I’ve been seeing several references to this story from the New York Times claiming that references to camels in Genesis are anachronistic.  The basis of the claim is the absence of evidence of camel’s used as pack animals at sites before the 10th Century B.C.  Older camel bones have been found, but they were determined to not have been used as pack animals because ” Dr. Sapir-Hen could identify a domesticated animal by signs in leg bones that it had carried heavy loads.”  According to another report on the findings “Archaeologists have established that camels were probably domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula for use as pack animals sometime towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE.”

I would be hesitant to dismiss the biblical accounts too quick.  Methodologically, I would question using the results of a dig in a settled mining community to make claims about a single nomadic family from a foreign culture.  It is interesting that most Old Testament references to domestic use of the camel are during the time of the patriarchs, that is before Israel’s time in Egypt.  That a nomadic family that used camels at one time might abandon them after settling into an agricultural society and being forced into slavery is no stretch of the imagination.

Moreover, while archaeological evidence can prove the existence of something, the absence of evidence is not proof of a lack of existence.  If you see a picture of me at a party, you have evidence that I was there, but my not being in a picture is not proof that I wasn’t there.  Several biblical accounts previously dismissed as legendary or mythical due to lack of archaeological evidence have later found verification such as Sodom & Gomorrah and King David.

These studies are helpful, but a more modest might be to recognize camels don’t appear to have been used to a wide extent.  To claim that the veracity of the scriptures has been destroyed on the basis someone’s ability to determine whether a 3000 year old leg bone was from a domestic or a wild camel is grasping at a straw to break the proverbial back.