Archeology has never disproved a Biblical point

[X]

I just did a little math. If it's flawed, then it's because I'm not a mathematician.

*Let's say they had 1 mile of clear ground (with water on the left and the right).
*If we assume 1 person needs 3 feet across to move comfortably, there would only be 1,760 people abreast.
*To move 600,000 people ONLY (no animals, etc.) means there would be 341 rows of people.
*If the average person walked 4 miles an hour, and it was a 4 mile stretch to walk, there would only be 7040 people on the river bed at any given time.
*For rudimentary purposes (again, I am no mathematician) let's assume every hour 7,040 people cross to the other side.

It would take well over 85 hours for 600,000 people to cross 1 mile wide by 4 miles long.

Monster

I'm curious about the bold bits...



Variables:

number of people
length of passage
width of passage
speed of group


Assumptions:

1) Group travels at a speed of 4 miles per hour (21,120 feet per hour)
2) Passageway is 1 mile wide, and is filled edge to edge with people
3) 600,000 people need to cross
4) People space themselves 3 foot ahead & behind and 3 foot to the side of their neighbors (i.e. in a square lattice)
5) No livestock
6) No cars, planes, trains, boats, chariots, bicycles, horses, jetpacks, etc...


Analysis:

What we have here is a moving block of people, spaced 3 foot apart in a square lattice formation.
The time needed for everyone to cross will simply be the time for the last row to cover the 4 mile stretch, as well as the depth of the moving block itself.

Since we know that at 4 miles per hour, the 4 mile long stretch will be traversed in 1 hour, all we need to do is find the depth of the moving block.

For each row:
5280/3 +1 = 1,761 people abreast.
(+1, because there can be one on each end)

A block of 600,000 people in rows of 1761 will be:
600,000/1761 = 341 rows deep
(340.7, actually, but since we can't have 0.7 rows of people, we round it up. If anybody cares, the 341st row will have 1,260 people)

The length of the block of moving people (1 mile wide) would be:
(341-1)*(3 feet) = 1020 feet long
(note that we subtract one for the first row, which starts at distance 0)

Time to travel the depth of the block:
(1020 feet)/(21120 feet/hour) = 0.048 hours ~ 3 minutes.


Answer:

Time to cross = 1.048 hours.


Conclusion:

The time required to move 600,000 people spaced 3 feet apart across a 1 mile wide stretch that is 4 miles long, at a speed of 4 miles per hour, is 1 hour and 3 minutes from the moment the first person starts crossing.

Your analysis, Monster Machine, has the rows spaced 1 mile apart.

My numbers can be checked by anybody who can be bothered. I may have errored. If so, let me know.

Changes in the variables can be accounted for. Either re-do the calculation, of just figure out the change and multiply it through.
(i.e. double the population => double the time; twice the speed => half the time, etc)


Note of course that this does not in any way prove the exodus happened.

 

[Nogbad]

I'm curious about the bold bits...



Variables:

number of people
length of passage
width of passage
speed of group


Assumptions:

1) Group travels at a speed of 4 miles per hour (21,120 feet per hour)
2) Passageway is 1 mile wide, and is filled edge to edge with people
3) 600,000 people need to cross
4) People space themselves 3 foot ahead & behind and 3 foot to the side of their neighbors (i.e. in a square lattice)
5) No livestock
6) No cars, planes, trains, boats, chariots, bicycles, horses, jetpacks, etc...


Analysis:

What we have here is a moving block of people, spaced 3 foot apart in a square lattice formation.
The time needed for everyone to cross will simply be the time for the last row to cover the 4 mile stretch, as well as the depth of the moving block itself.

Since we know that at 4 miles per hour, the 4 mile long stretch will be traversed in 1 hour, all we need to do is find the depth of the moving block.

For each row:
5280/3 +1 = 1,761 people abreast.
(+1, because there can be one on each end)

A block of 600,000 people in rows of 1761 will be:
600,000/1761 = 341 rows deep
(340.7, actually, but since we can't have 0.7 rows of people, we round it up. If anybody cares, the 341st row will have 1,260 people)

The length of the block of moving people (1 mile wide) would be:
(341-1)*(3 feet) = 1020 feet long
(note that we subtract one for the first row, which starts at distance 0)

Time to travel the depth of the block:
(1020 feet)/(21120 feet/hour) = 0.048 hours ~ 3 minutes.


