it's that land bridge, it's made that piece of territory strategic since armies started to march back and forth. So the whole exodus was state designed propaganda (and a pretty cool story that has survived the ages, I admit, my favorite part of the Pentateuch). It was also about nation building, since the tribes were still pretty much scattered and not really a nation.

So he had four groups of scribes write the document, drawing from here and there and everywhere (The song of songs is a love song from Egypt from a thousand years before).

The scribes wrote and picked and chose what was to put it in. The first time that books were thrown out from that original was during the Babylonian period. It was when the first Jewish canon came to be, and damn they missed one. Either Genesis one or Genesis two, those two stories of creation oppose each other at fundamental levels. And damn it, were we created in the image of god, or the gods? I actually asked that as an 11 year old, lord did I get in trouble.

And yes, this is is a hot issue with those who believe and in Orthodox Judaism what I wrote is heresy. At least to me the whole real story that is emerging is far more fascinating. But then again I love archeology and history. What man can do is far more impressive to me as well.

Here is one book on this

http://thebibleisnotholy.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/scribal-culture-and-the-making-of-the-hebrew-bible-2007.pdf

And here is another

http://www.amazon.com/101-Myths-Bible-Invented-Biblical/dp/1570718423/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Recent biblical scholarship is becoming really fascinating in this respect. And there is a fascinating vid of this floating around as well.

Here is the vid by the way

[zeemike]

46. I dislike having this conversation and that is why I stay out of the religious forum.

But it seems it is brought into GD as long as it is mocking of believers and that is OK.

And I don't like it because it will make people like you that I have a great deal of respect for dislike me, and you will if I continue with this.

But there is no proof that camels were not used 2000 or even 3000 years BC...only speculation...and that speculation is taken as fact by those who have the need to prove the bible wrong.
But what you are saying is that you know the bible was written down then,....but that does not prove that it was never written down before, or passed on as an oral tradition as it was in Homer's time and written down at a later date.
It is imposable to know that...sense we have little that survived time...except that written in stone, but a ruling king who may well be biased and not telling all...or even knowing anything beyond his own land.

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. So archeological evidence by damned

I cited where they found them first, and it was well after the supposed timeline.


I do not dislike you, or anything. I just find the evidence to be convincing. As is religion, all of it, had an adaptive value early on in human history. It created a sense of self and led to survival of groups. These days, my view, it is mal adaptive and will help top lead humans down extinction path.

And it is not me saying that it was written. I am far from an expert in the field. But those who are have told a very impressive tale of human achievement to be honest.

[zeemike]

59. No evidence not be damned.

But you find one bone, and you do not create the entire knowledge out of that one find...to do that is to say you have found all the bones and have all the evidence.

A good example of this is I saw a film on an archaeologist that was digging an Anissizi site and found bones with "butcher marks" on them and declared that they had turned to cannibalism when the food ran out...based on that one piece of evidence.

I hope he never goes to Tibet, because he will find cannibalism there too, because they butcher the dead and lay the parts out for the buzzards to peck the flesh off and they retrieve the bones.

No other science I know of will base a belief on the tiniest bit of evidence.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. It is not one bone

it is a chain of events and digs. I gave you one, you can find more if you so chose.

I read archeology magazines and early biblical history for fun. It is just one thing that is just damn fascinating. And no, there is no evidence that dromedaries were known technology before the 9th century BCE in North Africa. Or before the 10th in the Arabian Peninsula. Technology did not spread at the speed of the net back then. A hundred years is reasonable, and Isaac's son was supposed to have gone with a caravan as a slave before the technology reached what is modern day Southern Israel.

I do not blame the writers. If we lose a whole slew of records, I would not blame some future writer claiming cars, gasoline driven cars, were common in 19th century United States.

That is what the archeologists are telling us. I personally find things like making of swords for the armies of Israel to be a good description of military technology at the time that supposedly happened. It was based on current experience, and some of that technology did not change since it was pretty bronze age. The camels, well sorry, next.

Far more modern, did you know that Jews in early France ate game animals? They did, and over time, from going through the trash they stopped and reduced their diet to just cows and chicken. That is also fascinating. It tells you how dietary laws developed.

[zeemike]

70. And the bone was "probably" a wild camel.

As if you can tell from the bones it was wild?

And I question the start of the caravans that you say did not come into being until 100 years later...there is no way you or anyone else could know that.

But some finds show us how little we really know about the technology of the past...like this one.

The Antikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɨkɨˈθɪərə/ ANT-i-ki-THEER-ə or /ˌæntɨˈkɪθərə/ ANT-i-KITH-ə-rə is an ancient analog computer[1][2][3][4] designed to predict astronomical positions and eclipses. It was recovered in 1900–1901 from the Antikythera wreck, a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera.[5] Although the computer's construction has been attributed to the Greeks and dated to the early 1st century BC, its significance and complexity were not understood until a century after its recovery, in the 1970s, when it was analyzed with modern X-ray technology. Technological artifacts approaching its complexity and workmanship did not appear again until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks began to be built in Western Europe.[6]

Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University, who led a 2006 study of the mechanism, said:[7][8]


This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully ... in terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.

—30 November 2006

So one could say they knew computers in the 1st century BC...and if that is true, perhaps they knew about domesticated camels long before we think they did.
You can watch this on Youtube...

[nadinbrzezinski]

71. Because domestic weight bearing camels

Have artifacts in the bones.

Look, at this point it is faith vs science. I pick my side with science. So far science has not found evidence of camel use that early. Oh and the story of genesis did not happen, Big Bang. The patriarchs are universal archetypes and so is Moses.

Have a good evening.

And I swear the description of the UFO is a description of space travel in Isaiah.

[zeemike]

73. Well the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Except it seems with this subject.

But my prediction comes true, you end this with an insult.

[nadinbrzezinski]

74. Nope, you did

Have a wonderful day

[zeemike]

78. No I did not.

But my point is made, because having this kind of discussion in GD will divide us...and make people of faith feel unwelcome...which may be the point.
And my point is also made that if someone posted things that made the bible sound true it would be locked right away and would be told to take it to the religious dungeon.

We continue to shoot ourself in the foot...but feel so righteous about it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

80. Once again, have a wonderful day

I have tried and will continue to try, to be respectful. In the future I will not engage you.

[zeemike]

82. Then I guess I was right...it does divide us.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

128. Nonsense. Post something that makes the bible "sound true". Please.

If people of faith want to provide evidence they are free to do so. But assertions of evidence will be examined and tested. If people of faith can't bear their "evidence" being tested in that way, too bad.

People of faith have only faith. If that is enough for them, that is fine for them. However, they should not expect faith to convince anyone else.

[zeemike]

136. TOS.

Discuss politics, issues, and current events. No posts about Israel/Palestine, religion, guns, showbiz, or sports unless there is really big news. No conspiracy theories. No whining about DU.

[Arugula Latte]

138. And they should not expect people to "respect" their faith as in "validate" it

These are obviously tales and old mythology, on par with stories about Zeus and Isis. The religious can expect to have their faith "respected" in the sense that they are free to believe it and talk about it and go to church and what have you. But it doesn't mean other people have to pretend that outlandish stories are worthy of the same "respect" as scientific evidence.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

142. +1 . . nt

[bluedigger]

145. Cannibalism is pretty well accepted by archaeologists now in the southwest.

The evidence is a lot more than one bone. We don't know who did it or why, but when and where are pretty clear. They even acknowledge it at Mesa Verde National Park in the museum exhibits, nine miles down the road from me. No idea what movie you saw, but movies aren't the best place to learn about archaeology. Okay, I'm off to search for the Crystal Skull now.

[zeemike]

146. Yep it is all settled now...don't even think it is not.

Researchers Divided Over Whether Anasazi Were Cannibals

Researchers Divided Over Whether Anasazi Were Cannibals
It's a word so dirty, so divisive, that a recent scientific symposium about it was evasively titled "Multidisciplinary Approaches to Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest." But it was really about the C-word: cannibalism.

Archaeologists argue bitterly over whether the ancient Anasazi, the ancestors of today's Pueblo Indians, routinely killed and ate each other. From one point of view, the evidence seems overwhelming: piles of butchered human bones, some of which were apparently roasted or boiled. In one instance, ancient human feces even seem to contain traces of digested human tissue.

But from another standpoint, Anasazi cannibalism doesn't make sense. Eating people obviously isn't part of modern Pueblo culture, and local tribes are deeply offended by the suggestion that their Anasazi ancestors may have been cannibals. Many researchers argue that the marks attributed to flesh-eating could instead be created during slightly less gruesome activities, such as the public execution of suspected witches.

The scientific battle has polarized into two camps: "the bleeding hearts vs. the rip-their-hearts-out" factions, as Colorado archaeologist Steven Lekson calls them.

