Iskander

I don’t know.

Toto

So Josephus was an unreliable eyewitness. If he could have exaggerated by a factor of 4, why not a factor of 10? 100? Where does it stop? Maybe the numbers need to be interpreted using gematria and are not census counts in any case.

Iskander

#191
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Sorry and thank you.

I don't know how to 'hide' , but I will take care not to post too much text in the future

Got it . FAQ

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outhouse

I dont think he is that far off, and many do not question his numbers at all.


I used the word "may" and I gave a example. he was not writing fiction.

thefact we also have 600,000 from another eye witness means we have a difference to take into account.


Now this is just the war, not he passover in jesus time calimed to be the "passover of density" where the temple was packed to the point of overflowing.

37 acres in the temple packed full matches Josephas numbers.

outhouse

why? Joesphas was a roman.

and never used as gematria

Toto

Josephus was raised as a Jew, describes himself as a Pharisee, etc.

Perhaps you should google Josephus gematria before claiming that he never used it.

outhouse

correct, thank you.

I can be corrected



OK looked it up



by your calculations, does it come out to be just a little higher then half of the actual english numbers???


If so that would match the other historian

Duke Leto

Then on what grounds are you disputing my calculations?

Iskander

I am not disputing your calculations

Duke Leto

Put it this way. Can you show one other case in the history of warfare where 600,000 people, combatants and non-combatants have been completely enveloped without hope of resupply for 7 months in an area of 1 square mile?

The siege of Leningrad involved a couple million people for three years, but the Soviets were able to resupply the city via ice road and later boat over Lake Ladoga for most of the siege. A quick glance at the map will show that the area of Leningrad and its environs that was cut off was around the size of Israel, not 1 square mile.

Hulugu Khan's siege of Baghdad, perhaps? The city went down in a month thanks to Mongol artillery, and between 100,000 and 1 million civillians are supposed to have been killed. (100,000 is a bit more probable, you need to take an account that requires every soldier in an attacking army to kill 10 civilians with skepticism.) This is Medieval Islamic Baghdad we are talking about here, functionally the equivalent of Rome.

I know, the siege of Paris! 3.5 months 1870-1871, 240,000 Germans vs. 200,000 residual French Army plus maybe a million civilians. 1.8 million was the population in 1866 and a fair number will have had the sense to get out of there in advance of the Germans. It only lasted so long because the Germans were afraid to use artillery on the city because the civilian deaths might convince other countries to join France and the siege ended 3 days after they started firing, although the French were already starving. The supply of food was sufficiently bad that having a train full of the stuff sent in was part of the terms of surrender. Looks about on par with the Jerusalem, right? The Paris city limits contain 41 Square miles. I don't think it's likely that the French lines contained much less that 120 square miles, although I can't find a map.

Back to the stairwells. It surprises me you don't see the problem here. Stadiums are less densely packed than your Temple Mount is supposed to have been, and they have far more exits.



7 fairly small entrances to the structure from only two directions, which is a bit surprising since I would have guessed the Antonia had its own direct access. Even if it did I imagine it was closed to the public. Of these it looks like Wilson's Arch is the only way to get your lambs into the enclosure, since quadrupeds are not good on stairs.

I looked for a while on getting the actual dimensions of these damned things, and I've been reduced to guesstimating, but here's the educated guesstimate:

Wiki says the side with Wilson's Arch was 488 m vs. 280 m for the Huldah Gate side. Call that 1500 and 900 feet for roundness. The Triple Huldah Gate looks like it had the widest opening, and it can not have been more than a twentieth of the length of the wall. Call it 45 feet wide. Problem is that the stairwell is only 2/3rds the width of the Triple Gate call it 30 ft. Shoulder to shoulder you can in principle stand 20 people in a 30 foot line, but realistically in a crowd, I don't see how any of these entrances could have had a maximum throughput much above 15 persons per 5 seconds. Human walking speed is about 4 feet per second, but top speed is set by the stairs in this case and a crowd has a much slower maximum speed than a man.

I'd have to stand outside of a downtown subway staircase to confirm this, but from the times I've taken a commuter train to work it's taken a minute to empty about 50 commuters out via a single 15 ft wide stairwell that includes a one way up escalator, both options being utilized. That seems about right.

Most of the stairwells are not as wide as the Huldahs, but I'll give you credit for getting 3 people per second through each of them and 7 per second over Wilson's Arch. That's a grand total of 25 people per second being brought into the Temple Mount. That's basically 4.5 hours to get the stated 400,000 onto the platform, and 4.5 hours to get them off again. And you probably can't even get started until you've gotten the 40,000 god damned lambs over Wilson's Arch, which is itself probably going to be a multi-hour process unless you've got the sense to keep them penned in the Temple complex overnight, which is probably not Kosher.