Answer:

Time to cross = 1.048 hours.


Conclusion:

The time required to move 600,000 people spaced 3 feet apart across a 1 mile wide stretch that is 4 miles long, at a speed of 4 miles per hour, is 1 hour and 3 minutes from the moment the first person starts crossing.

Your analysis, Monster Machine, has the rows spaced 1 mile apart.

My numbers can be checked by anybody who can be bothered. I may have errored. If so, let me know.

Changes in the variables can be accounted for. Either re-do the calculation, of just figure out the change and multiply it through.
(i.e. double the population => double the time; twice the speed => half the time, etc)


Note of course that this does not in any way prove the exodus happened.

LOL - it would also require them to walk in perfect formation or cause chaos. I am frequently perplexed as to why it takes a group of people so long to exit a bus or a train or a theatre. A simple delay and the whole thing comes to a shuddering halt. Can you imagine it - "Boulder here - everybody move over a bit"

Even trying to get 600,000 soldiers across a 4 four mile stretch in an hour and a bit would be entertaining

Personally, I think 600,000 refugees would meander across over a couple of days. The loss of the Egyptian army and all their chariots would have left the door open for all their enemies to plunder - specially as all the first born sons had just died. Quite a dent in their population.

 

[MG1962]

LOL - it would also require them to walk in perfect formation or cause chaos. I am frequently perplexed as to why it takes a group of people so long to exit a bus or a train or a theatre. A simple delay and the whole thing comes to a shuddering halt. Can you imagine it - "Boulder here - everybody move over a bit"

Even trying to get 600,000 soldiers across a 4 four mile stretch in an hour and a bit would be entertaining

Personally, I think 600,000 refugees would meander across over a couple of days. The loss of the Egyptian army and all their chariots would have left the door open for all their enemies to plunder - specially as all the first born sons had just died. Quite a dent in their population.

Your bus and train example is poor because these exits have natural choke points. In this example it has been assumed for the point of the exercise, once people get moving, they have no obstrucions

Moving masses of people is not that unusual. I have seen a crowd of 55,000 exit a sports stadium in under 20 minutes. Mind you it probably took them an hour to get out of the car park

On the other hand a speed of 4 miles an hour seems high. Just because the water was removed does not mean a firm dry footing. The ground would be very unstable - adding so many people trampling through, I would hate to see the conditions after just a few thousand had attempted to cross

 

[Nogbad]

Your bus and train example is poor because these exits have natural choke points. In this example it has been assumed for the point of the exercise, once people get moving, they have no obstrucions

Moving masses of people is not that unusual. I have seen a crowd of 55,000 exit a sports stadium in under 20 minutes. Mind you it probably took them an hour to get out of the car park

On the other hand a speed of 4 miles an hour seems high. Just because the water was removed does not mean a firm dry footing. The ground would be very unstable - adding so many people trampling through, I would hate to see the conditions after just a few thousand had attempted to cross

Choking - why didn't I think of that.


Yes, there would be presumably be aquatic life and the like too lying around plus a descent and ascent out of the sea bed. Walking quickly over soft sandy bits would be interesting. All in all a lot of fun. More an obstacle course than a stroll.

 

[The Atheist]

Choking - why didn't I think of that.


Yes, there would be presumably be aquatic life and the like too lying around plus a descent and ascent out of the sea bed. Walking quickly over soft sandy bits would be interesting. All in all a lot of fun. More an obstacle course than a stroll.

I can't imagine why you scoff.

A god who made the entire universe isn't going to let a few sea-anemones and a bit of mud slow down his chosen people.

He put in a 300 mph, 5000 people wide travelator. The Israelites crossed in about 20 minutes. Jesus, you guys are slow, with all that silly maths and physics.

When will you ever learn? God PWNs mathematics.

 

[Monster Machine]

Your analysis, Monster Machine, has the rows spaced 1 mile apart.

My numbers can be checked by anybody who can be bothered. I may have errored. If so, let me know.

Changes in the variables can be accounted for. Either re-do the calculation, of just figure out the change and multiply it through.
(i.e. double the population => double the time; twice the speed => half the time, etc)

Ah yes, the flaw in my assumption was the blocks spread out one mile apart.

