Reconciling Biblical Numbers: Three Million at Sinai is making a
Mountain out of a Molehill
Reconciling Biblical Numbers: Three Million at Sinai is making a
Mountain out of a Molehill
Imagine a historian 500 years from now constructs the following
proof. "The culture of 1960's widely accepted homosexual
activities. Evidence can be found in the theme song of a popular
cartoon of the era, 'The Flintstones'. This is a cartoon
involving the implied homosexual activities between the two male
lead characters Barney and Fred with no visible objections of
their wives which they mutually took for procreation. The theme
song ends: 'we'll have a yabadoo time... we'll have a gay old
time.'[1] Clearly, this open admission was made in front of
millions of watching viewers and there is no archeological
record of a single objection to their categorization as being
gay." Do you accept this method of proof to be valid?
The answer to the quandary is obvious to most in our
generation: the dictionary changed. Beware of the word 'obvious'
because it paints with a very broad stroke. Try asking some
children what the word 'gay' means. However, provided a
dictionary from the 60's and a later (revised) dictionary
survives to reach the time of future historian, someone will be
able to correct his/her faulty logic. Think though, what if the
dictionary did not survive?
Take for example, this 'simple' statement from the Torah: "And
the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about
six hundred thousand men on foot, beside children." (Exodus
12:37)[2] This is an account of how many Israelites left Egypt
and then went on to witness the revelation of God at Sinai. The
Torah appears to go out of its way to repeat this figure again
in Numbers 1:46 just for emphasis: "even all those that were
numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five
hundred and fifty."[3] So now we see two places where the Torah
states that there were 600 thousand men of military age leaving
Egypt.
If you can now quickly accept the fact that the Torah says that
there were 600 thousand military age men that left Egypt, I
accuse you of swallowing your theology without chewing first.
600 thousand military aged men generally implies a total
population of three million.
* For comparison: "In the 1967 war in which Israel defeated the
combined forces of its Arab invaders, Israel's population of 2
million provided only 264,000 soldiers." [4] So a modern day
army capable of defeating 3 nations simultaneously is of size
264,000.
* "Alexander, who controlled Greece, Macedonia, Thrace (Southern
Yugoslavia), and a little bit of Western Anatolia, was able to
raise between 90,000 and 100,000 troops total, with about half
remaining in Macedonia when he invaded the Persian Empire." [5]
* Hannibal of Carthage took 20,000 soldiers and besieged Rome
for several years causing 50,000 Roman casualties before his
defeat in 203 B.C. [6]
* "It is estimated that the whole population of Egypt at the
time of the exodus was between 2 and 5 million. According to the
above estimates of the population of Israel, the people of
Israel would be the population of Egypt." [7]
* "Archaeologists have shown that the land of Canaan was never
invaded by 3 million Israelites after the exodus from Egypt. At
this time in history, the land only had a population of between
50,000 to 100,000 (at most), and there never was a massive
population increase in this time period." [8]
* "There are thought to have been 20,000 in the entire Egyptian
army at the height of Egypt's empire." [9]
* The ability to supply an army with food and provisions was a
limiting factor to the size of ancient armies. "The figure of
80,000 seems to be a sort of natural limit to the size of these
ancient armies." [10] The credulous may be able to slip out of
supply problems for the ancient Israelites by invoking 'manna
from heaven'. However, it's for certain that God did not provide
for their enemies. Thus, the limiting size of an opponent would
appear to be around 80,000. The Torah claims that the Israelites
had 600,000 military aged men. Thus, they could easily defeat
any army they came across without the fear described in the
Torah. Deuteronomy 7:17,18 "If thou shalt say in thy heart:
'These nations are more than I how can I dispossess them?' Thou
shalt not be afraid of them thou shalt well remember what the
LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt." [11] There
were no larger nations than 600,000 military men, and thus why
would the Israelites be afraid of any of them?
