4-Stick Camel saddle

Typically there are three thick pads placed over the camels back and then one or two pair of sticks are added crossing over the withers and bound in position with a rope passing under the chest and belly or tail.

http://camelphotos.com/camel_saddle_kenya.html
2-Stick Riding saddle

By adding a pad to the top it becomes a simple riding saddle

same source as above.

Now me, and maybe it is just me, if I had a camel around the house, the first thing I would have done is figure a way to carry stuff on one, with the stuff including me. The above pictures are nothing fancy but they work and I doubt that it took hundreds of years or a thousand years to figure out.

Oh, and note, that given the simplicity of the arrangement it is unlikely one would have survived intact for examination 4000 years later.

The above pictures are nothing fancy but they work and I doubt that it took hundreds of years or a thousand years to figure out.

You doubt it took that long. Flawless argument! I'm sure if you'd lived back then, you'd be the person who invented the wheel also.

Interbane wrote:

The above pictures are nothing fancy but they work and I doubt that it took hundreds of years or a thousand years to figure out.

You doubt it took that long. Flawless argument! I'm sure if you'd lived back then, you'd be the person who invented the wheel also.

The wheel was a revolutionary (love it) innovation, and without having one already the concept had to be visualized. On the other hand, people had been contriving to put things and themselves on animals for transportation for a long time so the camel was just one more animal to develop a rig for.

It is amazing that every word in the Bible has to be examined critically. What is the point of questioning the idea of camels being referred to in Genesis? Perhaps the time could be better spent in developing correct list of Bible books then challenging animal references. For me the howling isn't in that, it is in giving so little credit to the ancients that one posits a thousand years to put two sticks together.

Sometimes the weatherman should just look outside to determine if it is raining.

I missed any references in the material to backup the claims. As far as I can tell they are unsupported opinions and as such are not exactly useless but not much more than that.

We all missed any references in your above quotations regarding domestication to back up the idea that camels were used for burden at that same time. As far as anyone can tell, they are just your unsupported conjectures and nothing more than that.

I don't see any fix for the dates.

You already saw a fix for the date ranges in the first citation. 3rd millenium for domestication, mid-2nd to early-1st millenium for burden.

All I see is a claim that there was a time lapse between domestication and use for transportation.

And I have seen NO claim that their usage for burden began simultaneously with early domestication or their usage for milk, etc. And that is because the earliest evidence of burden usage does not date as early as the evidence for domestication for other purposes.

The claim also does not make sense, hundreds of years or a thousand years to upgrade their ride?

No, it makes sense, because, as even you have demonstrated, establishing the earliest time for domestication of camels has not been so easy to pin down, and has already been shown to be earlier than once thought. If it should turn out that domestication began even EARLIER than we suspect now, then yes, that would further the gap even more. It seems you are assuming that using camels for burden is the whimsical uncertain date while the beginning of domestication is the date set in stone, yet it is more obvious and succinct that the date for the beginning of domestication is what is more uncertain and subject to change.

Same comment as above. I have looked at a number of pictures of camels being ridden and used to carry things. The process does not seem challenging in either case. I find it hard to believe that camels would be around as domesticated animals without being used for transportation.

I have looked at a number of pictures of dogs pulling sleds for riding and to carry things. The process does not seem challenging in either case. Nevertheless, our earliest evidence of dogs being used for sled pulling post dates the earliest evidence for domestication by millenia. I have looked at a number of pictures of horses being ridden with a saddle. The process does not seem challenging. Nevertheless, our earliest evidence weighs more in favor that horses were used for driving chariots before they were used directly for riding. And our earliest evidence for horse saddles post dates the earliest evidence for riding, driving, or general domestication by centuries, with the earliest forms of saddles being dated to around the 9th or 10th century BCE.

Just because something might appear easy, doesn't alway mean it is obvious. Breeding and breaking camels specifically for burden may not have been a pressing issue when they already had asses to do that job.

Challenge does not always have to be the reason for what we might perceive as a "delay" in progress.

Now me, and maybe it is just me,

Exactly. So far, it has been just YOU. You haven't cited anything to support the usage of camels for burden earlier than the mid 2nd millenium BC. Whereas I cited three sources that endorse the later date, well, actually four, since I also quoted Finkelstein earlier.

