SFI Bible Study - Part 7

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

As I always state, I hope this can be a serious study of the Christian Bible, and I only ask that those who participate try to stay away from personal-level attacks. All pertinent comments are welcome, regardless of whether you are a believer or not.

We now skip ahead a bit into Numbers. There are a few items to note in Leviticus, but nothing that I think would last a week in here, that we haven't already covered.

Num 11:18-20 - And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wailed in the hearing of the LORD, saying "If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt." Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month -- until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you -- because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"

Num 11:31-34 - Then a wind went out from the LORD, and it brought quails from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp, about two cubits deep on the ground. So the people worked all that day and night and all the next day, gathering quails; the least anyone gathered was ten homers; and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. So that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah [Graves of Craving] because they buried the people who had the craving.

The people of Israel, wandering in the desert, had asked if they might please have a little something different to eat than the same dull, boring stuff (bread made from manna) every day. According to this story, God gets rather snippy over such a simple (sinful?!) request.

I once read somewhere a calculation of how many quails would be needed to make the pile described in the second passage here -- several billion, it seems (a cubit being some 18 inches).

It ocurs to me that this story might be the sort of thing a priest might make up to "explain" a plague, or to warn people away from asking God for anything that might be the least bit pleasant.

Comments?

[A Person]

Ungrateful SOB's. You rescue them from opression under an evil tyrant and all they do is grumble about the food, water and electrical supply and say how things were better under Saddam ... whoops

I bet there are some Americans who would like to stuff Iraqui's with rotten chicken (KFC) until they puked.

You'd think God would be a bit more forgiving though.

Just goes to show that human nature hasn't changed that much in 2500 years

[Questioner]

....Num 11:18-20 - And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wailed in the hearing of the LORD, saying "If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt." Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month -- until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you -- because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"

Num 11:31-34 - Then a wind went out from the LORD, and it brought quails from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp, about two cubits deep on the ground. So the people worked all that day and night and all the next day, gathering quails; the least anyone gathered was ten homers; and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. So that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah [Graves of Craving] because they buried the people who had the craving.

Given that there are so many archeological studies that examine the Old Testament stories, I have to wonder if the source of this story might be that a large flock of sick birds died near the wanderers. And when the people ate those birds, they too sickened and died. I can well imagine people barely subsisting on the food that the desert provided might very well be hungry enough to eat birds they found dead on the sands. And quite a lot of people could have been sickened (and died) from eating those birds. It would be interesting to hear from an ornithologist to find out if any such bird die-offs have happened in modern times.

There is some evidence that the plagues in Egypt may have been ultimate products of the explosion of Thera (or was it Santorini) volcano. That volcano really put out huge volumes of poisonous gasses and it was just across the mediterranian from Egypt. (I'm thinking it was the Thera explosion in 1628 BC but I may be wrong). That could also explain the parting of the waters, because as we all have seen in recent history, water pulles back due to an undersea earthquake. And that could be why the Israelites got through while the water was still receded, but it came back as a form of tsunami while the Egyptians were trying to cross. Anyway, that was on the Discovery Channel as a report of an archeological study of what natural forces might have been present to explain the circumstances surrounding the Exodus.

The interesting thing was the death of all the first born boys. I'm not too sure about that explanation. It focused on the fact that volcanos often put out gasses that can kill. They suggested that the firstborn deaths (especially that of the pharoh's son might have been due to the fact that a firstborn son was held in high honor, and such a child would be given a raised bed (I've seen those beds in museums, and they are about 2 feet off the ground). But other children would be on the floor with the women. The suggestion was that the gas didn't sink low enough to kill those on the floor, and didn't last long enough to kill adult men like the pharoh, but would have killed a child at that level. Anyway, something like that was their explanation of how the deaths of the firstborn sons occurred.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Given that there are so many archeological studies that examine the Old Testament stories, I have to wonder if the source of this story might be that a large flock of sick birds died near the wanderers.

Well, from what I've read, the whole "wandering in the desert" thing has never been substantiated by archeology at all. With millions of people wandering in relatively close proximity to each other for 40 years, one would expect a large impact on the area around Sinai, and an awful lot of trash left behind. But there is no evidence that anyone besides your average merchant trains ever existed there.

So it's a pretty safe thing to treat this part of the Bible as a series of "just so stories," created as myths for varying reasons... but not "history" as us modern folks know or expect it.

[A Person]

[url=http://www.mb.ec.gc.ca/nature/migratorybirds/avianb/ce00s02.en.html]Avian Botulism perhaps
[/url] but I have to agree with SFI, it all sounds rather contrived

[Questioner]

Given that there are so many archeological studies that examine the Old Testament stories, I have to wonder if the source of this story might be that a large flock of sick birds died near the wanderers.

Well, from what I've read, the whole "wandering in the desert" thing has never been substantiated by archeology at all. With millions of people wandering in relatively close proximity to each other for 40 years, one would expect a large impact on the area around Sinai, and an awful lot of trash left behind. But there is no evidence that anyone besides your average merchant trains ever existed there.

So it's a pretty safe thing to treat this part of the Bible as a series of "just so stories," created as myths for varying reasons... but not "history" as us modern folks know or expect it.

