Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Camels and the Bible: The Twisted Logic of the New York Times

That great theological journal, The New York Times, has published an article by John Noble Wilford, titled
"Camels had no business in Genesis.", the author quotes the rather bizarre claims of two Israeli archaeologists. Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen claim that their use of radio-carbon dating on an enormous total of two archaeological sites has "proved" that camels were not domesticated at the time of the Patriarchs.

This is being trumpeted by the NYT and other pillars of anti-Christianity as a proof the Old Testament is historically inaccurate. Interestingly the archaeologist found camel bones at the sites during the time of the Patriarchs but decided they were wild camels that were eaten. How they knew that these people didn't eat the camels they domesticated is not made clear.

Of course it is clear that both the archaeologists and the NYT have an agenda. On the one hand it is obvious
that in part it is an element in the struggle between secular and orthodox Jews in Israel. The NYT on the other hand is just concerned with attacking Christianity. The only surprise is that they haven't waited till Easter or Christmas like they usually do.

One thing we know is that eventually this story will be disproved, as so many of these, (like the Jesus tomb story) have.  Also we know that when it is, the refutation will not be reported. Just as when liberals argued Pontius Pilate was a fictional character only to be proven wrong or when they denied the existence of the Hittites.

No doubt this will be up on every atheist website before the week is out. Christians will be confronted by this by everyone from liberals to neo-nazis as proof the OT is false. The Church will survive this attack , but many undiscerning individuals will be deceived. Clearly the publication of this article tells us more about the Times and its bias rather than the accuracy of the OT.

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