The Athiest's book of Bible Stories (a flaw I noticed)

by outsmartthesystem 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Leolaia

  BTW

  Built on the banks of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile and with a population of over 300,000, making it one of the largest cities of ancient Egypt, Pi-Ramesses flourished for more than a century after Ramesses death and poems were written over its splendour. According to the latest estimates the city was spread over about 18 km2 (6.9 sq mi) or around 6 km (3.7 mi) long by 3 km (1.9 mi) wide. Its layout, as shown by ground-penetrating radar, consisted of a huge central temple, a large precinct of mansions bordering the river in the west set in a rigid grid pattern of streets, and a disorderly collection of houses and workshops in the east.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi-Ramesses

  To the degree that Pi-Ramesses (Pi-Ramesse, Piramesse, Ramesse, Rameses) is approximately some 100 hectares in size, its population could be estimated at anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 a truly large site (note: 1 hectare is the equivalent of 2.471 acres; 1 sq. Kilometer = 100 hectares).
  
  http://www.bibleorigins.net/ramesesmapavaris.html
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  OSTS,

  Another big difference with ABOBS is that he's trying to stick with the Bible's lineage that there were only 3 generations elapsed during the captivity. Trying to fit only 3 or 4 generations (instead of 10 or 11) into the 215 years is problematic in trying to come up with a population model. They need to be extremely fertile in old age in order for the number to ramp up and level at 3 million by the exodus. I couldn't do it in 3 generations, but I was able to come up with a population model that reached 3.5 million in 4 generations. My model began with many (but not all) of the first 35 being younger than child bearing age. But it required every female to have one child every 2 years, beginning at the age 20 and continuing until her death at 100. This resulted in a lower than peak number of babies for the exodus, but you will be going camping with a lot of old pregnant women.

  And 3 million people is between the populations of Los Angeles and Chicago. Imaging packing that many people up to wander out into the desert. There'd better be clean rest areas with vending machines!
• 

  Leolaia

  That model would also necessarily have families with dozens and dozens of siblings. If a woman has seven iterations of the above wash-and-repeat (God help her ), she would have at least 35 children to raise.

  How many siblings did Moses have? Only two that we know of.

  Even going with the examples of Leah and Rachel in Genesis, we see that they raised a total of 6 sons each, or approximately 12 children (adding in an equal number of girls). We are looking at rates three times or more than that. In conditions of slavery. Forget about Octomom....how about Trigintasexomom?
• 

  outsmartthesystem

  Billy - I have not had a chance to think about your reponse....but in the mean time....if I PM you my email address, would u mind sending me a copy of your spreadsheet?
• 

  outsmartthesystem

  In doing the calculation on an Excel spreadsheet using a model based on females born (since they're the important child-bearing ones), starting with 35 women, assuming they had 18 daughters in 1728, 18 more after 2 years, etc, so that there were a total of 90 females in the second generation over 10 years. After another 10 years elapsed, the first 18 daughters would be 20 years old and had 9 daughters, after 2 years it begins ramping up slowly as more daughters came of age. So although your total numbers are correct for each successive generation, your assumption that they would have a litter of 5 as soon as they turn 20 years, isn't a good basis as we get closer to the Exodus in 1513. By then the births to that date for the last three generations would be about 135,759; 99,741; and 545.

  - So by 1513, I have a generations combined total of 327,572 females. If we double that, it's only 655,144 total.

  If we assume that they lived all the way to 100 yrs, it would be 320,890 living females.

  Now for the scary part, 102,861 of those females would be under the age of 10. Nearly a third of the total is under 10. Nearly 50,000 are under 3, almost 26,000 not old enough to walk. Since this is just the girls, multiply those numbers by 2. Now imagine going camping with all those kids.

  Perhaps the biggest problem with this scenario is that doesn't fit with any recorded chronology of the Bible. This fits 10 generations into the 215 years of Egyptian captivity. However, when you look at the geneology of Jesus in Matthew, there are 10 generations from Judah, before the captivity all the way down to David in 1107 BCE. That has 10 generations spanning 600 years (Boaz musta been reallllly old!) Most of the similarly recorded geneologies show low and slow growth. And in that era, it would be a lot of work taking care of children, even if it was only 5 spaced 2 years apart. Maybe the pyramids are actually stuffed with diapers rather than being stone all the way through.

