spin

I'm afraid Renassault hasn't got a clue about the logistics of large cities.

If one can't get one's head around mountains of excrement and damfuls of urine and simply explains that away in a few mumbles, all one need do is think of the water system: one source of water to provide over a million people with sufficient water each day. No pipes, no water pressure, just a spring. Give access for twenty people per minute to get enough water for themselves each day. 20 * 60 * 24 = 28,800 people per day. It leads to mass death from thirst.


spin

Kritikos

Seconding that. Celsus has made his point as plain as a pikestaff, but Resassault just keeps on dreamin' the dream. Strange, since he saw right through Clivedurdle's numerological conjuring with the number 153.

spin

You are not dealing with the logistics and your use of Sennacherib's army isn't of any value. Sennacherib may have had 185,000 soldiers, but certainly never in any one campaign. The campaign was only seasonal, so never more than a number of months and so the comparison is vain.

You must deal with the logistics of a city the size of Dallas without sanitation or water delivery system or food delivery system. There are no refuse dumps, no mountains of excrement. No signs of years of living around the spring at Kadesh Barnea. And beside the million and a half people, there were droves of animals, eg from war booty there were 675,000 sheep (Num 31:32) as a starter to add to the excrement and food logistics. Israeli archaeologists have gone over the area in minute detail over decades. Zippo. Evidence of nothing there.


spin

renassault

There were multiple sources of water (e.g. Numbers 33:9, Moses' rock, etc.) and they were quite aware when there was no place with water (Num. 33:14). How did you determine it was 20 people per minute, and have you ever heard of jars?

renassault

Springs are quite long as you may not know, so I don't think water was a problem even with 700,000 animals. Sennacherib's army numbered 185,000 and was in one place (2 Kings 19:35), and even being seasonal, means if it can survive one season, it can survive one year: Darius I's army which crossed the Danube and went as far as the Volga according to Herodotus certainly wasn't there for only one season and survived. No need to deal with specifics of the logistics (especially with so little information from the text) when broad examples are present.

What do you expect to find? Stone walls and large monuments erected in the desert? Inscriptions?

spin

Oh, please, think a little. And I have seen springs, such as the enormous one at Palmyra. We are talking about nothing like that. One and a half million people and a couple of million animals living at one spring! "Springs are quite long" -- they have to be amazingly long to fit what you hopefully want. I gave you a simple calculation of twenty people per minute at the spring meaning access for 288,000 people per day. Deal with it, instead of ignoring it, as you did with the excrement issue.

You are trying to ascertain the validity of the bible, so you quote the bible as an authority. I'm sure you can see the difficulty there.

The whole Assyrian army was between 150,000 and 200,000 [*] and they were employed throughout the Assyrian empire.

You don't deal with the implications of the "broad examples" so they have no value. How many people were in the armies you're talking about and what happened to the populations in the path of the armies??

Great armies also carried large amounts of provisions with them augmenting it with what they could forage. The army issue is not useful to you because it isn't analogous.

Again, I would expect you to think a bit more. Do you understand how archaeologists do pre-historic and nomad analyses? Did they use umm, inscriptions and monuments? What did they carry the water with? Their hands? Perhaps the million and a half didn't break any pottery. Do you know what middens are and how they come about? Do you know about landscape modifications to allow for largescale dwelling? A fairly conservative Israeli archaeologist Amihai Mazar explains that research at Kadesh-Barnea "did not reveal even one sherd from the Late Bronze Age or Iron Age I." (Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Doubleday 1990, p.329-330.)

Living even seasonally over a long period leaves tell-tale traces. Ther isn't a skerrick there. Evidence of absense is evidence of absense.


spin

spin

I was being generous to the ridiculous, trying to kickstart a little reasoning from you. Accessing the spring all day and all night at 20 people per minute you only supply 288,000 people.

At Palmyra they built a giant cistern to hold the water as it came from the spring. No cistern was made in the biblical case. Think about how the million and a half plus a few million animals could have survived with the water from the spring at Kadesh-Barnea. If you deal with it, you won't be able to provide a meaningful response.

Now that you've thought about the jars, you should see the issue of leaving no traces. How does a nomadic group carry large jars in transit? Nomads tend to use skins for water and that doesn't mean much carried.


spin

Celsus

Erm do you know anything about demographic distribution of nomadic pastoral communities? Children always outnumber adults. Among pastoralist groups, a mean household size of 6-10 is very normal (that's 4-8 children, in case you need help with the math). What you've just suggested is a hugely ageing population (1 child per 3-6 adults), the sort of which has never existed in human history (the lowest population replacement rate in the world is in Singapore at 1.3 - that's 3 children per 4 adults). Children would still outnumber adults if you lowered the figure to a more likely age of around 15 for an adult. We're being very generous to describe it as 2 million: 600,000 each of men and women and 800,000 children. If you take a typical pastoralist household size of 8, that would be about 4.8 million people all in.
Say what?
It's completely different. Firstly, Sennacherib didn't march the entire army of his entire empire all in one place. Secondly, armies don't stay in one place or area for 38 years. Thirdly, they dig trenches for temporary irrigation when they set up shop. Fourthly, that's still 10 times less people than you have Israelites. Fifthly, Sennacherib is nearly 1000 years later than the Exodus when the levant was significantly more populated. Sixthly, you must be a complete idiot to believe all the exaggerated numbers in the Bible. Even your fellow apologists acknowledge 600,000 number for fighting men is hopelessly unrealistic (they'd likely have been able to not just conquer Palestine, but go back and take Egypt with time to smash through Old Babylon before having the Hittites for supper). Seventhly (oh come on, now you're making me use stupid numbers), if we're to move a 50 square km settlement all over within the desert, we'd have found some evidence of habitation there (or anywhere) by now - they've discovered cottage dwellings of less than a dozen people, yet they can't find 2 million? Did God play not only toilet cleaner and refuse collector, but also janitor to remove the potsherds they broke too?
I would expect to see the water sources showing heavy signs of usage, wear and tear or erection of efficient systems of drawing water such as the construction of pools, a crapload of pottery shards and potentially things like rope and a concentration of animal remains. Also I'd expect to see some kinds of grave sites, probably on Sinai, since with a population of 2 million and what we know of mortality rates and life expectancy, we'd have several hundred thousand deaths (that, remember, is the entire size of Sennacherib's army).
You don't seem to get the point. That's an extraordinarily efficient and generous distribution to quench people's thirst. It doesn't actually work that way in practice, never mind that their animals would have to drink as well. Nor do you even realise the water needs of 2 million people. Desert people live on about 3-4 litres of water a day in extremely dry conditions (we water fat city types need 7-8). You know that's 6 million litres of water at its most conservative per day? You know of any springs that can serve even 1 million litres of water per day? Niagara falls maybe?

Celsus

Oh and btw... where do you suppose their livestock defecated?

Minimalist

That shows. Allow me to quote from Amnon Ben Tor's compilation "Ancient Israel" which contains an essay by Amihai Mazar. Mazar writes:

(Italics added)


I disagree completely. Here is 1 Samuel 17: 5-7


As you look at the drawing of the hoplite below, note the greaves, the helmet, and the bronze body armor also note the long spear. YOu should be happy that "Samuel" was so close to reality....even if he was writing in the 7th century.