Then of course we have the problem of if there were really 1-2 MILLION people wandering through the desert - there has yet to be any real archeological or historical evidence to support such a widespread exodus. This kind of mass movement of people would not have gone unrecorded or without tangible proof
"Over the past two centuries, scholars have questioned much of the Torah’s historicity. Although biblical archaeology began as an attempt to defend the historicity of the biblical narratives, more recently the findings of archaeology have become some of the chief obstacles to believing in the historicity of much of the Torah.
One serious problem with accepting even the broad outlines of the exodus and wilderness-wandering accounts is the great number of Israelites the Torah claims were involved: upwards of 2 million. Even scholars who accept some sort of historical exodus, such as Richard Elliott Friedman,[1] say that the numbers are impossible to accept.
Many Bible scholars dismiss the great numbers as fanciful, or as a late innovation by the Priestly author, not reflecting actual number of early Israelites. Nevertheless, for those scholars who wish to see the Torah as coming from one Author or as internally consistent, the census numbers have remained a serious problem.
We have witnessed a resurgence in attempts to interpret the census data in a way that reduces their numbers significantly. Professor Joshua Berman, for instance, offered a suggestion along these lines in his recentMosaic article, “Was there an Exodus?” The following piece by Ben Katz is part of this trend."
http://thetorah.com/recounting-the-census-a-military-force-of-5500/
The Problems with Understanding
the Term א;;ל;;ף;; as “Thousand”
Such a large population wandering in the Sinai seems impossible (there isn’t enough water to sustain them), neither does it fit with the archaeological record, since such a massive amount of people living there for forty years would have left a trace. In addition, a number of other biblical passages are internally inconsistent with a population of 600,000-plus adult males and their families.[4]
The First-Born Problem: Too Many Children per Family
The Torah twice states that there were about 20,000 firstborn males over one month of age (22,273 to be exact [Num. 3:39 and 3:46]). Since the total population of adult males over age 20 is a little more than 600,000, there were at least 580,000 non-firstborn males over the age of 20.[5] Since each family could have only one firstborn—and only half of these would be male—this implies families of at least 29 non-firstborn males to first born males (580,000 / 20,000), i.e., families of at least 30 males apiece, unless for some reason mortality of firstborns was very much higher than that of subsequent children, accounting for a lower ration of firstborns to subsequent children. Including females would roughly double these numbers, unless for some reason significantly more than 50% of firstborns were girls.
Other Biblical Passages Assume a Smaller Population
Many passages in the Bible characterize the Israelites as having a small population. Exodus 23:29-30, for example, states that one of the reasons God will not drive out the Canaanites from the Promised land all at once is “lest the land become desolate” because the Israelites will need time to “increase…and possess the land.”[6] Deuteronomy 7:7 states that the Israelites were “the fewest of all people.”[7] Finally, troop numbers mustered in later periods are lower than expected if 600,000 males of military age lived in the period of the wilderness. For example, Deborah is only able to raise 40,000 troops from six tribes (Judges 5:8).[8]
A Numbers Problem for Modern Readers
Pre-modern traditional Bible commentators were not concerned with this issue. In the modern period, however, these demographic arguments could not be ignored.
Aryeh Kaplan
Birthing Sextuplets and Firstborn Mortality: Aryeh Kaplan
Aryeh Kaplan deals with this issue in his Living Torah.[9] He begins by citing Rashi on Exodus 1:7, who comments on the six verbs used to describe Israelite fecundity in Egypt. Rashi claims that each woman gave birth to sextuplets.[10] This midrash was designed to explain how the Israelites multiplied from a family of seventy to a nation of two million in just a couple of centuries, but it could also be used to explain why families were so large.
Nevertheless, Aryeh Kaplan likely still preferred not to assume the existence of families of 30 male children apiece, so he explained the relative scarcity of firstborns by postulating other assumptions not found in the Torah. For example, he suggested that perhaps many firstborn males did not observe the first Passover in Egypt and consequently died there, thus lowering the ratio of firstborns to subsequent children, or that most of the firstborns were girls.
Baruch Levine
Baruch Levine
Exaggerated Numbers
Many modern Bible commentators—Baruch Levine, for instance[11]—treat the number “600,000” as exaggerated. The number, they claim, is meant to express the great numbers of Israelites in the wilderness. The reason the number is “six hundred thousand” and not, say, a million or five hundred thousand is based on the fact that the Torah works with a sexigesimal (base 60) system (as was common in ancient Mesopotamia).
William Albright
William F. Albright
Anachronism
Another possibility raised almost a century ago by William F. Albright, is that the numbers are anachronistic. Perhaps a later author, used to a larger Israelite population, projected current estimates back into the ancient past. Albright specifically suggests that the figure of 600,000 males derives from the time of David.[12] (Most current archaeologists and historians of the biblical period, however, strongly doubt that the population of ancient Israel ever approached the figure of two million.)
Flinders Petrie
Flinders Petrie
Alternative Approach: א;;ל;;ף;; means a Contingent
Another modern suggestion—first suggested by Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), is that א;;ל;;ף;;, usually translated “thousand,” should be translated like א;;ל;;ו;;ף;; (troop or contingent.)[13] Examples of this use of א;;ל;;ו;;ף;; include Exodus 15:15, “clans of Edom (א;;ל;;ו;;פ;;י;; א;;ד;;ו;;ם;;),” and Gen. 36:15-30 (also in regard to Edom).[14] It is this possibility that I plan to explore here.
Aside from the fact that א;;ל;;ו;;ף;; means contingent, in several instances in the Bible, the word א;;ל;;ף;; itself may not literally mean “thousand"... and can mean 'contingent'
OR - Garveys Africa say MIXUPP a happen and or the whole thing is a fantasy
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