Were camels domesticated in Abraham’s time?

F. Albright, one of the most famous 20^th century archaeologists, argued that the camel was not domesticated until around the 1^st millennium, well after the time of Abraham.

According to Albright, any mention of camels in the period of Abraham is a blatant anachronism, the product of later priestly tampering with the earlier texts in order to bring more in line with altered social conditions.[1]

This was considered persuasive by many Biblical scholars, who were convinced that references in Genesis to camels in Egypt during the time of Abraham[2] are anachronistic.

The almost unanimous opinion of Biblical scholars is that mention of domesticated camels in the Patriarchal narratives (Gn 12:16; 24:10; 30:43) constitutes an anachronism. Camels, they say, were not domesticated until late in the second millennium BC, centuries after the Patriarchs were supposed to have lived.[3]

Evidence for domestication

Some evidence alleged for very early camel use in Mesopotamia has proved dubious.[4] Evidence for camel domestication reported by the French archaeologist Petrie in 1907dates to the Ramesside era in Egypt (1292-1069 BCE), still too late for Abraham (from around 1900 BCE), though significantly earlier than Albright’s date.

The pottery figure of a camel laden with water-jars was found in a tomb of the XIXth dynasty in the northern cemetery. There were no traces of a later re-use of the tomb; the style of the figure is of the rough fingered pottery of the XIXth dynasty, and quite unlike any of the moulded Roman figures; and the water-jar, is of the XIVIIIth-XIXth dynasty type and not of a form used in Greek or Roman times. Hence it is impossible to assign this to the age when the camel is familiar in Egypt, and it shows that as early as Ramesside times it was sufficiently common to be used as a beast of burden.[5]

Evidence for early camel domestication elsewhere in the Ancient Near East and North Africa is well documented, and has been used to defend the Genesis account.

Camels are not anachronistic in the early second millennium BC, but find only sparing attestation and use both in Genesis and external sources then and until the twelfth century BC.[6]

Both the dromedary (the one-humped camel of Arabia) and the Bactrian camel (the two-humped camel of Central Asia) had been domesticated since before 2000 BC. [7]

Excavations in eastern Arabia, an area once believed to be a cultural backwater unworthy of archaeological investigation, have turned up evidence that camels were first domesticated by Semites before the time of Abraham. Much of this evidence has been examined by M. C. A. MacDonald of the Oriental Faculty at the University of Oxford.[8]

It is recognized domesticated camel caravans must have passed through Egypt at an early date, even though the Egyptians made no reference to them at this time.

In view of the very early caravan links between Arabia and the Nile Valley, it would be very surprising if the camel had not reached Egypt before the first millennium BC; doubtless there were religious reasons for the lack of representations of this animal earlier than this. Camels could have been first introduced to Egypt from 1680 BC by the invading Hyksos, but it is not until the end of the second millennium that references to them begin to be found… [9]

Bulliet observes that evidence for the early domestication of the camel in Mesopotamia cannot be ignored on the basis of their absence in Egyptian evidence.[10] He agrees with Albright that evidence for Syrian domestic camel use during the 3^rd to 2^nd millennium is absent,[11] and argues the undisputed evidence of their use elsewhere in Mesopotamia indicates they entered the area on a very small scale as pack animals by rich traders, rather than being herded in large numbers.

‘In other words, the presence of camels in the Abraham story can be defended and the story treated as primary evidence of camel use without disputing Albright’s contention that camel-breeding nomads did not exist in Syria and northern Arabia at that time.’[12]

Conclusion

Firm evidence for very early camel domestication in Egypt[13] [14]  has caused some scholars to reconsider the Biblical narrative.

However, there is now a growing body of scholars who believe that camel domestication must have occurred earlier than previously thought (prior to the 12th century BC) and that the patriarchal narratives accurately reflect this (e.g., Ripinsky 1984; Coote and Whitelam 1987: 102; Zarins 1992: 826; Borowski 1998: 112–18).[15]

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