The Camel Controversy: New Discoveries That Challenge Old Beliefs

About a hundred years ago, systematic archaeological excavations began in the land of Israel. One of the pioneering archaeologists who excavated the area was Professor William Foxwell Albright, a significant figure in the field. Albright was not Jewish, but he was a believer, and he discovered many findings linked to the Torah and the Prophets.

However, human perception is limited. Albright approached his work as a researcher, not as someone with complete faith, and therefore, when faced with challenges, he allowed himself to question the sacred words of the Torah.

Albright found traces of the Exodus, the Israelites, Joshua, and the kings, but there was one thing he didn't find: camels. The Torah describes camels during the time of Abraham and later, and even in this week's Torah portion, the camel is mentioned as forbidden to eat. Yet, archaeological excavations did not uncover camel remains from the Torah period. What now?

A person of faith would understand that just because something hasn't been found doesn't mean it didn't exist. There are many things we haven't found, yet they existed. We might still find them. It's also possible that camels weren't very common. A species that's very common leaves remains, but a rare one might not leave enough remains. Ultimately, only a tiny fraction of animals leave any trace after them. If we consider the number of animals that lived just in our small land over thousands of years, it's clear that most left no trace.

Yet Albright wrote in his books that camels hadn't been domesticated by the time of the Torah. It was understood they existed in nature but weren't used by city dwellers in Israel and the surrounding area.

Since Albright was an authority and a believer, his opinion gained traction and acceptance. Even Albright said it.

However, over time, evidence of domesticated camels repeatedly surfaced. In 1967, Shneor Zalman Lehmann published a long list of domesticated camel findings. At Har Tawak, 150 km east of Aqaba, 100 camels carved in rock were found, dating to the Mesolithic period; at Sha'ar Hagolan, broken camel bones from the Neolithic period were found (after hunting); at Tel Halaf, Oppenheim found wall paintings of a camel with a rider, dated to 3000 BCE; "Hubolos," an Egyptian camel form, dates back to the early second millennium; at Tel Farah, near Shechem, a camel jawbone was found dating to the Middle Bronze Age in a grave; at Telloha, a camel was found; a Mitanni seal showed a camel and its rider (dated to the 14th-16th centuries); in Helwam, Egypt, camel bones were found in 1947 in a grave from 3200 BCE; a camel tether was found in Stnata, also in Egypt, from the 3rd or 4th millennium BCE; Petrie found camel figures at Jebel Silsila from the 18th century BCE, and there are many similar findings.

But as the sages said, "Once a mistake takes hold, it persists." To this day, Biblical skeptics wave the "absence of camels" flag, and if you try to explain to them that there's no longer such an absence, they will retort that Albright already said...