You harp on them for not going into more detail about it, dismissing it as unconvincing(and that's fine), while not providing anything convincing for your own argument, not even at the very least any statements from authority as I have. And so your special pleading is exposed.

I doubt that it took hundreds of years or a thousand years to figure out.

And yet, as far as what any extant evidence can tell us, it did. The only thing telling us it didn't, is you. Personally, I'll wait until actual evidence comes forward.

I already touched on simple=/=obvious earlier. Same goes for here. Hell, the same applies even today. How long did we have squeezable ketchup bottles before someone finally came up with the idea to put the cap on the bottom? You say you doubt that it took hundreds or thousands of years for someone to think of using camels for burden after they already began domesticating them, and yet it took thousands of years for homo sapiens to even come up with domesticating camels after they had already been using them for meat, and after they had already been domesticating other animals as well. If you think that use for burden should have been so obvious and just popped right into their heads as soon as the idea for domesticating them did, that same line of thinking begs the question as to why harnessing camels for domestication in general wasn't obvious and just popped right to their heads as soon as they decided to start hunting camels for meat, or as soon as they started domesticating any animals for burden in general. You don't buy that there was gap between their domestication for milk and their domestication for burden, but do you buy that there was a gap between domestication of asses for burden and domestication of camels for burden? Or a gap between domestication of the first dairy animals for milk(such as sheep & goats) and the domestication of camels for their milk? Sure it seems so obvious to us and it's easy to be so judgmental when in retrospect, but fact remains, the evidence does not bear out the notion that once a good idea for one thing comes along, it will immediately extend to all things applicable for it.
You can pull up all the pictures of primitive camel saddles all you want, fact remains, if they were already using asses for the same task, it obviously still never entered anyone's mind to make a saddle for a camel until after a pressing need for it arose. Until then, if you were gonna make a saddle, you would just make one for an ass simply because that's what you were accustomed to.
Kind of reminds me of how I once saw an MMA video of Dan Inosanto(one of the last students of Bruce Lee), and he was talking about how when Western boxers were introduced to Muay Thai kick boxing, they noticed that, at that time, their indigenous kick boxing system had no upper cut punch, and the Westerners had to introduce the idea into their system. To them it seemed so obvious, but they realized that the Thai people never came up with the uppercut punch because they never had any need for it. To them, the knee to the chin fulfilled that exact same function, so it simply never entered their minds to develop a punch to do something a knee already did just fine.

Oh, and note, that given the simplicity of the arrangement it is unlikely one would have survived intact for examination 4000 years later.

It's true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
because it is not evidence for ANYTHING. It is no evidence at all, which is exactly where you are at on this particular point. You just admitted, no evidence for even such a primitive saddle dating back to the time of the earliest signs of domestication is extant, nor could be extant. A complete lack of evidence doesn't justify just asserting something out of thin air, especially when it is contrary to what the law of parsimony indicates by both the extant evidence and scholarly opinion.
You're just spouting out knee jerk reactions on this one. Instead, you should have been looking for some actual evidence or scholarly citations as you did with your initial post. That was good, that actually had me second guessing Finkelstein's book(that is, of course, until I actually went and read his statements for myself and noticed some possible nuances there). Stick with that approach and I forsee this thread being a lot more productive.

Vishnu wrote:

I missed any references in the material to backup the claims. As far as I can tell they are unsupported opinions and as such are not exactly useless but not much more than that.

We all missed any references in your above quotations regarding domestication to back up the idea that camels were used for burden at that same time. As far as anyone can tell, they are just your unsupported conjectures and nothing more than that.

Probably because it wasn't my reference. Lack of attention to detail seems to be a persistent problem here. The reference was in Robert's initial post where he referred to camels being referred to in Genesis. Perhaps you should consider demoting yourself to a lesser god's userid.

I don't see any fix for the dates.

Vishnu wrote:You already saw a fix for the date ranges in the first citation. 3rd millenium for domestication, mid-2nd to early-1st millenium for burden.

Ah, but you are taking my quote out of context. It referred specifically to the post you made about the British Vetinary publication. In that citation, I saw nothing referencing dates. Attention to detail.