So, have we therefore concluded that this absurd story is at least possible to accomplish in the time frame given in the OT?

Monster

 

[Tricky]

This discussion reminds me of a joke I heard long ago.
*************
Dad: What did you learn in Sunday School today, Johnny?

Johnny: Well, Dad, the Israelites were trapped on the bank of the Red Sea with the Pharoah's army hot on their trails. Then God sent in a squadron of Army Engineers with landing craft and they built a pontoon bridge for the Israelites to cross. Then as Pharoah's army started to cross, God sent a sqadron of bombers who blew up the bridge right while Pharoah's army was in the middle!

Dad: are you sure that's what your Sunday School teacher said, Johnny.

Johnny: Well, not exactly, Dad, but you shoulda heard the way she told it.

 

[Ocelot]

Just to add to the many discrepancies between biblical history and archeology there's the appearance of multiple written languages before the baked bricks allegedly used in the tower of babel.

http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted...nesis/Text/Articles-Books/Seely_Babel_WTJ.pdf

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Has this been posted yet?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I just did a little math. If it's flawed, then it's because I'm not a mathematician.

*Let's say they had 1 mile of clear ground (with water on the left and the right).
*If we assume 1 person needs 3 feet across to move comfortably, there would only be 1,760 people abreast.
*To move 600,000 people ONLY (no animals, etc.) means there would be 341 rows of people.
*If the average person walked 4 miles an hour, and it was a 4 mile stretch to walk, there would only be 7040 people on the river bed at any given time.
*For rudimentary purposes (again, I am no mathematician) let's assume every hour 7,040 people cross to the other side.

It would take well over 85 hours for 600,000 people to cross 1 mile wide by 4 miles long.

Monster

Thank you.

And that's not considering the herds and flocks, carrying provisions and possessions, and old, infirm, sick or very young people that need to be carried.

I still can't find the military examples. I read them not long ago. For big numbers like that, carrying provisions and equipment, the time is measured in at least days and weeks, not hours. And certainly not one overnight.

OK. . and then there's Matthew's Star in the East that somehow led people FROM the East, managed to move and stop over Herod's Palace (and see if historical records allow for Herod to reign the year of Jesus' birth), then move again and stop over a house (not a manger) in Bethlehem. . . .

Let's see, there are conflicts with history, astronomy, and very simple logic (you can't following something in the East and somehow go from the East to the West). Or you could just presume this is fiction and nothing like a historical record of actual events.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Personally, I think 600,000 refugees would meander across over a couple of days.

And don't forget their great flocks and herds. I somehow think that's got to slow things down just a bit.

Exodus has this event happening overnight. Say 8 to 12 hours?

 

[hokie]

I have hiked extensively over many different terrains and I never plan on being able to do 4 mph. That's a bit high. Back in my youth I figured that a youth group hiking in the mountains did about 1 mph.

Consider a modern highway. What causes traffic snarls? What causes unexplained stops, sometimes dead stops in the middle of a 4 lane roadway? You assume its an accident until you get to drive away. The problem was due to congestion. Put 600K cars onto a road and you know there will be congestion, and congestion delays.

Put 600K people milling around and after several hours or maybe days the back of the line realizes that things are moving.

Ever been to a big march? Takes half a day for 500K people to march a route less than 3 miles and most of the time the march is stopped due to congestion. No one is carrying provisions either.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Here are some examples of modern military crossings:

From the Yom Kippur War, both the Egyptians and the Israeli armies crossed the Suez Canal:

Under cover of this artillery barrage, 4,000 Egyptian troops then crossed the Suez Canal at 2:05 in nearly 720 rubber assault rafts, in what became known as The Crossing, and these were joined by subsequent waves until the entire assault force of 32,000 men had crossed the canal in three and a half hours.

Once the bridges had been laid, additional infantry with the remaining portable and recoilless AT weapons began to cross the canal, while the first Egyptian tanks started to cross at 8:30, and eighteen hours after the assault, five infantry divisions and 850 tanks had crossed the canal[43]

I don't know how many people 5 infantry divisions comes to, but I'll bet it's a lot fewer than 600,000.