Most of the rip-their-hearts-out group declined the chance to attend the recent symposium, held in New Orleans during the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. But those archaeologists who did show up began moving toward a broader understanding, in which the Anasazi are seen neither as bloodthirsty savages nor as an entirely peaceful culture.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0601_wireanasazi.html

Yep it is me in that bleeding heart crowd...and I am not ashamed of it, so the chrystal skull won't change me to a rip their heart out way of thinking.

[thucythucy]

56. Thanks for all your posts in this thread.

Fascinating stuff!

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. Watch that video, it is mind blowing

[thucythucy]

60. Marked for later viewing.

I started it but have to sign off for now. In the meantime I'll try to nail down that cite for you. My vague recollection is that it's from a book called "Global Bible Commentary," but that's just a hunch.

Thanks again, and best wishes.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

129. +2. Thank you for all your posts in this thread. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

132. You welcome

[Bernardo de La Paz]

101. Science comfortable w uncertainty. Religionists demand certainty & priests stand ready to supply it.

Again with the probably.

[zeemike]

113. Well I am comfortable with uncertainty too

As I have shown here...but some true believers in the falseness of the bible get really angry when their belief in that falseness is questioned.
And that suggests then that this is not a science for that very reason and is no different than the religionists... and their priests who tell them they know who did and did not have camels thousands of years ago.
And they seem to accept that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence contrary to all other science.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

114. The bible is false. We can be as certain of that as we are about the germ theory of disease. nt

[zeemike]

116. So you just confirmed what I said.

You are not comfortable with uncertainty at all.
Have you put the bible under the microscope and seen with your eyes that it is false?...a microscope that peers back in time 2 or 3 thousand years?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

117. Wrong

I did not confirm any state you made about me.

I am very comfortable with scientific uncertainty with regard to things like the dates of the domestication of the camel.

What is certain is that many things in the bible are flat out wrong. Like the value of pi, for example. Like the young earth creationism. Like the concept of Original Sin.

[zeemike]

118. Young earth creationism and original sin are not in the bible.

They are interpretations of the bible and dogma created by religion.

But you don't seem to understand the diference...and equating it to pi is the same thing as saying you are comfortable with it because math is a fact and so must the falseness of the bible be a unquestionable fact.
Sounds like conformation to me.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

119. Correct, not in the bible, per se. Bible story of creation is still wrong.

For one thing it is nuttily inconsistent. It says god made day and night on the first day but created the sun and the moon on the fourth day.

There are hundreds and maybe thousands of things in the bible that are wrong or nonsensical. Large compilations of them are available online.

[zeemike]

120. Wrong or an allegory?

There is a difference.

But you try to tell the story of creation as you see it in 500 words and see how it sounds...and don't miss a thing tell it all...including how the elements were created and how the earth and sun was formed...and tell it so that ordinary people can understand it in some way.

And others will say that they are wrong or inconsistent and they probably will be right...and they can pick your story to pieces with it...I don't know any story ever told that tells it all or even tries to...and all stores even those of evolution can be found wanting and called wrong and inconsistent if you really want to.

My objection to this is the seeming need for those on your side to insist that they know all about it and that if anyone questions it they are a loony that believes the same thing that the looniest among us believe...right back to the with us or against us meme that I so despise.
I am not on your side and I am not on there side...I don't fall for that shit...I think freely and am not ashamed of it...and if that makes me your enemy then so be it, it is on you not me.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

123. It's an allegory that is all wrong.

One keeps an open mind until sufficient and convincing evidence is available. Not so long that the breeze blows the mind all out and shrivels the brains.

There is sufficient and convincing evidence that a lot of the bible is pure fiction and a lot of the rest is garbled. In sum and total it is a useless document except for literary purposes and when we are forced to deal with people who take it verbatim and in total and literally.

One does need to take sides on many issues, and bible veracity is one of those issues.

However much I might know or not know about the bible, I know the creation myth therein took more than 500 words.

You are the only one declaring or even mentioning "enemy". Just stop with that shit. It has no place here.

[zeemike]

125. Well I see you wish to escalate it with that last sentence.

"it has no place here" All in bold
And that was my previous point...this is GD and this has no place here unless the other side, those who want to post something they think proves the bible, can post in GD too.

And it is MY OPINION. that things like this are posted to insult those people of faith, and if any of them try to jump in and counter it they will be insulted or alerted on...and you know it.
And now you are indignant that I used the work enemies (as if that is a forbidden word in this place) and perhaps the next step is to alert on anyone that uses that forbidden word in a sentence...that kind of shit sucks, and makes DU a smaller tent all the time.