All I see is a claim that there was a time lapse between domestication and use for transportation.

Vishnu wrote:And I have seen NO claim that their usage for burden began simultaneously with early domestication or their usage for milk, etc. And that is because the earliest evidence of burden usage does not date as early as the evidence for domestication for other purposes.

If you bothered to read the Bible you would know that in Genesis a number of instances are recorded of people riding on camels and using them to carry things. That is the whole point of Robert's post and Finkelstein's question, to impeach the Bible by showing that it took a thousand years to figure out how to carry things on camels. Well, that is not true, and if archaeology cannot confirm that someone took two sticks and a bag of stuffing and made a seat to ride on camels, that demonstrates the flaws in archaeology. The Bible records people riding camels and using them to carry things so unless you or Robert or Finkelstein has a contemporary source saying that camels were not used for those purposes you lose.

The claim also does not make sense, hundreds of years or a thousand years to upgrade their ride?

Vishnu wrote:No, it makes sense, because, as even you have demonstrated, establishing the earliest time for domestication of camels has not been so easy to pin down, and has already been shown to be earlier than once thought. If it should turn out that domestication began even EARLIER than we suspect now, then yes, that would further the gap even more. It seems you are assuming that using camels for burden is the whimsical uncertain date while the beginning of domestication is the date set in stone, yet it is more obvious and succinct that the date for the beginning of domestication is what is more uncertain and subject to change.

I am assuming no such thing. I am Stating that the Bible records camels used as transportation, therefore, by the time the events recorded in the Bible took place camels had been domesticated, how much earlier it happened, I neither know or care.

Same comment as above. I have looked at a number of pictures of camels being ridden and used to carry things. The process does not seem challenging in either case. I find it hard to believe that camels would be around as domesticated animals without being used for transportation.

Vishnu wrote:I have looked at a number of pictures of dogs pulling sleds for riding and to carry things. The process does not seem challenging in either case. Nevertheless, our earliest evidence of dogs being used for sled pulling post dates the earliest evidence for domestication by millenia. I have looked at a number of pictures of horses being ridden with a saddle. The process does not seem challenging. Nevertheless, our earliest evidence weighs more in favor that horses were used for driving chariots before they were used directly for riding. And our earliest evidence for horse saddles post dates the earliest evidence for riding, driving, or general domestication by centuries, with the earliest forms of saddles being dated to around the 9th or 10th century BCE.

yes, but the Bible provides evidence that camels were used much earlier the Finkelstein claims. Tell me, based on the two stick camel saddle, what would an archaeologist find 4000 years after it was used? Your citation of dogs and horses is irrelevant.

Vishnu wrote:Just because something might appear easy, doesn't alway mean it is obvious. Breeding and breaking camels specifically for burden may not have been a pressing issue when they already had asses to do that job.

Now you are the one who is speculating. Stick to the facts.

Now me, and maybe it is just me,

Vishnu wrote:Exactly. So far, it has been just YOU. You haven't cited anything to support the usage of camels for burden earlier than the mid 2nd millenium BC. Whereas I cited three sources that endorse the later date, well, actually four, since I also quoted Finkelstein earlier.

Once again, Genesis was brought up by others before I did. I have also provided reference to well known scholars who have disputed the dating proposed by Finkelstein.

Vishnu wrote:You harp on them for not going into more detail about it, dismissing it as unconvincing(and that's fine), while not providing anything convincing for your own argument, not even at the very least any statements from authority as I have. And so your special pleading is exposed.

We have an historical account of camels being used for transportation. I have also provided experts opinions as to when camels were used.

I doubt that it took hundreds of years or a thousand years to figure out.

Vishnu wrote:And yet, as far as what any extant evidence can tell us, it did. The only thing telling us it didn't, is you. Personally, I'll wait until actual evidence comes forward.

I refer you again to Genesis.

Vishnu wrote:I already touched on simple=/=obvious earlier. Same goes for here. Hell, the same applies even today. How long did we have squeezable ketchup bottles before someone finally came up with the idea to put the cap on the bottom? You say you doubt that it took hundreds or thousands of years for someone to think of using camels for burden after they already began domesticating them, and yet it took thousands of years for homo sapiens to even come up with domesticating camels after they had already been using them for meat, and after they had already been domesticating other animals as well. If you think that use for burden should have been so obvious and just popped right into their heads as soon as the idea for domesticating them did, that same line of thinking begs the question as to why harnessing camels for domestication in general wasn't obvious and just popped right to their heads as soon as they decided to start hunting camels for meat, or as soon as they started domesticating any animals for burden in general. You don't buy that there was gap between their domestication for milk and their domestication for burden, but do you buy that there was a gap between domestication of asses for burden and domestication of camels for burden? Or a gap between domestication of the first dairy animals for milk(such as sheep & goats) and the domestication of camels for their milk? Sure it seems so obvious to us and it's easy to be so judgmental when in retrospect, but fact remains, the evidence does not bear out the notion that once a good idea for one thing comes along, it will immediately extend to all things applicable for it.

This is just fluff. It is irrelevant and an attempt to distract.

Vishnu wrote:You can pull up all the pictures of primitive camel saddles all you want, fact remains, if they were already using asses for the same task, it obviously still never entered anyone's mind to make a saddle for a camel until after a pressing need for it arose. Until then, if you were gonna make a saddle, you would just make one for an ass simply because that's what you were accustomed to.

The fact that asses were already being used is even more compelling a argument that camels were too. You are speculating again.

Vishnu wrote:Kind of reminds me of how I once saw an MMA video of Dan Inosanto(one of the last students of Bruce Lee), and he was talking about how when Western boxers were introduced to Muay Thai kick boxing, they noticed that, at that time, their indigenous kick boxing system had no upper cut punch, and the Westerners had to introduce the idea into their system. To them it seemed so obvious, but they realized that the Thai people never came up with the uppercut punch because they never had any need for it. To them, the knee to the chin fulfilled that exact same function, so it simply never entered their minds to develop a punch to do something a knee already did just fine.

But if they had been giving upper cut punches to asses it would have been an easy concept to apply to camels as well.

Oh, and note, that given the simplicity of the arrangement it is unlikely one would have survived intact for examination 4000 years later.

Vishnu wrote:It's true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
because it is not evidence for ANYTHING. It is no evidence at all, which is exactly where you are at on this particular point. You just admitted, no evidence for even such a primitive saddle dating back to the time of the earliest signs of domestication is extant, nor could be extant. A complete lack of evidence doesn't justify just asserting something out of thin air, especially when it is contrary to what the law of parsimony indicates by both the extant evidence and scholarly opinion.

Repetition, thy name is atheist. There is evidence. It is called Genesis. To hang your argument on some special saddle is silly. Maybe they had a saddle and all examples have been destroyed. Maybe the saddle was too expensive to make and was abandoned. Maybe the only saddles they ever used were the simple stick ones in which case even if one was found I'd have to listen to you and Robert and Israel bark that it is only a stick and not a saddle.

Vishnu wrote:You're just spouting out knee jerk reactions on this one. Instead, you should have been looking for some actual evidence or scholarly citations as you did with your initial post. That was good, that actually had me second guessing Finkelstein's book(that is, of course, until I actually went and read his statements for myself and noticed some possible nuances there). Stick with that approach and I forsee this thread being a lot more productive.

Nuances are good. I like nuances. The legal profession has a different word for them. They are called 'weasel' words. Their purpose is to allow wiggle room. Good for Finkelstein bad for his readers.

Repetition, thy name is atheist. There is evidence. It is called Genesis.

More complete garbage from Stahrwe here, attempting to use an uncorroborated and falsified work of fiction as a prime historical source. Rather like using the medieval stories of the Knights of the Round Table to prove claims about King Arthur.

Most of the Old Testament was written in the seventh century BC for King Josiah as propaganda to justify and legitimize his political ambitions. The writers included numerous anachronisms in telling stories from hundreds of years before they lived, describing things that existed at the time they lived but did not exist at the time of the purported ancient events. These anachronisms and errors are found in the stories of camels carrying Joseph to Egypt in Genesis, the whole story of the Exodus, the whole story of Joshua committing genocide against the native people of Canaan, and on to the idea of David and Solomon leading a mighty empire. The Bible is mostly lies, with just enough of a sprinkling of plausibility to make it seem historical.