* "The population of ancient Israel was probably about 300,000
at its maximum in the time of David." [12]
* Assume for a moment that the population involved in the Exodus
actually was 3 million. Then consider the verse Deuteronomy 7:1
where the Israelites "... cast out ... seven nations greater and
mightier than [themselves]". [13] That would mean that there
were 7 greater nations in ancient Israel before the conquest,
making the population at least 21 million (7 x 3 million)! There
is absolutely no archaeological proof for this. Further,
archaeology bounds the population to 300,000 at the height of
the Davidic rule. Moreover, the current population of modern
Israel (in 2006) is 6 million.
* The ancient Israelites sojourned at Kadesh-Barnea for
approximately 38 years. 3 million would have left some manner of
record there. However, "Not even a shard from the Bronze Age has
been found (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63), despite
thorough excavation of the site and surveys of the surrounding
area." [14] Some have argued that it wasn't the business of the
ancient Israelites to leave relics for archaeologists to
discover. Archaeolgists retort that modern archaeology is "quite
capable of tracing even the very meager remains of
hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world"
(Finkelstein and Silberman 2001, p. 63). [15]
* These points are a good starting point for problems with the
600 thousand figure. Consult the footnotes for more.
So we
see that the number 600 thousand is a historically impossible
number. With that many military age men, there is no need for
any miracles in warfare: Israel would conquer the entire Middle
East and likely the rest of the world shortly thereafter.
How then do we reconcile the Torah's twice repeated 600 thousand
figure with the contradictions with history this causes? Recall
our flawed Flintstone proof. The problem was with the dictionary
we were consulting. In this case, the problem occurs with the
translation of the Hebrew 'eleph'. "The issue of Exodus 12:37 is
an interpretive one. The Hebrew word 'eleph' can be translated
'thousand,' but it is also rendered in the Bible as 'clans' and
'military units.'" [16] Consider the following Torah quotes.
Where the Hebrew word 'ELEPH' is used, I will CAPITALIZE the
translation.
* "And he said unto him: 'Oh, my lord, wherewith shall I save
Israel? behold, my FAMILY is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am
the least in my father's house.'" Judges 6:15 [17]
* "and he shall be as a CHIEF in Judah, and Ekron as a
Jebusite." Zechariah 9:7 [18]
* "And the CHIEFS of Judah shall..." "In that day will I make
the CHIEFS of Judah like a pan of fire among the wood..."
Zecharaiah 12:5,6 [19]
* "Similarly, in the assault [by Joshua] on Ai (Joshua 7-8) the
true proportions of the narrative become clear when we realize
that the disastrous loss of 36 men is matched by the setting of
an ambush, not of 30,000 [ELEPH] men of valour, but of 30." [20]
Other quotes where you get different meanings depending on which
translation you use are:
* 1 Samuel 10:19, 23:23
* Micah 5:1 (It should be noted that even fluent Hebrew speakers
can be victims of the translations they use: They can be using a
modern interpretation of 'eleph' [thousand] erroneously.)
Further, there is a possible confusion between the word 'alluph'
(chief) and 'eleph' which look identical in Hebrew without
vowels. [21] This is a little tricky to follow without an
example. Take the words 'ant' and 'not'. If you remove the
vowels from both you get 'nt' and 'nt'. In ancient Hebrew
notation (as in other semitic languages) the vowels were
omitted. I cn qckly prv tht th hmn mnd s cpbl f rdng ths. [22]
Thus, "'Alluph' is used for the 'chieftains' of Edom (Genesis
36:15-43) probably for a commander of a military 'thousand' and
almost certainly for the professional, fully-armed soldier."
[23] What should become apparent is that there are other
interpretations and meanings for the Hebrew word 'eleph'. See
footnote [24] for a description of the etymology of 'eleph'. So
far we've seen 'eleph' mean 'family', 'clan', 'chief' and 'armed
man'.