  Edit to add: Watchtower figures the Egyptian captivity from 1728 BCE to 1513, a total of 215 years. (SI p. 294)

  The captivity was supposedly only 215 years.....but number of years in Egypt is supposed to be 350 (Kothath to Amram to Moses). i.e. the captivity didn't actually start until long after the first Israelites had come into Egypt and began their mass breeding. So.....don't we need to base our calculations on the supposed 350 years in lieu of the 215 of just captivity?
• 

  Leolaia

  In an earlier thread, I laid out the progression of the idea that the sojourn lasted 215 years, a notion that isn't found in the OT but which is presumed a few times in the NT. The idea arose through the kind of chronographical speculation found in such Hellenistic-era works as Aramaic Levi, Demetrius, and in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The original biblical scenario in P designated a period of 360 years from the birth of Arphachshad to Abraham's 70th year (implicitly, when he left Haran to Canaan), then 360 years to the death of Joseph (in Joseph's 70th year in Egypt), and then a final 360 years of slavery until the Exodus. This plan was later abandoned in biblical interpretation, possibly because the span of 430 years (70 + 360) was too long for just four generations. Splitting up the 430 years as 215 in Canaan and 215 in Egypt destroyed the chronographical scheme of P but gave a more reasonable space of time for four generations.

  However in order for the Israelites to become numerous, they would have to have children at younger ages than their patriarchical forbears. So in 4Q559, we read: "Abraham was 99 years old when he fathered Isaac, Isaac was 60 years old when he fathered Jacob. Jacob was 65 years old when he fathered Levi. He gave to Levi the book of the words of Enoch to preserve and pass on to his own descendants. Levi was 35 years old when he fathered Kohath. Kohath was 29 when he fathered Amram. Amram was 110 when he fathered Aaron (2:3-10)". Levi and Kohath were relatively young when they fathered the next generation, respectively, but notice that Amram was very old by the time he got around to having kids. The scheme in Demetrius is somewhat similar: "When Kohath was 40 years old he begat Amram who was 14 years old when Joseph died in Egypt at the age of 110; and Kohath was 133 years old when he died. Amram took as his wife his uncle's daughter Jochebed and when he was 75 years old he begat Aaron. But when he begat Moses Amram was 78 years old, and Amram was 136 years old when he died" (Fragment 2). And here is the scenario in Aramaic Levi: (1) Levi became father to Kohath when he was 34 years old, then Levi entered Egypt when he was 48 and lived another 89 years in Egypt before he died. (2) Kohath became father to Amram when he was 30, and then (3) Amram married Jochebed when both were 30 as well (when Levi was 94 years old), about 24 years before the death of Joseph. Then after getting married at age 30 (both Amram and Jochebed were born on the same day), they would have waited some 80 years before they started having children, firstly Aaron. This is a contrivance: the chronographers had only four generations to work with, they wanted to have the first three generations having children at young ages, but that meant that they would have to delay the last generation in order to reach the desired 215 years (as there were no other generational links to fill up the time in between).
• 

  Leolaia

  BTW, I forgot about Bilhah and Zilpah in my earlier post....so indeed, Leah and Rachel only gave birth to four boys each, not six. Eight kids is a far cry from the 30+ necessary to inflate the population in the subsequent two generations.

  Also we have four generations through Aaron's paternal line (Levi -> Kohath -> Amram -> Aaron), but in fact there are only three in his maternal line (Levi -> Jochebed -> Aaron) if we take note of Numbers 26:59. That is another reason why Amram and Jochebed have to wait so long before having kids. That lengthy gap bridges the time needed for Jochebed to be the daughter of Levi as well as the mother of Aaron and Moses. This is another consideration that likely led to the division of the 430 years between Canaan and Egypt, as 430 years is just too long for three generational links.

  Here are two of the chronographical schemes depicted in accordance with the Watchtower chronology of the sojourn (notice that the first scheme agrees with Genesis 46:6-11, the second does not):