Question

Why are camels mentioned as beasts of burden in Genesis when according to history they were not used that way until 2000 years after the events of Genesis?
 

Answer

One of the assumptions of bible criticism is that the Torah was written much later than the time period it occurred. Specifically, the claim is that the Torah was written at least 1,000 years after the Exodus. As a result, the alleged biblical writers, who could not possibly know the minutiae of cultural norms of 1,000 years before, would by default include many details that were anachronistic. Meaning, that they would include details of daily living that were normal in their time period, but they would not be sensitive to the fact that different time periods often brought different norms.

One of the main indications of an anachronism in the Torah was thought to be that of the camel. The Book of Genesis reports that camels were mainstay beasts of burden and transportations already at the time of Abraham, in the 18th century BCE. Yet it was originally thought that camels were first domesticated in the Middle East no earlier than the 12th century BCE. This anachronism was a clear indication of the later writing of the Torah. Or so it was thought.

All this changed with the turn of a shovel. Recent archaeological finds have clearly demonstrated that the camel was domesticated by the 18th century BCE.

Prof. Kenneth Kitchen, an Egyptologist at the University of Liverpool (retired) has pointed out that the sale of Joseph to a caravan of Midianites should have been another example of anachronism in the Torah. Joseph was sold for 20 silver pieces. A thousand years later the price for a slave was much higher (ancient inflation). However, the price reported in the Torah matches precisely the going price of slaves in the region from Joseph's time period. This is just one example which demonstrates, according to Kitchen that "it's more reasonable to assume that the biblical data reflect reality."