600,000
XGH asserts that it is Shmos (Exodus) that ultimately destroys any theoretical possibility of Orthodox Judaism being legitimate.
The Torah is quite clear that 600,000 males between the ages of 20-60 left Egypt. Simple math shows that when you include women and children the total number of people must have been well into the multiple millions. Yet such a number is completely impossible, given the logistics and population sizes of the ANE.
Arguing that there was no evidence left in the desert because their clothes never wore out and they ate manna doesn’t help. Firstly, camping remnants and other excretia would be huge for 2 million people. But even without any of that, an army of 600,000 men would have been unbelievable in the ancient world, where armies 20,000 strong were the largest seen. Not to mention the fact that the entire population of ancient Egypt was 4 million. 2 million people leaving would have left some kind of mark, but besides the Torah there is zero evidence of such an Exodus. And let’s not even talk about the logistics of moving 2 million people overnight out of Egypt.
Now, there is some possibility that the Hebrew people were mentioned (at least once), but that isn’t what XGH is addressing. He isn’t saying that there weren’t Hebrews ever in Egypt at any time. He is saying the narrative of the Torah and the specific number assigned doesn’t add up.
But why is the number so important to XGH?
Because while you can kvetch away in Breishis, in Shemos you are totally stuck. The narrative was handed to the Bnei Yisrael just after it happened, saying that it’s metaphorical makes no sense at all. Plus, the placement of the narrative is way too sensistive. It’s one thing to say ancient stories in the distant past like Gan Eden are allegorical. But Yetziat Mitzrayim, THE foundational story of our religion?! Might as well give up on OJ if that one is allegorical.
Some people argue that ‘elef’ means ‘clan’, or ‘army troop’, or similar. But this doesn’t work when you look at the census later on, which gives detailed individual numbers. And to say that the story here is exaggerated to teach some kind of lesson seems very bizarre, as the Dor Hamidbor [the generation that received the Torah in the desert] would have known the truth. And anyways, that makes the census detail look even more crazy.
The only reasonable explanation here is that this whole story was written years later. Hundreds of years later. And totally exaggerated (if it even happened at all).
It’s ironic that the kiruv clowns use the 600,000 number as a proof that the Torah is true. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The 600,000 number proves the Torah is false. That’s the real Kuzari proof.
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According to the Midrashim, four fifth of the Jews died during the plague of darkness which means that out of the 4 million people living in Egypt at that time, 10 million were Jews!
“the Dor Hamidbor [the generation that received the Torah in the desert] would have known the truth.”
When I go to a concert or something, my first inclination is to guess how many people are there. I’m almost always off by a massive number. I therefore don’t see the above claim as valid, as I don’t believe that there are many people who can visually distinguish between numbers like the ones in question.
“besides the Torah there is zero evidence of such an Exodus.”
The history channel has a great documentary called; “The Exodus Decoded” that offers plenty of under-publicized archeological evidence that the Exodus actually did happen, albeit not in conjunction with the dates provided by the Bible. My (religious) Professor, Rivka Duker-Fishman of Hebrew University, used to advise that numbers and dates in the Bible are often off. I can’t reconcile that with the idea that the Bible was passed down by G-d himself. I still believe that it was though; The text itself is teeming with divinity.
I would point out that in the Masorite text, the numbers are “spelled out.” No such spelling out of the numbering system existed in paleo hebrew - this is clearly not original to the text. It is a “clarification” by the Masorites.
And since the rest of the passages CAN be read as …”x [number of] chiefs of z [number of] [fighting men]…” there is no reason to consider the events unhistorical. When I learned that the world for “thousands” also meant “chiefs” or some such in the paleo, it was actually a relief. In fact, when you re-read the tribes in this manner, you see that what you arrive at is in fact a very reasonable number for the Bronze Age.
When I learned that the world for “thousands” also meant “chiefs” or some such in the paleo, it was actually a relief.
So it reads “600 chiefs”? What does “chiefs” mean?
Addendum:
You can view the aforementioned documentary, “The Exodus Decoded”, in it’s entirety on YouTube. It’s broken up into about 10 different parts, and worth watching.
Pentateuch exegesis anybody? As one of my exegesis profs put it, “The ancient Egyptians in all probability cared as much about the Israelites leaving as US Americans would if 1,000 illegal Mexicans made their way back over the border to Mexico.”
Nobody is sure - very few people actually study the paleo texts outside of dead sea scholars who are just interested in linguists and not really the content of the texts. We know that Moshe divided the people up into “leaders of tens, of fifties,” etc.
Exo 18:25 And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. (JPS)
Which level is considered a “chief?” I have no idea. But to hazard a guess, I would think the “hundreds” or “thousands” level might be it. Militarily, it works better than 10’s or 50’s. It’s a word that comes to us from Bronze Age culture, obviously. We have to figure out what they actually meant, not what the Ravs want it to mean. And we KNOW it can’t be the 2 million people they claim. But the very existence of the paleo texts proves that there is probably some basis to the story. It predates the Babylonian Exile so it can’t be a myth they made up for cultural cohesion (and reinforcement of the Temple at Jerusalem as the “only” valid place for worship) during the Exile (as most of, say, Deuteronomy, probably is).
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