Growth rates are tricky things to work with, especially population growth rates. They *never* grow at a smooth rate and often have prolonged periods of negative growth. Here's an illustration.
We start with 2 people, Adam & Eve, who appeared around 4004 BC according to a literalist's Biblical chronology. So this gives 6003 years for the population to grow from 2 people to 6 billion. That works out to an average annual population growth of 0.364%, which is far less than the current global growth rate of about 2%.
Assuming the 0.364% annual growth rate, then by the year 2500 BC there were only about 462 people alive in the world. If we assume 1/10 of them lived in Egypt, then about 46 people built the pyramids. Historians and archaeologists believe it took tens of thousands of workers decades just to build one pyramid.
By 2000 BC when Noah was building boats there were 2,906 people in the world. After God lovingly killed 2,898 of these people by leaving the faucet running, there were only 8 humans left --- Noah and his clan. Starting with these 8 folks, we’d need a 0.512% annual population growth rate to get to our current level. With this new starting population and growth rate, by 1500 BC when the Host of Pharaoh was chasing the Hebrews as they fled Egypt, there would have been 103 people in the world, about 10 of which lived in Egypt. The "Host of Pharaoh" was actually more like 3 guys chasing 2 Hebrews, one of which was Moses.
Moving ahead to 300 BC when Alexander was doing Great things, there were only 47,147 people in the world, maybe 10,000 of which lived in the territories he conquered. Alexander had more than that in his army alone. By the time Jesus lived, there would have been 218,232 people in the world, maybe 50,000 of which lived in the Roman Empire (the city of Rome by itself is known to have had a population of around 100,000 at that time).
Let’s go back to the original sinners, Adam and Eve. If we use today's population growth rate of 2% and start with the first couple 6007 years ago, then by 2500 BC there would have been more than 17 trillion people in the world, or about 2800 times more than there are now. And at that rate we would today have 9.17+E51 people on the planet (that's a 917 followed by 51 zeros). The total mass of humanity would probably exceed the mass of the solar system.
We start with 2 people, Adam & Eve, who appeared around 4004 BC according to a literalist's Biblical chronology. So this gives 6003 years for the population to grow from 2 people to 6 billion. That works out to an average annual population growth of 0.364%, which is far less than the current global growth rate of about 2%.
Assuming the 0.364% annual growth rate, then by the year 2500 BC there were only about 462 people alive in the world. If we assume 1/10 of them lived in Egypt, then about 46 people built the pyramids. Historians and archaeologists believe it took tens of thousands of workers decades just to build one pyramid.
By 2000 BC when Noah was building boats there were 2,906 people in the world. After God lovingly killed 2,898 of these people by leaving the faucet running, there were only 8 humans left --- Noah and his clan. Starting with these 8 folks, we’d need a 0.512% annual population growth rate to get to our current level. With this new starting population and growth rate, by 1500 BC when the Host of Pharaoh was chasing the Hebrews as they fled Egypt, there would have been 103 people in the world, about 10 of which lived in Egypt. The "Host of Pharaoh" was actually more like 3 guys chasing 2 Hebrews, one of which was Moses.
Moving ahead to 300 BC when Alexander was doing Great things, there were only 47,147 people in the world, maybe 10,000 of which lived in the territories he conquered. Alexander had more than that in his army alone. By the time Jesus lived, there would have been 218,232 people in the world, maybe 50,000 of which lived in the Roman Empire (the city of Rome by itself is known to have had a population of around 100,000 at that time).
Let’s go back to the original sinners, Adam and Eve. If we use today's population growth rate of 2% and start with the first couple 6007 years ago, then by 2500 BC there would have been more than 17 trillion people in the world, or about 2800 times more than there are now. And at that rate we would today have 9.17+E51 people on the planet (that's a 917 followed by 51 zeros). The total mass of humanity would probably exceed the mass of the solar system.
