Yes, Abraham Could Have Ridden a Camel

At various points, the book of Genesis mentions characters who own camels. For instance, Genesis 12:16 mentions Abraham acquiring camels along with other livestock, and Rebecca comes from the land of Aram to Canaan, on her way to marry Abraham’s son Isaac, riding on a camel (24:61). Scholars have for years seen these passages as obvious anachronisms, since evidence suggests that domesticated camels were not introduced to the Land of Israel until around the 10th century BCE, while Abraham, Rebecca, and the other patriarchs would have lived six to ten centuries earlier. But the case is not so clear-cut as these scholars have assumed, writes Megan Sauter:

Abraham’s [and Rebecca’s] place of origin was not Canaan—but Mesopotamia. Thus, to ascertain whether Abraham’s camels are anachronistic, we need to ask: when were camels first domesticated in Mesopotamia? . . . Biblical accounts of the patriarchs and matriarchs have been traditionally dated to ca. 2000–1600 BCE. Camels appear in Mesopotamian sources in the third millennium BCE—before this period. However, the mere presence of camels in sources does not necessarily mean that camels were domesticated. . . .

One of the first pieces of evidence for camel domestication comes from the site of Eshnunna in modern Iraq. A plaque from the mid-third millennium shows a camel being ridden by a human. Another source is a 21st-century-BCE text from Puzrish-Dagan in modern Iraq that may record camel deliveries. Third, an 18th-century text (quoting from an earlier third-millennium text) from Nippur in modern Iraq says, “the milk of the camel is sweet.” . . . Next, an 18th-century-BCE cylinder seal depicts a two-humped camel with riders. Although this seal’s exact place of origin is unknown, it reputedly comes from Syria. . . .

Although domesticated camels may not have been widespread in Mesopotamia in the second millennium, these pieces of evidence show that by [this time] there were at least some domesticated camels. . . . Accordingly, the camels in the stories of Abraham in Genesis are not anachronistic.

Read more at Bible History Daily

More about: Abraham, Ancient Near East, Archaeology, Genesis, History & Ideas

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society