Hi Ted
This line of argumentation is very much out of character for you.
JackRT
Hi jack,
Thanks. However, I do believe that there is some value in calling a spade a spade. I think RLH actually addressed the argument on the basis of what evidence supports the argument and what evidence refutes it. I also provided some evidence in the post immediately preceding the one you're questioning, a line of evidence that camels had passed into the Eurasia continent as long as 3-5 million years ago. Putting them in the general area of Europe and the Middle East many, many thousands of years before this blogger says they wouldn't have existed.
Now personnaly, I discount the 3-5 million year hypothesis also, because I'm a young earth creationist, but I do allow that there must then be some evidence that camels existed in the area at least as far back as Abraham and his descendants.
Finally, as a few others have attested, I don't see why there would be any particularly valid reason that we wouldn't just accept the testimony of the Scriptures. There was a caravan of traders, using camels, who passed by the cistern in which they had thrown Joseph. The other brothers hailed the caravan and turned over their brother to them to be used as a slave. This action then leads to the salvation of the whole tribe of Israel when a great famine strikes the land. I'm rather at a loss as to why anyone who claims to be a believer, would question those simple facts just because there may be some disagreement as to when camels were 'considered' domesticated.
I understand that when archaeologists and such date a lot of their findings, that those dates are approximations. It isn't like they found a book that had a copyright date of 1925 B.C. where someone wrote, "Today I found this odd animal, locally refereed to as a camel, and I domesticated the first one. No, not at all. They find old records that mention camels. Maybe an account just as the one found in the Scriptures, and then they attempt to date how old the account is based on various findings in other evidence surrounding the find. But it's all relative guess work and there really isn't any real reason that such guess work may A: be off by a thousand years and B: not really be the first written record of such a thing, but only the first that has been unearthed.
Finally, I think it worth considering the times. Today, we can go down to the local Office Depot or Walmart or Office Max and buy reams of paper and cases of pens and pencils. We can spend our time writing down every word, every thought, every deed that comes along 'every' day. 4,000 years ago, while there was obviously writing, it wasn't as easy to write down everything that was going on in everyone's life. The Scriptures tell us that Abraham had large herds. Have we found a single bill of sale or record of Abraham's herds? What proof should we expect to find to verify such an account? So, I just think we should at least be mindful that finding evidence to support any position regarding how things happened thousands of years ago is difficult and sometimes even impossible.
RLH has provided some evidence that there were camels being used as domesticated animals to carry burdens in copper mines in the time of Solomon. Are we to believe that this was the first time that camels were ever used as working animals and, therefore, no one before King Solomon could have used camels? Or, is it more likely that camels had been used as animals of burden for some time before that, but this is the first written evidence of such? Today we live in an age where there are written accounts in magazines and newspapers all over the world that Tesla sold it's first truck. That kind of communication didn't exist 4,000 years ago.
4,000 years from now will anyone be able to find the records of the first time there was a Tesla truck? So, 'knowing' that something didn't exist because we only have records of such a thing existing later, isn't really any solid proof that the thing didn't exist previous to the first records that we've found.
God bless,
In Christ, ted
