Exodus Part One: Hebrews/Israelites in Egypt

With the klutziest possible math, assuming the maximum possible number of marriages and 5 children per couple I come up with fourteen (14) million born in the fourteenth generation. Obviously something needs to be drastically cut back in my figures to fit the reality but it's clear that under certain circumstances 1-2 million from 70 in 430 years is not all that ridiculous an idea. I just started with 70, halved it to create couples, multiplied by 5 (in a way it seems a conservative number of children for the times, but it's probably exaggerated), got 165 offspring in the first generation, halved that for coupling again, multiplied by 5 to get a rounded-back 400 in the second generation, and so on. Didn't add generation to generation, just figured births. Told you it was klutzy but it seems to me it shows the Biblical number is far from beyond the realm of possibility.In 430 years there may have been as many as 20 or more generations if many married in their teens. Obviously my numbers WAY overshoot the necessary number of ONLY 2-3 million. Reduce wherever you like, #generations, #couples, age at marriage, average #offspring etc., it's not hard to get the Biblical report of the population in 430 years.{EDIT: The point is that however ridiculously overestimated my, it shows it's far from impossible to arrive at multipled millions from a mere 70 people in 430 years. So whatever YOUR numbers are, they are grossly UNDERestimated by wrong standards for the time.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:13 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:14 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:28 AM

Yes I saw your qualifier and if it's even POSSIBLE to get multipled millions in a few hundred years your qualifier is just useless. You have the wrong standards whatever they are. You assume things about the time period. Obviously you are wrong. The Bible contradicts you and whether you like it or not it IS evidence, and the ONLY evidence from the time. So your statistics are just the vaporings of a man at a remove of 3000 years just fiddling with assumptions about a time period you have NO ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF. You are even using statistics from the 20th century.I didn't bother to be accurate. I didn't care. I knew your figures were underestimated by prejudice. So it was 70 males. That increases the numbers, great. I picked 5 out of the blue. It doesn't seem a huge number of children. I assume the people were quite healthy despite their circumstances. And yes I know there are other factors. All I calculated was number of births per generation. But the numbers are enormous.{EDIT: Reduce them by whatever amount of mortality and lesser birth rate you like until you get down to 2-3 million and THEN you may have a more realistic picture of the circumstances of the time. You can't start from circumstances you know nothing about, mortality rates and the like, and work backwards to a distant past.You are challenging the ONLY KNOWN RECORD from over 3000 years in the future based on statistics from a wholly different time frame. That takes CHUTZPAH.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:40 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:41 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:42 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 05:54 AM

You said seventy MALES? NKJV says descendants, AV says "All the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob..." SOULS, not males. MULTIPLIED AND GREW EXCEEDINGLY MIGHTY, AND THE LAND WAS FILLED WITH THEM. MORE AND MIGHTIER THAN WE. THE MORE THEY AFFLICTED THEM THE MORE THEY MULTIPLED AND GREW.You cannot judge such a report by your own paltry assumptions from thousands of years in the future. You know NOTHING of the circumstances of the time. You are extrapolating backwards from standards that do not apply to their time.

I wanted to find out just how many generations and births per generation it would take to come up with 2-3 million. I overdid it and didn't have the patience to adjust the numbers. Found out, however, that the Biblical number is far from the ridiculous number people are assuming.But to answer you, yes, start with the Biblical number. It's the only record there is.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-25-2005 06:16 AM