My guess would be that the great majority of the bible stories have some basis in fact. But of course, there was no written language during the period of the Exodus. For quite a long part of the history of the Jews, their history was entirely oral history. And we all know how easy it is for oral history to get changed a bit here, and a bit there, until by the time that the people acquired written communication--the stories varied from what really happened. (Of course, that happens even now. I would guess that 50 years from now, some history books will say that Gerald Ford was right to pardon Nixon because it brought immediate closure to the whole Watergate mess, while other books may well say it was a terrible mistake because it led Presidents to believe they really are above the law. I'm not taking a position here, just saying that history gets interpreted).

I greatly doubt that the number of people who left Egypt numbered many more than a few hundred at most. As you note, a nomadic group that numbered in the millions would have had to leave some fairly obvious records in the soil of the desert. And (at least in my opinion), numbers may have been more symbolic. I have no real confidence in Methusala living 900 years. And in fact, when that was taught in my Catholic religion classes when I was a child, I remember the priest who was teaching the class saying that number probably was their way of saying "He was really, really old. Populations living together more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ just didn't reach millions. They didn't have the food production, refrigeration and transportation technology that we have today, and it just isn't very believable to me that they could have been millions of Jews in Egypt much less that number wandering nomadically all over the desert for 40 years.

[BecauseHeLives]

Given that there are so many archeological studies that examine the Old Testament stories, I have to wonder if the source of this story might be that a large flock of sick birds died near the wanderers.

Well, from what I've read, the whole "wandering in the desert" thing has never been substantiated by archeology at all. With millions of people wandering in relatively close proximity to each other for 40 years, one would expect a large impact on the area around Sinai, and an awful lot of trash left behind. But there is no evidence that anyone besides your average merchant trains ever existed there.

So it's a pretty safe thing to treat this part of the Bible as a series of "just so stories," created as myths for varying reasons... but not "history" as us modern folks know or expect it.

My guess would be that the great majority of the bible stories have some basis in fact. But of course, there was no written language during the period of the Exodus. For quite a long part of the history of the Jews, their history was entirely oral history. And we all know how easy it is for oral history to get changed a bit here, and a bit there, until by the time that the people acquired written communication--the stories varied from what really happened. (Of course, that happens even now. I would guess that 50 years from now, some history books will say that Gerald Ford was right to pardon Nixon because it brought immediate closure to the whole Watergate mess, while other books may well say it was a terrible mistake because it led Presidents to believe they really are above the law. I'm not taking a position here, just saying that history gets interpreted).

I greatly doubt that the number of people who left Egypt numbered many more than a few hundred at most. As you note, a nomadic group that numbered in the millions would have had to leave some fairly obvious records in the soil of the desert. And (at least in my opinion), numbers may have been more symbolic. I have no real confidence in Methusala living 900 years. And in fact, when that was taught in my Catholic religion classes when I was a child, I remember the priest who was teaching the class saying that number probably was their way of saying "He was really, really old. Populations living together more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ just didn't reach millions. They didn't have the food production, refrigeration and transportation technology that we have today, and it just isn't very believable to me that they could have been millions of Jews in Egypt much less that number wandering nomadically all over the desert for 40 years.

I think it would be a mistake to discount oral history so easily by comparing it to today. Before the written word all history and knowledge was retained orally and a great importance was made to ensure that deviations did not occur.

A person within a literate culture thus has presuppositions that may falsely affect his judgment of the validity of oral history within preliterate cultures. In these cultures children are usually selected and specially trained for the role of historian, and develop extraordinary memory skills known as eidetic or photographic memory

[A Person]

My goodness, BHL is quoting from Wikipedia!

The problem with oral history (oral tradition) is that while it may be accurate there is no way to verify that it actually is. So is difficult to place a reliabilty estimate on it.

[Questioner]

I think it would be a mistake to discount oral history so easily by comparing it to today. Before the written word all history and knowledge was retained orally and a great importance was made to ensure that deviations did not occur.

That is a very good point. But the extent to which pre-written histories were subject to the kind of selection and training you mention depends on the particular society. We know that some societies that depended on oral history took the kinds of measures to preserve their oral history that you describe. But not all did. In fact, anthropological studies of "primitive" societies over the past 100 years have shown that type of history structure in pre-writing societies to be the exception rather than the rule. We know that many societies simply shared the stories frequently so that the children heard them from the adults, and in turn passed those stories on to their children. Or the main responsibility for telling the stories lay with the tribal chief or the religious leader (often also the medicine man).

But most tribal societies had no specially trained tribal "historians" to ensure that the oral history passed down remained constant. (I have another question about the absolute effectiveness of those societal structures, because to the best of my knowledge, it has never been possible to record the oral histories and then go back 4-5 generations later to see if there have been any changes in that oral history. It is certainly better than untrained historians doing the oral history, but nothing beats writing for preserving history and traditions).

More important, to the best of my knowledge (and I am not a biblical scholar by any means) there is no mention in the Bible of a specially trained class of oral historians such as was described. Clearly, the absence of mention doesn't mean it didn't happen. But the bible is a really extensive compendium of the history of the Jews and the different tribes and types of specialization in that society. So I have to assume if such a class of oral historians wasn't mentioned, there probably wasn't such a class in the society.