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: