Camels in Genesis not historically accurate?

[Christmahanikwanzikah]

HOLY SHET SOMTHIN IN TEH BIBEL IS WRONG EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE!

In a more serious note, Genesis is pretty much one big parable.

The massacre of the Shechemites (because laws for rape weren't exactly common back then) isn't really parable material.

Abrahams' Trial: Totally a parable.

[Pyke and the Iron Isles]

Something in the bible is largely fictionalized? Color me absolutely shocked.

[Greed and Death]

Something in the bible is largely fictionalized? Color me absolutely shocked.

I would not say fictionalized just background information was adjusted to fit changing times.

Think of it as Shakespeare's play adding gun powder to the battle of Agincourt in Henry the V.


Camels were not relevant to any of the stories presented from a religious standpoint.

[Cannot think of a name]

Burning bushes still talk, though, right?

[Indira]

Carbon dating is B.S.

Carbon dating works pretty well. Might I suggest familiarising yourself with the subject before making bs claims? Here's the relevant wiki page for you

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

Given the Bible's lack of accuracy on a LOT of things...I'm not surprised

[Vicious Debaters]

The thing that really surprises me and refutes the Bible is that we've proven camels weren't domesticated back then.

I can believe in the talking snake, the whole human race coming from two people, and the giant flood destroying the earth. It's the camels that the Bible got wrong.

Seriously the Bible is filled with a great many unusual and unlikely claims. The 'camels thing' is just a tiny speck of icing on a much, much larger cake.

[Benuty]

The thing that really surprises me and refutes the Bible is that we've proven camels weren't domesticated back then.

I can believe in the talking snake, the whole human race coming from two people, and the giant flood destroying the earth. It's the camels that the Bible got wrong.

Seriously the Bible is filled with a great many unusual and unlikely claims. The 'camels thing' is just a tiny speck of icing on a much, much larger cake.

The whole biblical incest thing really falls apart considering Cain took a wife..that wasn't his sister or for that fact his mother.

[Vicious Debaters]

The whole biblical incest thing really falls apart considering Cain took a wife..that wasn't his sister or for that fact his mother.

Where'd she come from? That's a good point, but I have no idea where Cain's wife came from if she wasn't a daughter of Adam.

Anyway, I was questioning the Bible at the very start. The concept of an omnipotent being waving his hands and making random shit appear out of thin air seemed odd, as was his obsessive fascination with humans worshiping him.

The camel thing.... . I guess anything that starts the debate up is good, but it's such a small point compared to the great amount of nonsense in the Bible!

[Ikania]

NOOOO, I DIDN'T SEE THE ALPACAS OPTION UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE.

ALPACA GODS, FORGIVE ME AND GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO VOTE AGAIN!

[Cannot think of a name]

The thing that really surprises me and refutes the Bible is that we've proven camels weren't domesticated back then.

I can believe in the talking snake, the whole human race coming from two people, and the giant flood destroying the earth. It's the camels that the Bible got wrong.

Seriously the Bible is filled with a great many unusual and unlikely claims. The 'camels thing' is just a tiny speck of icing on a much, much larger cake.

Even though I pretty much made this exact snarky point earlier, I imagine that this discovery was really more of a curiousity from the people who discovered it, "Oh, turns out that it wouldn't have been camels. Huh. Okay, on to trying to establish the time line of societal development or whatever it is archeologists do" rather than someone actively going, "Ah ha! This'll show them thar Christians once and fer all!"

Everything stemming out from that is just a chance to make jokes.

[Hladgos]

All religion is made up, so of course it's innacurate.

[Fretten]

More bullshit to add to the pile.
By that I mean this is true and I agree with it and am saying that there is more bullwhip in the Bible as well.
Sheesh.

[Cannot think of a name]

his obsessive fascination with humans worshiping him.

I don't know, I didn't create my dog but I sure want the little fucker to be happy to see me...





...that was the best I could come up with...

[Serocia]

I was unaware the Holy Bible gave a date for when Genesis happened. . .

Also, I don't understand how carbon dating can show when an animal was domesticated.
In addition, assuming this is all correct, I would blame it on a mistranslation.

[Benuty]

All religion is made up, so of course it's innacurate.

How observing .

[Chinese Regions]

Carbon dating is B.S.

Well I suppose bovine faeces are a sufficient source of carbon and of course contains carbon-14 amongst it.

[Serocia]

Carbon dating is B.S.

I googled your sentence and the first page was results from christian websites. I think that makes your claim illegitimate.

Why would you Google a sentence? Unless you're checking to see if it's plagiarized, it's rather pointless. Anyways, I searched it online, and I found no such Sites. Irrespective, simply because it's Christian does not make it illegitimate. I might as well say, "You're atheist [I'm assuming here], therefore, whatever you say is not legitimate."

[Northwest Slobovia]

If it proves anything, it may just be that the Bible isn't an accurate judge of biological history, but I suspect many people guessed that already.

Duh. Bronze age myths aren't generally good guides to history. Beyond the "obviously" mythological stuff in them, both the Illiad and Odessey have some winners too.* Also, pope still makes shit up in the Vatican; bears still thinking about that "Cub of God" thing in the woods.

*: same sort of thing, actually: they were confused about (military) technological history, and did their best to cobble a story together around what they thought they knew.

[Allanea]

Okay, let's accept for a moment every single event in the Bible actually transpired exactly as described.


...this still doesn't mean the ethical claims made in the Bible are true.

[Sun Wukong]

New research using radioactive-carbon dating techniques shows the animals weren't domesticated until hundreds of years after the events documented in the Book of Genesis. The research was published by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University in Israel. They believe camels were not domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean until the 10th century B.C.

This paragraph is baffling. When, exactly, were the events of Genesis supposed to have taken place? It's as though they have a fixed date for it.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Okay, let's accept for a moment every single event in the Bible actually transpired exactly as described.


...this still doesn't mean the ethical claims made in the Bible are true.

Not sure if serious.

[Benuty]

Okay, let's accept for a moment every single event in the Bible actually transpired exactly as described.


...this still doesn't mean the ethical claims made in the Bible are true.

Depends on the nature of the topic honestly. Now the whole "the ethics of eternal punishment" is a good topic just not biblical relevant outside of determining how literalist ultra-evangelicals came to accept a literal everlasting punishment.
*I kind of had a feeling you were leaning toward that.

[Northwest Slobovia]

New research using radioactive-carbon dating techniques shows the animals weren't domesticated until hundreds of years after the events documented in the Book of Genesis. The research was published by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University in Israel. They believe camels were not domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean until the 10th century B.C.

This paragraph is baffling. When, exactly, were the events of Genesis supposed to have taken place? It's as though they have a fixed date for it.

The Davidic Kingdom is generally dated to ~10th c. BCE, and one would like to think that events that are supposed to have taken place before it have, y'know, taken place before it.

[Serocia]

New research using radioactive-carbon dating techniques shows the animals weren't domesticated until hundreds of years after the events documented in the Book of Genesis. The research was published by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University in Israel. They believe camels were not domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean until the 10th century B.C.

This paragraph is baffling. When, exactly, were the events of Genesis supposed to have taken place? It's as though they have a fixed date for it.

Exactly.

Maybe they're using that young Earth creationism concept. But I don't give this any legitimacy precisely because they claim to know when Genesis took place.

[Cannot think of a name]

Irrespective, simply because it's Christian does not make it illegitimate.

Well, presumably it would not be a scientific critique but one meant solely to defend an ideology, which is to say it would have more weight if it was from "Super Sciency Journal of Scientific Things, contributed and edited by Science People" than from "Fuck You, My Stories Are Totally True.com"