…the honey may have actually come from bees!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/05/ancient.honey.ap/index.html
Bzzzz!
Well, the fact that archaeologists have not found ancient milk casts doubts on the authenticity of the Bible.
Tom
It’s always fascinating to me when a new technology from the past is found. I didn’t know that honey of some sort—maybe it would be a thick, sugary syrup—was made from dates and figs. And I didn’t realize there was controversy about the “milk and honey” phrase in the Bible, so that is interesting too. I guess I would have just figured that if “bees and beekeeping are depicted in ancient artwork” and that if wild bees are mentioned in the Bible that they must have had access to bees either by keeping them or finding hives in the wild. I wonder if the same word was used for honey from dates and figs and honey from bees. Oh well, I will leave all that to the scholars!
Has the Jesus Seminar took their vote yet?
It makes sense that a religious centre might want to have a guaranteed source of honey. A lot of the pollen collected by bees can be toxic, and the honey produced from it can have some pretty wild effects on people. I remember reading how some of the Greek oracles would deliberately consume honey known to have hallucinatory effects for the purpose of having visions and for purposes of divination.
If you had a temple in your town with a seer of some kind, and the seer’s prophecies were of sound repute, you could do some very good business with all the tourists coming through to see the oracle, so guaranteeing a steady supply of intoxicating honey would be a worthwhile industry (I’m thinking Life of Brian, here).
Anyone want to 'aggle? 
djm
Random fact, many of the Biblical Hebrew names are animals. Deborah means bee. (That’s better than Hulda, which means rat.) If there were Dvorahs, then they knew of bees.
if they had cities then they had agriculture
if they had agriculture they had bees
As opposed to flies?
Don’t suppose the milk came from goats or cows…maybe cats?
I have nipples, Focker, can you milk me?
OT:
Wasn’t there a scene in the original theatrical version of Dune where one of the captured Atreides people had to milk a cat on a daily basis to get an antidote to a poison the Harkonnens gave him?
I’ve heard they found honey in the pyramids that was crystalized, but still sweet. The stuff keeps a long time. Better for you than BHT, I’m sure.
Except for the hallucinogen honey. I’ll bet that would be a great seller even today.
“Bored with breakfast? Try new ‘Kalliedoscope’ Brand breakfast spread for a wake-up you’ll never forget! And if you call now, we’ll throw in this ‘Best of the Doors’ CD absolutely free…”
p.s. I was just joking about the milk. 
Dates and figs.
You are both awesome.