A way of expressing aspects of older times in terms of what the writer and his audience are familiar with.
There are two ways in which anachronims may be understood. One is to assert that what was claimed for a particular period in history in fact has no basis in fact but was simply the assertion by later writers from events that they knew in their days. Two famous examples of anachronism in the Bible understood in this sense that are often alleged are the existence of Philistines in the time of the patriarchs (Gen 20:2ff. & 26:1ff.) when the Philistines in fact arrived in Canaan only in the 13th Cent. BC. The other is the mention of domesticated camels by the patriarchs when, it is claimed that camels were not domesticated until much later. (See the respective articles for A response). Claims of anachronism in the Bible has often been a 'lazyman's' solution. What had often been alleged to be anachronistic had often afterwards been shown to be true.
The other popular though not quite accurate way of using the term is to refer to anachronism as "up-dating." A good example of an anachronism in Scripture is the reference to Abraham's original home as "Ur of the Chaldeans" (Gen 11:28, 31; 15:7). The Chaldeans did not occupy the city of Ur until much later than the time of Abraham. The author/editor of Genesis added this note so that his readers would be clear about which city of Ur the text was referring to in terms of the Chaldeans who occupied the city during their days.
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