It is amazing that every word in the Bible has to be examined critically.

No, what is amazing is that you believe every word of it without ANY critical examination.

I am pro-Semitic. I support the human rights of Jews to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state within its 1967 borders. I admire Jewish people for their great achievements throughout history and wish them well.

However, The Bible Unearthed gives good reason to consider that the Jews perpetrated the greatest ever swindle in history in writing the Bible.

The stories of the Torah and of the subsequent early history of Israel to the age of David and Solomon are almost uniformly lies, political propaganda written long after its purported date for partisan imperial motives. Israel Finkelstein proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. As I read The Bible Unearthed, I am continually amazed by the sheer audacity of the ancient Jews in perpetrating deception on a scale similar to what Hitler in modern times called a Big Lie. A Big Lie is a claim of such scale that ordinary people could not believe anyone would have the impudence to make it. The story of how King David and King Solomon ruled a mighty empire stretching from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River is a Big Lie. Finkelstein indeed draws an oblique comparison between Hitler and King Josiah, the real author of much of the first parts of the Bible from Genesis to Kings. Finkelstein's chapter heading "One State, One Nation, One People" is rather similar to the Nazi slogan "One State, One People, One Leader", and, it should be said, if less so, to the deuteroPaulian formulation in Ephesians 4, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism".

The fact is, as seen in the archaeological record, that Ahab, the northern king who is slandered in the Bible as evil in stories such as Naboth's vineyard, actually ruled over a mighty kingdom while the Davidic line in Judah led nothing more than isolated poor rural villages. Northern ruins that religious archaeologists formerly attributed to Solomon actually date to the much later line of Ahab, while the actual southern realm of Solomon was just villages. King Josiah wanted to rewrite history in the 7th century, falsely claiming that the former unity of Israel was led from the Davidic center of Jerusalem in 1000 BC rather than the true story, that the only previous unity was the northern kingdom of Samaria around 900 BC.

This Davidic story is entirely lies, designed purely for political advantage as Josiah sought to respond to the disarray caused by Assyrian attack on the north. Why else would he put into the mouth of a 'prophet' of the tenth century in 1 Kings 13 that a king by the name of Josiah of the house of David would murder the priests of the northern temple of Bethel? Finkelstein compares this ridiculous prophecy to someone in the modern seventeenth century predicting the role of Martin Luther King by name. The Bible was written to create a moral mandate for the territorial ambitions of Judah under Josiah. As Finkelstein puts it, "the theology of the Bible ... is simply not an accurate representation of the historical reality" (p149).

The Old Testament refrain that Israel was punished for straying to other Gods went on to become one of the most powerful memes in history, at the foundation of the Abrahamic myth. The consequence was that deep cultural traditions were obliterated by narrow fanaticism. The Jews have much reason to be repentant, given how their religion systematically prostituted historical facts in order to support their political goals.

The great swindle of the Old Testament became the template and precedent for the even bigger swindle of the New Testament, the claim of the historical existence of Jesus Christ. Taking King Josiah as their model, the authors of the Gospels systematically rewrote history in a work of fiction with two guiding principles, to be persuasive and to support their political goals.

robert tulip wrote: The fact is, as seen in the archaeological record, that Ahab, the northern king who is slandered in the Bible as evil in stories such as Naboth's vineyard, actually ruled over a mighty kingdom while the Davidic line in Judah led nothing more than isolated poor rural villages. Northern ruins that religious archaeologists formerly attributed to Solomon actually date to the much later line of Ahab, while the actual southern realm of Solomon was just villages.

If true, who built the Temple?

Interbane wrote:

It is amazing that every word in the Bible has to be examined critically.

No, what is amazing is that you believe every word of it without ANY critical examination.

You haven't been paying attention either. I was in your place once. I rejected everything in the Bible. Your problem is that you haven't examined every word in the Bible critically, I have. So did James Clerk Maxwell. You take pot shots ad hoc at pieces of the Bible and contratulate yourselves on your brilliance.