MiddleMan

I'm glad I'm not the only one under the impression that the Hebrews camped at Kadesh-Barnia for 38 years and didn't, as bfniii asserted, simply the wander the desert of Sinai for 40 years, not staying long enough in any one spot for evidence of their encampments to accumulate.

However, even if they did merely wander the desert, why didn't 2+million people ever find their way out of that relatively small desert in 40 years of wandering about?

And just how big were those camps anyway? I mean, 2+million people, their possessions and their animals, take up a lot of space and require a lot of resources.

spin

And here it is:

The traces of camps of a few thousand Roman soldiers have been found, while the camps of a few million Hebrews can't.

A few million do not just "wander". And that should be totally obvious.

How many mere days does the story indicate that the Hebrews were at Kadesh Barnea, where Miriam died, where Moses sent messages to the king of Edom and from where he sent people to survey the promised land?

Have you ever heard of wear and tear. It happens no matter how "fastidious" one is. When there are a few million, there's a lot of wear and tear.

Besides, when one makes a camp, one changes the environment in order to take advantage of it. This leaves visible traces. This is seen in the areas around towns and settlements that have been excavated: places where paths existed, the levelling of ground, waste dumps. This is food for archaeologists.

Broken sherds? unusable clothing? Refuse? The daily load of shit deposited by a few million people?

So small that a column of people standing eight abreast a metre apart would reach from Sinai to Jerusalem -- as a rough estimate regarding the few million people.

bfniii, in his usual manner of avoiding issues, thinks with this that he has addressed the physical traces that should be left by a few million people. The rest of us know better.

While he's in his state of denial, he might like to consider the average well in the Sinai. Let's say that 100 people took turns of one minute per day at the well -- and I'm being generous with the wells found in the Sinai, as the flow of water would not supply this many at a time --; this means only 144,000 people would get water each day. Outcome: widespread extinction. Oh, I forgot, manna!!! How many square kilometres of land would have to be harvested to supply the few million?

Our large modern cities have quite a logistical problem processing all the waste material produced by humans each day. How could the few million Hebrews without any technology have dealt with the same problem?

The exodus is a logistical nightmare.


spin

xaxxat

Oh, manna...

http://www.holyobserver.com/detail.p...1i05&art=manna

bfniii

perhaps you could provide some examples of this?

bfniii

i have addressed this point.



making up? i don't recall doing that.



you must be unfamiliar with the lack of egyptian records from the hyksos period. apparently, the egyptians didn't take too kindly to being ruled by foreigners.



no, that is incorrect. conflicting evidence would be something to the effect of records from some country stating they dealt with the hebrews in canaan during the time they should have been in egypt. another might be archeaological evidence of contemporaneous mass numbers of hebrews somewhere other than egypt. even those examples are slightly problematic because their alleged time in egypt is not known for certain.

what you are describing:
1. doesn't address the fallacy that there should be some type of evidence
2. doesn't address when the hebrews were supposed to be in egypt
3. doesn't address the varying interpretations of the numbers of hebrews

bfniii

kenyon's work in jericho has been superceded, and in some cases contraverted, by more recent work

bfniii

i'm not sure i'm following the question. are you asking me what archeaological finds corroborate the biblical claims? if so, i made a list in post #90

bfniii

it's been a while amigo.

the italian excavation:
1. was short (one month i think). hardly time for any profound conclusions
2. didn't canvass all of jericho. not even close.
3. isn't going to be the final say. jericho's story is far from over
4. spurious to begin with. not the most objective dig

bfniii

supposedly, in the neighborhood of 38 years.

bfniii

good ole spin. name dropping. not addressing the points. instead of your customary tactic, why don't you tell us what problems you have with Khirbet Nisya?