outhouse

There quality control was a little didfferent then we look at today

Their main point was no sick or diseased animals that would slow down the purchase of meat.


I still feel the Sadducees ran the import of sheep to the temple.

Josephas numbers are obvously not accurate at 2 million plus people. The 200,000 lambs seems a bit high as well.

of course this is probably not the passover jesus is said to have attended.


With a possible number of 400,000 and take into account meat was offered to flame for Yahweh we can still guess a very high number of sheep were used.

arnoldo

Human nature being what it is there must’ve been the temptation to keep the best animals for yourself and sneak in the blemished animal for the offering. After all the animal is going to die so why not keep the good stuff for yourself? Malachi 1:8-14 depicts that sometimes sick, torn and lame animals were given for the offering.

outhouse

quite the different times between Malachi and first century temple.

not sure its the best example.


Purity differences were night and day from that period. just looking at the number of mikvas in use first century compared to 450ish BC.

arnoldo

Good point. The Temple appears to have had a unique water system to provide pure water for purification purposes (See: Water Management in Herod's Temple.) Since purity was such a concern there had to be a system in place for all the blood of the lambs to flow out of the city.

DCHindley

Josephus does have this tendency of exaggerating his numbers for dramatic effect, sometimes by a factor of 10, but usually double. Jerusalem's "normal" population in this period was around 36,800, using Broshi's estimate of the range of maximum density based on area occupied. As I believe that Jerusalem of that time was still expanding, I used his lower limit of 160/acre, multiplied by 230 acres. For the total population dating Passover, I added 50% to my estimate of 256,500 pure persons celebrating the passover to cover the impure folks who also attended, or a total of 384,750 persons.

As we can see, if we accept Josephus' numbers at face value, the population increase during passover was by a factor of 105! I think that is patently ridiculous and not worthy of belief. Even if Josephus merely doubled the actual figures the increase is still a factor of 52. Yet if he exaggerated actual numbers by a factor of 10, then the increase during festivals would be 10 times the normal population, which is much more believable. Thus we have about 25,650 unblemished lambs sacrificed at Passover. Like many "pilgrim" towns such as Mecca, etc, there were likely a bunch of seasonal "campgrounds" in the area with more or less permanent facilities for food services, amenities, and the ritual bathing and purification rites necessary before making their sacrifices or praying in the temple.

Likewise, there was likely pasture land dedicated to raising lambs for sacrifice and consumption by the ritually pure, and for commemorative Seders celebrated by the rest who were not ritually pure (including "strangers" from outside the "holy land"!). If we again assume that the impure also celebrated commemorative Seders, up to 12,825 additional lambs may have been consumed, or a total of 38,475. This does not even touch on the number of lambs, rams, goats, ewes and cattle sacrificed for the other festivals and routine daily sacrifices.

Whaaa?	As Stated	50%	10%	FT Pop.	100%	50%	10%
Lambs	256,500	128,250	25,650				38,475
persons per lamb	10
Pure Participants	2,565,000	1,282,500	256,500	36,800	70	35	7
all the rest (estim)	1.5
Total Present	3,847,500	1,923,750	384,750	36,800	105	52	10
Max pop density	min	max	area	min	max
Hectare	400	500
Acre	160	200	230	36,800	46,000
Dunam	40	50

You are probably going to have to check archaeological studies to learn how the rural livestock economy operated and where it was concentrated. While sheep and goats are grazing animals that adapt well to hilly land not suitable for agriculture, cattle requires fodder, which must come from a portion of all crops raised on arable land.

DCH

outhouse

Good post on numbers and the guestimations LOL I agree


herd owners were the wealthy elite at that time.


Knowing there was no to very little middle class, the wealthy and owners of the bank/government were Sadducees, the sale of sheep would have been big big buisness during passover.

The high numbers used ment while people were flooding into the city, a week before the sheep would have been driven in from surrounding villages in probabaly, all near by villages

outhouse

the gate of the firstborn's would have been used for important offerings and with firstborns of course


general sacrifice's would have used the southgate

arnoldo

FWIW, John 5:2 mentions a sheep gate. Commentary on the link provided states that this gate was probably the one that sheep used to enter Jerusalem. John 10:7 also mentions a sheep gate but in a different context.

Johnny Skeptic

Apparently, up until the 19th century, with the popular market flooded by the biblical narratives of Creation and the universal deluge, no guesswork was required regarding those issues. All that was required was dogma and propaganda.

outhouse

I found a sheep gate in the city walls but not the temple


I also found the Israel pool was likely used to wash the stock animals before entry

which was by the pool of Bethesda mentioned in the script you provided.


if so that would place entry on the north gate