 

[I Ratant]

I do about 2.5 miles per hour out back in the desert, with some hill climbing involved.
On the flat, I can do about 2.7 miles per hour, but I walk kinda slow.
At the Mall, the Mall Walkers pass me by, doing more than 1 lap themselves to each lap I do.
And, those 600,000 (some say more) people spent 38 of those 40 years in one spot in the Sinai, if memory serves.
Considering the time, when the average life span might get to 40 years, a considerable portion of those people would have died while resting there.
Where's the cemetary for that considerable portion of people?
Burial was quite an important feature of the Hebrew culture.
Should be a large cemetary in the area.

 

[TimCallahan]

Tim, are you saying David rohl is trying to support the bible because everything I have seen led me to believe he was debunking it. Especially the gospel according to egypt site which he seems to support. I could very well be wrong as it has been awhile since I studied this. Also do you think Rohl has anything?

Rohl apparently has ties to people who today still support the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky. To some degree he was trying to support the biblical view, claiming to have found the tomb of the "historic" Joseph, etc. He has tried to make various local rulers of Canaan referred to in the Amarna letters correspond to Saul, David and Joab, among others. The Amarna letters are archival cunieform tablets written in Akkadian, the international language of the Near East in the late Bronze Age. They were letters to Pharaoh Akhenaten, mainly from his Canaanite vassel kings.

It's somewhat amusing that Rohl tries to use the Amarna letters to support his thesis, because a mainstay of his theory is that the conventional chronology is way off, since the Egyptian and Assyrian king lists cannot be matched up except at one point: We know that the last pharaoh of the 26th. or Cushite dynasty, Taharka, was the contemporary of Asshurbanipul, the last great Assyrian king. Thus, Rohl feels he can slide the lists around by claiming that two minor Egyptian dynasties originally considered sequential were, in fact, contemporary. Using this wedge, he claims that the Pharaoh whom the Bible calls "Shishak," who attacked Judah and Israel after the death of Solomon, was not Soshenq I, first king of the Libyan or 22nd. dynasty, as commonly thought, but was instead Ramesses II of the 19th. dynasty.

However, among the Amarna letters are some written to Akhenaten from an Assyrian king named Asshur-uballit. While some names repeat quite often in the Assyrian king lists (there were three Tiglath-pilesers and five Shalmanesers), there are only two Assyrian kings named Asshur-uballit. Since the second of these was the younger brother of Asshurbanipul and only briefly ruled the city of Harran after Nineveh had fallen to the Medes and Chaldeans, he can't possibly be the contemorary of Akhenaten. Therefore the Asshur-uballit who was that pharaoh's contemporary was Asshur-uballit I, and the two king lists are actually stapled together at least at two points. Since Asshur-uballit I was a contemporary of Akhenaten, the Assyrian king named Adad-nirari, who wrote to Ramesses II has to be Adad-nirari I. Thus, contrary to Rohl's thesis, The Assyrian and Egyptian king lists can be matched together at three points, three sets of contemporaries: Akhenaten and Asshur-uballit I, Ramesses II and Adad-nirari I, Taharka and Asshurbanipul.

Thus, we cannot slide the pharonic king list around to play with the chronology; and the evidence of the Amarna letters supports the conventional chronology and discrdits Rohl's attempt at radical redating.

 

[X]

<snip>
(i.e. double the population => double the time; <snip>)


Note of course that this does not in any way prove the exodus happened.

I made a mistook.
If the population doubles, in my analysis, the time to cover the length of the block will double. Not the overall time. Oops.


And as has been mentioned, this assumes highly idealized circumstances.
I don't know how many of you live near (or have visited) the seaside.
When the tide is out, people can (and sometimes do, tragically) get stuck walking out onto the sea floor. The mud is like tar, and traps people. When the tide comes in, they drown.
Burnham-on-Sea, a town I've visited (relatives) bought a hovercraft because that is the only vehicle that can be used to rescue people.

I don't think it is a stretch to imagine the floor of an inland sea would be much different.

Maybe if they had snowshoes...
I still wouldn't attempt it.

Ah yes, the flaw in my assumption was the blocks spread out one mile apart.

So, have we therefore concluded that this absurd story is at least possible to accomplish in the time frame given in the OT?

Monster

No. We haven't concluded it is possible to accomplish in the time frame given.
Too many potential problems.
And getting a block of 600,000 (i.e. the whole of my city) plus belongings to move, in unison and in formation, across uneven and unpredictable ground, in only a few hours?
Bwahahahaha!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Oh by the way, it was 600,000 men PLUS women and children (and possessions and animals). Possibly 2 million humans.

