Hex

Oh, another thing.

With satellite imaging, infrared photography, and the like, it -is- possible to see where soils have been impacted by continued use. I would think a line of a million people (or them milling about) would show up as patterns on examinations of the area.

Gamera

I think lar's point is, is that true of blow sand or similarly unstable soils? I don't know the answer, but it's something that is knowable.

Biff the unclean

If his point were valid there should be no evidence of human presence, artifacts, campfires and the like. There is plenty of such things from small family groups but nothing at all from any large group. He needs to come up with an explanation that permits groups of a dozen or so to leave signs of their passing but prevents a horde from leaving such a sign.

That many Jews in one spot you’d at least expect piles of Chinese food take out containers

Hex

You're right. Personally, I don't. But, in many ways, I don't have to. Look to the first-person account of


Okay, a bit old, I admit, but a wonderful picture of the landscape before much development. A more technical version might be this one ...

That better for giving an idea at what we look at?

And we -do- find archaeological sites there.

A nicely detailed examination by Angela E. Close, of her 1995 field survey is here. She nicely shows -neolithic- settlements and burials within the Sinai Penninsula, as well as going over geography and touching on geology.


More can be found, of course, people like Haiman -

Moti Haiman - 1998, Nomads and Settlers in the Negev Highlands in the Early bronze Age, pp. 103-121 in: Ahituv, S. (ed.), Studies in the archaeology of Nomads in the Negev and Sinai, Ben Gurion University and Israel Antiquities authority, Beer Sheva.

- tend to work in areas closer to Jordan, simply because there's more sites there.

The fact that there are no Hebrew remains in the archaeological record if there's Neolithic and nomadic remains says something to me ...

Hex

And, take a look at this as a nice satellite picture that shows that the sand isn't as deep as one might think ...

RED DAVE

I am going to get you for that.

Then, for all those boy children born, you expect to find a lot of dried up foreskins fountain pens lying around.

RED DAVE

Gamera

You may be right. And I suspect you are. My only point is Lar's thesis is testable, if he gets the right data.

Gamera

You're probably right, but it all depends on how many people, how long they 'wandered," where they wandered, and the topology and ecology of the area at the time.

My only point is, these are all testable matters. I have no stake in lar's thesis.

Biff the unclean

When I lived in Brooklyn I was assured that Mu Shu (as in mu shu pork) was the Chinese word for kosher.

mens_sana

...embedded in the biblical tradition is historical evidence of a migration or incursion from Reuben of elements of Israel who came from the south and had ties to Midian, whose original leader was Moses. ... Moses has an Egyptian name, and tradition early and late puts him in the house of pharaoh. His descendants, too, sometimes exhibit Egyptian names. I have no reason to doubt that many who eventually reached Reuben (or the "plains of Moab" as the area is more frequently called in the Bible) came north from southern Edom and northern Midian, where the Midianite league flourished, and where, in my view, the mountain of God was located. They were refugees from Egypt or, in traditional terms, patriarchal folk who were freed from Egyptian slavery. — Frank Moore Cross, Conversations with a Bible Scholar (or via: amazon.co.uk), ed. by Herschel Shanks, p.25f.

Neither Cross nor Dever (below) come anywhere near holding out for the traditional Exodus and both are certain that ancient Israel had Canaanite origins.

William G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (or via: amazon.co.uk) Eerdmans, 2003.