[Avodah] national flag???

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2011 at 09:24:06AM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>                                                             That camels  
> hadn't been domesticated at the time of Avraham Avinu.

Tangent: As Lisa notes, Bible Critics have made that claim, that this
piece of the story is an anachronism. Archeology since showed, though,
that in Egypt they 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).

This also explains how Rivqa's family recognized the camels as Avraham's
(Bereishis 24:10, c.f. Rashi). We don't need to assume, as Rashi does,
that she saw they were muzzled. Camels from Canaan were altogether a
rarity -- how else would Eliezer have come to have any to give?

(Besheim omro: I heard this from my rebbe-chaver, R' Jack Love.)

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
micha at aishdas.org        to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      - George Elliot