[Avodah] Domesticated Camels

[Jay F Shachter]

>
> Archeology since showed, though, that in Egypt they [that is,
> camels] were already domesticated.  And note that of the three "she
> is my sister" stories -- Avraham and Avimelekh, Avraham and Par'o,
> Yitzchaq and Avimelekh -- it is only the one where they go to
> Mitzrayim where they are described as returning with camels. So,
> rather than being anachronistic, there is detail here that wouldn't
> have been known centuries later, and a differentiation between
> similar event that indicates they weren't variants of a single
> legend (as the critics claim).
>

It is interesting that no one in the Torah is described as owning
camels until Avram goes to Egypt, but bringing in the other two "she
is my sister" stories doesn't make this argument more persuasive.
First of all, the Avimelech Jr. story has no place here at all,
because there is no mention of property at all in the Avimelech
Jr. story.  Avimelech Jr. does not give Yitsxaq any camels, but he
also doesn't give him a basket of fruit, he gives him nothing except a
scolding (a couple of verses later, though, in Genesis 26:14, the
Torah gives us a rundown of Yitsxaq's wealth, and doesn't say anything
about camels).

Now, in the Avimelech Sr. story, there is a mention of property.  In
Genesis 20:14 Avimelech Sr. gives Avraham "tzon" (which could be
either sheep, or goats, or both), and cattle, and slaves; in Genesis
20:16 he also claims to have given him silver (although it is also
possible that he was just stating the monetary value of the property
he had given him in Verse 14).  Camels are not mentioned.  The
above-quote passage wishes to contrast these verses with Genesis
12:16, which tells us that when Avram was in Egypt, he had camels.
But it's stretch to say that this means that there were plenty of
camels in Egypt and few in Canaan.  The two verses really can't be
compared.  Genesis 12:16 is a rundown of Avram's wealth, and it's
similar in purpose to Genesis 13:2, whereas Genesis 20:14 describes a
specific act, it tells us what Avimelekh Sr. gave to Avraham on that
one occasion, it is not there to tell us what kind of wealth existed
in Canaan at that time, nor even what kind of property Avimelekh
Sr., or Avraham, had at that time.  You might be trying to read
Genesis 12:16 as a description of stuff that Pharaoh gave to Avram --
which would make the two passages more comparable -- but that isn't
what the verse says.  The verse doesn't say that Pharaoh gave that
stuff to Avram, it just says that Avram had it.  If the Torah had
wanted to tell us that Pharaoh gave Avram that stuff, it would have
used the verb n-t-n, as it does in Genesis 20:14.

A more important point is that when archeologists and other social
scientists speak about domesticating an animal (e.g., "the camel was
not domesticated until such-and-such a time"), they are saying
something more than that people were using the animal, or even
claiming ownership over it, and trading in it.  They mean that the
animals were living with people, and that they were dependent on
people for their food.  Genesis 12:16 doesn't really support an
archeologist's claim that the camel was domesticated in Egypt in the
time of Avram, nor would it contradict an acheologist's claim that the
camel was not domesticated in Egypt in the time of Avram.  For
example, there were tame elephants in the ancient world -- even to the
point where they could be saddled, and effectively used in warfare --
but there were not domesticated elephants in the ancient world (nor
are there domesticated elephants today, for that matter).  We have
tame bears nowadays, and tame lions, but we do not have domesticated
bears, or domesticated lions.

Now, if archeologists wanted to claim that camels were not
domesticated in Mesopotamia in the time of Rivka, then they would be
claiming something clearly contradicted by the Biblical text.  Rivka
is a city girl, but she knows all about camels, both she and her
servants know how to ride them (see Genesis 24:61), she knows how much
they drink after traveling thru the desert (remember, that's the whole
point of the story, there wouldn't be much point to the story if she
volunteered to water the camels without knowing what she was in for),
and, most significant of all, her household is furnished with camel
food (see Genesis 24:32) and camel quarters (see Genesis 24:31).  This
is clearly a society that has domesticated the camel, and if
Mesopotamian society had not domesticated the camel by the time of
Rivka, then large portions of Genesis 24 are anachronistic.



                Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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