An academic caveat, we must beware of denying biblical numbers
outright. While we are forced to question them in the case of
the 600 thousand figure due to archaeological evidence, there is
likewise archaeological evidence that certain numbers from the
Bible do match with current records. "For bible numbers: The
size of the Assyrian army approximates the number of troops
stated in 2.Kings." [25] It is important that we do not apply
our logic in an all or nothing manner, denying the veracity of
all bible numbers.
How then do we reconcile the fact that the Torah twice repeats
this 600 thousand figure? Recall that in Numbers 1:46 [26] we
have a repetition of the 600 thousand figure, with a further
refinement to 603,550 suggesting the Torah means thousands here,
not anything else. John Wenham offers the following explanation
of the census figures using the tribe of Simeon as an
example:
"Simeon: 57 armed men [chiefs, eleph] 23 'hundreds'
(military units).
This came to be written: 57 'lp 2'lp 3
'hundreds'.
Not realising that 'lp in one case meant 'armed
man' and in the other 'thousand', this was tidied up to read
59,300. When these figures are carefully decoded, a remarkably
clear picture of the whole military organization emerges. The
total fighting force [of the Exodus Israelites] is some 18,000
which would probably mean a figure of about 72,000 for the whole
migration". [27]
So what are the consequences of adopting a translation of
'eleph' that would lead the Exodus numbers to be in the 10's of
thousands? First we harmonize the Torah account with the account
of archaeology. In so doing, we have a much more tenable
historical account which reconciles with the world of science.
However, in so doing, we may unseat a famous theological proof
known as the Kuzari proof which holds that 3 million witnesses
witnessed the Sinai revelation and hence this public revelation
could not have been faked. I imagine that Kuzari adherents will
be equally impressed with 10's of thousands of witnesses as they
were with millions, so secular Jews needn't be interested in
this obstacle. The Kuzari proof was broken long before
archaeology was invented and for many other reasons beyond the
numbers. A further discussion of the flaws of the Kuzari proof
can be found here:
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=98052
In summation we must reconcile the Torah history with
archaeology. "Later rabbis such as Maimonides taught that when
scientific evidence contradicts a current understanding of the
Bible, that means that we are obligated to reinterpret that
verse in accord with science. For many traditional rabbis, such
a position was not heresy." [28] In a more global sense, we are
obligated to teach our children theologies which reconcile with
observable phenomenon.
"Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy
reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of
judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely
enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the
fatally wrong actions which they lead to.... But a greater and
wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and
supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is
fostered and made permanent." -- W. K. Clifford [29]
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[1]
http://www.cfhf.net/lyrics/flintstones.htm
[2]
http://mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0212.htm
[3]
http://mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0401.htm
[4]
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1995/1/1num95.html
[5] ibid
[6]
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/biographies/hannibal/
[7] http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/17_theexodus.html
[8]
http://www.encyclopedian.com/ex/Exodus.html
[9] ibid
[10]
http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=78&keyword_id=8&title=
Army
[11] http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0507.htm
[12]
http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/judaism/ancisr.html
[13] http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0507.htm
[14]
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch2.html#sinai
[15]
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch2.html#sinai
[16]
Hebrew University professor Abraham Malamat as quoted in
http://www.encyclopedian.com/ex/Exodus.html
[17]
http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0706.htm
[18]
http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2309.htm
[19]
http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2312.htm
[20] John Wenham
quoted in http://www.specialtyinterests.net/hebrew_numbers.html
[21] http://www.specialtyinterests.net/hebrew_numbers.html
[22] http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/
[23]
ibid
[24]
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/im/hebrew_lexicon.html#aleph
[25] http://www.specialtyinterests.net/hebrew_numbers.html
[26] http://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0401.htm
[27] John
Wenham quoted in
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/hebrew_numbers.html
[28]
http://www.encyclopedian.com/ex/Exodus.html
[29]
http://www.religioustolerance.org/kaiser_01.htm