Minimalist

And which "archaeologists" might those be? Other "maximalists?" This is a circle jerk. They quote each other and ignore the artifacts that have been dug up since 1967.

Lets remember that it wasn't only Finkelstein and his students out doing surveys on the West Bank. In the aftermath of the 1967 war a whole generation of young Israeli archaeologists headed for the Sinai, too.

They found NOTHING at Kadesh Barnea, Arad, or Beersheba related to the Late Bronze Age. These were all Iron Age settlements and the bible-thumpers have every reason to try to pretend that this evidence does not exist.

There are numerous anachronisms in the OT for anyone who takes the blinders of faith off and looks at these tales honestly. Goliath has the correct accoutrements of a hoplite soldier...a form of warfare which developed in the 7th century BC...oddly, just when Finkelstein claims this stuff was written.
The Egyptian army of the Pharaoh Necho used Greek mercenary hoplites.

Celsus

.Haha you have obviously never been to a refugee camp. We have them now and you can conduct an experiment quite easily with a camp of 50,000 and how easy it is to simply walk out of the camp and relieve yourself and return. Or rather, it isn't. You have numerous problems with poisoning the groundwater, you have problems if it rains and uncovers your defecation, you have problems with how far out of a camp you'd have to go for 50,000 people to spread out (far too far for a people likely to be dealing with dysentry - roughly 2-3 miles), you have problems with how big or small the camp would have to be - too small and you get congestion and serious risk of infectious disease, too big and people at the centre will never be able to get to their toilet spots in time. Do you know how big a camp of 50,000 would have to be? Or 500,000? Or 2 million? SPHERE standards for humanitarian response recommend a safe distance in habitation of 45 square metres per person (not per household mind you). This assumes modern water and sanitation facilities we've only been able to construct in the last 50 years. They didn't have modern machinery to excavate defecation when it filled up common boreholes.

The question is: how many Isreaelites do you think there were in the desert? The picture in the Bible would not work for a camp of more than about 1,000 including women and children. Hardly the numbers you'd need to conquer the Levant 40 years later.

Clivedurdle

I am fascinated by this response, it deserves forensic examination. I never said anything about the number of times it is mentioned, 153 is of interest in itself as it is not a random number but is the equivalent of "quantum".

Now the author who put that in may or may not have known its significance, much as the woman on the clapham omnibus would know the word quantum but may not have Physics A level.

Which leads to a further question - was your non sequiteur deliberate or what does it show?

renassault

They didn't have a camp, they were constantly moving. I think therefore it would have none of the effects it would otherwise have that you've pointed out.

renassault

Hmm, well I can't tell you anything, since Hess' article on the settlements and another book and article is all I've read on the subject. I do remember Hauer and Young in their "An Introduction to the Bible: A Journey into three Worlds" paint a much less bleaker picture than you, and they pretty much summarize the current research regarding the historical aspect of the Bible.

The relatively vague depiction of his armor can hardly be narrowed down so specifically as to be a hoplite..

renassault

If 153 was used once, it wouldn't be a very classical spiritual number in the NT imo.

Celsus

Haha you evidently haven't read your own Bible. How many years did they spend at Kadesh Barnea?

renassault

Seeing how they established camp there, I think they would have had the logistics similar to a town.

Celsus

How many years did they spend at Kadesh Barnea?

renassault

Genesis 14:7 and 16:14 seem to suggest it was some sort of town before the Israelites came there. I don't know if it was, but even if it wasn't, why is it impossible for 1.5-2 million people to make a settlement? Refugee camps are hardly a good comparison since the people don't have the skills and resources to make it liveable by themselves.