OK going into Egypt we have ~70 people after some 400 years we have ~600,000. Assuming that a generation was seventy years that gives 6 generations until 420 years have passed.

If 70 individuals translates into 35 married couples then we have 35 families. If each family has 11 children then that translates to 5.5 families replacing each i.e. 35 x 5.5 = 161 continue in like fashion for 6 generations and you arrive at 331,600 families. Multiply by two to find the number of individuals = 663,200.

So each family had roughly 11 children. Or can someone do the maths better?

-----Added 2/3/2009 at 08:57:24 EST-----

If you pastors ever wondered what your congregation was thinking Sunday morning this was it for 1st February

Yeah, so? I don't understand the issue here...

Actually, I also wonder if there must be some converts during that time - could this be possible? Also, how rock solid is the count of 70?

Re-calculate with a 30-40 year generation. Your 70 year generation isn't realistic. It assumes you don't have a son until you're 70 and neither does he.

A generation is not how long one lives, but how old one is when he "generates" an offspring. Someone said a "biblical" generation is 40 years (?), but I would assume 30 is a more realistic number.

Just checked what the preacher said Sunday am and it was 600,000 MEN.

So take the generation down to 60 the children to 8.1 and that gives a population of 625,537 families ~625,537men

Why? Well in the news this week is the woman in America, who had 8 children. She is now being subjected to a lot of bad press for having too many children . We count our riches wrongly!

Besides it is interesting to know!

According to what I saw last night, the woman in question (a single mom) used in vitro to implant eight eggs when she already had six children.

Probably the best way to look at all the issues and the numbers (and there are at least two major and contrasting conservative scholarship ways of understanding the years of oppression of Egypt) is to realize that Moses himself calls the Exodus crowd a "mixed multitude" (Ex.12:38).

Israel didn't leave Egypt alone, but so did many others eager to flee the deathtrap, many perhaps who were new coverts to the One True God. Conversion was, after all, one express intent of God (Ex.7:17; 8:22); not all the Egyptians were as blind as Pharaoh (9:21).

This might also give further clarity as to why so many circumcisions took place before the original Passover. Israel was forgetting her responsibilities, but there was also a host of ingathered people from the nations.

Israel, from her origin at Sinai (not to mention all the servants of Abraham's house, and the other patriarchs) has always been a religion of converts. Many of these thousands would have been incorporated into the tribes.

So take the generation down to 60 the children to 8.1 and that gives a population of 625,537 families ~625,537men

Did you miss what Jim said or just disagree with it?

OK going into Egypt we have ~70 people after some 400 years we have ~600,000. Assuming that a generation was seventy years that gives 6 generations until 420 years have passed.

That would assume your grandfather's grandfather was born in 1609. Or, that your grandfather was born in 1799.

I missed it AND had to double the final population because I checked what the preacher said! ( and found he misread "men" for "population")