Camel Bones and Jerusalem: Archeology Shows Bible Written Late, Full of Errors [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Camel Bones and Jerusalem: Archeology Shows Bible Written Late, Full of Errors
Posted on Feb 8, 2014
By Juan Cole

A new paper by Israeli archeologists Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef, (pdf) posted at the University of Tel Aviv web site, is bad news for biblical literalists and far right wing Israeli nationalists who use the Bible for support.

The Hebrew Bible’s oldest chapters– Genesis, Exodus, and even Judges purport to discuss events thousands of years ago. The custom in Western biblical scholarship is to date Abraham to e.g. 2000 B.C. This dating is based on nothing more than counting generations (“begats”) backward and assigning an arbitrary number of years to each generation. In fact, Genesis is replete with myths and assertions of people living hundreds of years, and was only historicized in this way by 19th century positivists.

But here is proof that the Bible was written late and projects later developments into the distant past: it alleges that people had domesticated camels four millennia ago in what is now Israel. And that assertion, folks, is simply not true. That is the finding of Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef.

E.g. Genesis 24: 64 says, “Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel.” If this encounter happened circa 2026 BC, it was happening a thousand years before anyone was riding camels.

More:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/camel_bones_and_jerusalem_archeology_shows_bible_full_of_errors_20140208