IMO this is not about discussing any issue relating to the bible, it is about running off anyone who might have faith in it...and that is why it is posted in GD and not the religious forum even though the rules say that is where it should be...at least if it is pro in any way.

And NO one does not need to take sides on this...this is not a war, and what people believe should make no difference to you at all...we are responsible for what we do not what we think...at least in a free country.

And I have nothing left to say

[snooper2]

126. "camel technology had become common"

LOL, you wrote that

[MisterP]

40. plus it's a rip-off of Borges!

[JRLeft]

43. LMFAO more Lewis Black on creationism.

[Xolodno]

63. There is a lot of embelishment within and outside of the Bible.

We know King David existed due to a Hittite King recording a victory over the "House of David". The story of David vs. Goliath could very well be true and be about a young David beating someone with Giant-ism, who probably sucked at battle but was a good Psychological "device".

But it is known that Goliath was not wearing Bronze Armor as it didn't exist then and as its detailed in the story...physically impossible to carry. But the story was re-written around the time of the Greek occupation....who just so happened to wear, bronze armor. So it was rewritten for propaganda purposes to spur the population to revolt...hey if David could be this "bad ass giant in bronze armor...."

Likewise Josephus wrote the account of the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans.....and Jerusalem sure didn't have white marble pillars as he stated. But, if a Roman General is to have any "clout"...they need to exaggerate the difficulty and glory of the conquest....and thus its entered into the "record" that Jerusalem was much more "extravagant" than it really was.

Shoot, for all we know, Greek Mythology (or any really) could be based on actual events...but was embellished and exaggerated over time.

Plus lets not forget, the Old Testament was supposed to be a moral and legal guide in one part. In the other, justify the politics at the time (See Saul vs. Goliath). All the while uniting the people in culture and in faith.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

65. This significant only to biblical literalists...

To people "of the book" who are comfortable with the idea that the Bible is full of allegory and not meant to be taken literally, this isn't particularly troubling.

[NightWatcher]

66. Holy shit, it's just a book.. that's been re-"translated" and manipulated for centuries

Argh, it wears me out sometimes how the literalists are so damn, well literal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

68. Ok one bone to pick with you

it has been re-translated and manipulated for millennia.

[NightWatcher]

69. Fine, if you're going to be that way

I'm stealing your signature line

[nadinbrzezinski]

72. Hey feel free

[KamaAina]

91. Everyone knows the early Jewish patriarchs rode dinosaurs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

96. Now that IS a painting waiting to happen

for an internet meme!!!!!

Old Abraham using a stair to get to the top of a T-Rex... nothing less would do. Of course a hoodah is essential. The man was over 900 years old, if I am not mixing him with Noah.

[Ichingcarpenter]

98. Scientific evidence shows there was a Great World Flood

It was when the great mile thick ice caps melted, Doggerland, was just one of its victims and that only happened about 6,500 or 6,200 BCE. Also the Black Sea, The Mediterranean did not dry out during the most recent glacial maximum. Sea Level during glacial periods within the Pleistocene is estimated to have dropped only about 110 to 120 metres (361 to 394 ft).In contrast, the depth of the Strait of Gibraltar where the Atlantic Ocean enters ranges between 300 and 900 metres (980 and 2,950 ft).........


That's a lot of premier real estate that got washed away


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


Most ancient myths of giant floods are true
be it from Australia to Europe to the Americas


The Jewish bible is not that old, they were late comers to history.

[upaloopa]

102. Isn't wikipedia just people's opinion?

Why is it any more accurate than the bible?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

115. Wrong.

Wikipedia is a set of globally sifted and refined writings which are referenced and verifiable from primary sources.

The bible is unreferenced and was generated by a small select group of people centuries ago and is impervious to criticism or updating. Most damning of all is that it is provably wrong in many ways.

[cthulu2016]

103. That is not a flood

The whole point of a flood is that it occurs in a short span of time

Changing sea levels are quite unlikely to have anything to do with myths of catastrophic floods... or myths of the equally sudden recession of such floods.

[Ichingcarpenter]

121. A Flood by defination

A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land which is usually dry

And many of these examples I give happened quite suddenly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland because of ice dams breaking. The Rain just adds drama to the story.