Here's an apologist's calculations saying it was possible:

Objection:Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of Humanistic Judaism, claimed on T.V. that the event never happened. "It would have taken them weeks to cross," he sneered. Answer:Easy to say. But it does not take much effort to discover that this man forgot to sit down and do his arithmetic: * Width of underwater bridge: 900 metres. (But let's be cautions and say that only 750 metres/2,500 feet of this width was used.) * Allowing 5 feet (1,5 metres) per person side to side, would give space for 500 persons abreast. * With the length of the crossing at 8 miles (13 km), and travelling at 2,5 miles (4 km) per hour, it would take 3 ( hours for the front row of persons to cross over. * With 500 persons abreast, and a total of, say, 2 million people, there would be queues 4,000 deep. * Allow a distance of 5 feet (1,5 metres) from person to person, one behind the other. Also allow for half of these persons to be driving an animal (at an extra 10 feet/ 3 metres average space for each animal). Allow also for a quarter of the people in possession of a cart (occupying a further feet/3 meters for each vehicle). All this would require a procession 9.6 miles/15.4 km in length. * Thus the final row of persons would be 9.6 miles/15.4 km, or 4 hours' walking time behind the front row. * The final row would leave the western shore some 4 hours after the departure of the front row, and would take 3 ( hours to make the crossing. * RESULT: Total crossing time for 2 million people, plus animals and carts, would be 7 ( hours. Even if these figures require some adjustment, it is still safe to say that the time needed to make the crossing was by no means excessive.

This is fun reading. This guy cites several other scriptural passages and Josephus to determine that this was actually a "deep" section of water. In his version, a strong wind blew which caused the waters to separate and then freeze (yes--as ice).

 

[TimCallahan]

As to all this stuff about what "actually" happened at the Red Sea, here's the best answer: absolutely (or at least practically) nothing. Again, there are two periods proposed for the Exodus / Conquest narratives, ca. 1450 and ca. 1200 BCE. Since the Egyptians clearly have no presence in Israel according to both Joshua and Judges, the 1450 date conflicts with history, since the 18th. dynastey begins with the reign of Ahmose I in 1570, over 100 years after the early date of the Exodus. It was during the 18th. and 19th. dynasties that Egypt's New Kingdom reached it apex of power. However, even in the 20th. dynasty, Egypt under Ramesses III (1182 - 1151) maintained Egyptian garrisons in Canaan (we have the archaeological evidence). Earlier, the victory stela set up by Merneptah (1212 - 1202) refers to "Israel" as a people - one among many - already living in Canaan.

Thus, with a bit of fudging, we can set the "historical" Exodus at ca. 1200 - except for archaeology. At neither of the time periods above do we find in Canaan the right mix of walled cities and evidence of their dramatic destruction that would fit the Book of Joshua.Thus, there was no great epic exodus and there was no blitzkreig conquest of Canaan by the Israelites.

Probably there were a number of small escapes of bands of slaves from Egypt. In one of these escapes slaves could have turned a pursuit by Egyptian chariots to their advantage by fleeing accross a tidal flat on foot, where the chariots got bogged down in wet sand. Certain names among the Levites are clearly of Egyptian origin : Moses ("child" - from the suffix "-mose"), Hophni ("tadpole") and Phineas ("dark one"). That's about it for the great exodus. The main body of the tribes that became the people of Yahweh seem to have been rural native Canaanites, who separated themselves out in the hill country, secceding from the Canaanite city states.

 

[shadron]

It would appear that the whole concept of slavery in Egypt is untenable. Archaeology of the builders sites in and around the various projects in Egypt show then to be semi-permanent living places for the seasonal workers there, who at other times worked their fields elsewhere; they are undifferentiatable from normal Egyptians working off-season jobs for subsistence. Slaves were no doubt kept by elite Egyptians, but were mainly used in personal capacilites, not in mass public works. The whole concept of 600,000 restive slaves in the Middle Empire is rather ludicrous.

 

[shadron]

This whole argument about the Reed Sea is a hoot. It's parallel might be to attempt to determine the wonderful shampoo that Samson must have used, or the genus and species of the thorn in Androcles' lion's paw.