Thursday, March 29, 2018
How Many Israelites Left Egypt During the Exodus
One of the complaints skeptics make is that the Bible's description of the Exodus would entail that around two million Israelites left Egypt. That's supposed to be a number that's way too high for at least two reasons. One reason is in terms of feasibility. How could such a multitude travel a desert and still find enough food and water (etc.)? It would be a logistical nightmare. A second reason is that such a great multitude would leave evidence that archaeologists would certainly discover. Yet, such evidence supposedly hasn't been found. The following link provides one way in which to answer such questions. It's an excerpt from Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary) by Douglas Stuart (pp 297-304).:
https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/01/number-of-israelites.html
or Here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QZw9KAJoukv7z2yLhgz9gGjfkucQC_1_
In summary, based on linguistic studies, the commentary argues that the number of Israelites would have been from approximately 28,800 to 36,000. Additionally, the commentary cites two other scholars whose study would (if applied) yield a number of 22,000-27,500. If we rounded up that number to 40,000, that's a significantly lower number than 2,000,000. Most stadiums can EASILY seat 40,000 people. Some can seat over 100,000 people.
On a related topic:
A Defense Of The Hyperbolic InterpretationOf Large Numbers In The Old Testament by David M. Fouts [or HERE]
Labels:
archaeology,
Exodus,
Hebrew,
history,
language,
numbers,
Old Testament
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