If and the data suggests it, a comet hit the north american ice sheet during the start of the Younger Dryas period, then that flooding would have been very fast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas


The Sumerian text and Indian Matsya Purana text are just the first written recordings of a flood. But oral history can go back further.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsya_Purana

Oddly enough a new Sumerian text has been found that is 1200years older than anything found before where they describe their ark as round which has the followers of the Noah story in a fit.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/01/25/world/ancient-script-says-noahs-ark-round/#.UvyEc2RdV2c

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545494/Was-Noahs-Ark-ROUND-3-700-year-old-clay-tablet-reveals-boat-coracle-reeds-bitumen.html

http://www.muldersworld.com/photo.asp?id=13390

Flood Myths in many old world cultures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths

The amount of coastal land mass lost during the rising of the seas is equal to the continent of South America.


A world wide flood happened to the people of the earth but not as the bible describes it.

[NuclearDem]

105. Nearly all early human societies formed around rivers.

Tigris, Euphrates, Yellow, Nile, Yangtzee, etc. Rivers flood. When floodwaters recede, the ground is newly rejuvenated for agriculture. Myths form about great floods wiping out the old and bringing new life and a new order.

They're not all referring to one massive flood, they're just mythologizing their environments.

[Vashta Nerada]

140. There is no evidence of a worldwide flood that happened in the bible times.

Don't bother debating me on this. I majored in Geology as an undergrad and we discussed this at length in one of my classes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

141. No there is no evidence of this

What we have is actually the original Sumerian story of Prince Noah and his ark, who were washed out to sea. It was a really small ark, and space only for the family stuck on what was supposed to be a short trip, and the chickens and goats.

Now that story matches archeological findings. Global though, nope, none at all.

[NorthCarolina]

104. Some scholars claim the bible was written by Roman aristocrats

So it is very likely there were camels at the time it was scribed.

Bible scholar claims Christianity invented as part of ancient Roman psy-ops campaign

Joseph Atwill will present his controversial theory Oct. 19 in London that the New Testament was written by first-century Roman aristocrats as part of a sophisticated government project to help pacify Jews in occupied territories.

Atwill, author of “Caesar’s Messiah,” claims he’s found ancient confessions by the scriptures’ authors that they invented Jesus Christ and his story as basically a form of propaganda.

“Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century,” Atwill said. “When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That’s when the ‘peaceful’ Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to ‘give onto Caesar’ and pay their taxes to Rome.”

He says that Jesus was not based on an actual historical figure, but Atwill argues that the events of his life were overlaid on top of actual events from the First Jewish-Roman War, waged by Emperor Titus Flavius in Palestinian territories.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/10/bible-scholar-christianity-invented-as-part-of-ancient-roman-psy-ops-campaign/

[nadinbrzezinski]

134. That is the NEW Testament

the Old Testament, which is completely separate and much older is not part of this theory.

What is consistent though is the already acknowledged (in archeological circles that is, and has been for a few decades) is tha tthe old testament was partly a propaganda exercise. The OP refers to the old testament.

[jberryhill]

106. .

[Jamastiene]

107. But...but...the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Surely there were camels 6,000 years ago, right? How dare you question the literal word of God. He wrote every single word of the Bible. So, it MUST be true.

[blackspade]

112. Ham's head just exploded....

[wheniwasincongress]

122. Maybe it was slaves in camel costumes.

Camels are smart, smart animals that are difficult to train - and they're just as difficult once trained.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

127. "The bible is a book with some beautiful poetry, a bloodstained history, a wealth of obscenity, and

upwards of 10,000 lies." Mark Twain

[Douglas Carpenter]

130. following the History Channel - I would have to surmise that the camels were probably brought to

Last edited Sun Feb 16, 2014, 02:58 AM - Edit history (1)

earth by space aliens - They may have disappeared for awhile because of the work of the Illuminati. This is revealed in the secret ceremonies of the ancient Masonic Order and the parables of Nostradamus.

Without the History Channel I would have never been able to think for myself and figure these things out

[nadinbrzezinski]

133. Thread winner!!!!

You win the internet today

[Arugula Latte]

139. Hey, that makes as much sense as the Bible.

Run with it.

[WillyT]

143. I Have Always... Found The Camels Questionable...

[Recursion]

144. Also, kilts were invented about 250 years after the events depicted in "Braveheart"

It would be like making a movie with George Washington talking on his iPhone.

[ladyVet]

147. Well, duh. It's fiction. They made shit up.

Or they stole it from some other culture. Who made shit up.