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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Job: Who Influenced Whom?
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:56:11 -0500

Dear David K.,

1) Job is said to own 3,000 camels. It is pretty well established that camels were not domesticated too much before 1,000 BC. Job is also presented as being a sedentary individual, not a migratory shepherd as would be more appropriate to a Israelite of the patriarchal era.

HH: This idea about the absence of camel use before about 1,000 B.C. has been proven wrong for a long time. Here is the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, under "Camel":

It is no longer necessary to regard the mention of camels in the patriarchal narratives as anachronisms, since there is ample archeological evidence for the domestication of the camel before the time of the patriarchs. Camel bones from the pre-Sargonid era (ca. 2400 B.C.) were excavated at Mari by Parrot, while similar remains at least a millennium older have been recovered from sites on the island of Bahrein. Camel bones dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C. have also been recovered from India and southeastern Persia, while a relief from Byblos in Phoenicia, dated in the 18th cent. B.C. depicts a camel in a kneeling position. Cylinder seals from northern Mesopotamia dating from the Middle Bronze Age show riders seated upon camels, indicating that the camel was by then a well-attested feature of Near Eastern domestic life.

2) Job-like poems were an entire genre in Sumer and Babylon. One of the earlier ones (Ludlul BĂȘl Nimeqi) was written around 1700 BC. Now according to traditional chronologies, this is the period of Egyptian captivity for the Israelites. Now how could the Sumerians be copying Israelite poetry when they were enslaved in Goshen and Pi-Ramesses.

HH: Why do they have to be copying it? The two works can be independent.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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