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

[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.