Re: Seven Encampments (to Ralph)

Ralph Nielsen (nielsen@uidaho.edu)
Fri, 25 Apr 1997 21:55:41 -0700

>FARRELL
>>You like to ask "how" with reference to the origin of the universe, so I
>>will return the favor. HOW could the Israelites have broken camp and
>>traveled on seven times and still have been in a geographical region known
>>as Moserah that was located on a Penninsula that was only about 100 miles
>>wide at its widest part?
>>
>>(DAVE 4/22) Farrell: No one is suggesting this is the case, although,
>>without knowing Moserath's location, I can't see how you can make any valid
>>point whatsoever. I suggested that they could have returned to whatever
>>Moserath was. On what grounds are you suggesting that they should or would
>>have gone in a straight line?
>>Still waiting for you to show this as a true contradiction.
>>
>FARRELL
>> It's ridiculous to think that 2.5 to 3 million
>>people could wander in a region like this for 40 years without accidentally
>>finding their way out.
>>
>>(DAVE 4/22) Farrell: "Ridiculous"? Why is that? How fast do you suppose
>>a group like this would have moved? What was their "mission" in the desert?
>> Did they know where they were going? If not, how could they have known
>>where to go? What were there circumstances in this desert? Were they
>>avoiding enemies? Did they go where there was food or water or safety or
>>easy passage..., and not necessarily in a regimented path? A lot of valid
>>questions as to why they could possibly have been in the desert for so long
>>a period of time. Until we know the answers and address these questions
>>satisfactorily, it isn't necessarily "ridiculous".
>
>RALPH NIELSEN
>Now I know why Dave snipped the Bible quotation in my other posting. I
>quoted a reference that appears frequently throughout the book of Exodus.
>But Dave pretends that 3 million people, the Children of Israel, wandered
>around and around in a 100 mile wide desert for 40 years before they found
>their way across. That's 2 1/2 miles per year, when a normal person has no
>trouble walking 2 1/2 miles per hour! But Dave naively asks, "How could
>they have known where to go?"
>
>(DAVE 4/25) Ralph: What is your basis for suggesting that they walked 2
>1/2 miles every day - why do you think they walked their maximum capacity
>every day? what is your basis for suggesting they walked EVERY day?
>By the way, I don't "pretend" everything - we are told what happened in this
>account that is all - I am trying to make light of it, you are trying to
>refute it - if anything Ralph is pretending that they didn't stay in the
>desert, and that this account is false. Sure wonder how he knows this to
>be true.

RALPH 4/25
Aren't you being evasive, Dave? Making a big fuss about whether they walked
EVERY day. What difference does that make? The "fact" is that it took 3
million people and all their birds and animals, tents and tabernacles, etc.
forty years to to cross a desert only 100 miles across. Obviously, they
didn't march on the Sabbath. Obviously they stopped over, many times. But
if they went in a relatively straight line and followed the path laid out
by their scouts, they wouldn't have taken 40 years to get across. They
could have done it in far less than even 40 weeks, with time out for the
Sabbath, etc.

But, as I pointed out and Dave snipped: "I snipped your quote only because
it carried
little weight," Dave's God Yahweh led them by day and by night for the
whole 40 years. No wonder they walked around in circles (or ellipses, or
squares, or triangles, in case Dave objects to circles). But I will readily
agree that with a seeing-eye guide-God like Yahweh leading the way, it was
a miracle that they made it across in only 40 years.

Dave, will you agree that these 3 million men, women and children, together
with all their herds and other baggage could have averaged about 20 miles a
week? Maybe they did only 10 miles one week and 30 miles the next. But over
the 40 years they averaged about 20 miles a week. Now 40 x 52 weeks = 2,080
weeks. Give them the extra 80 weeks for R & R, and you have them marching
the total equivalent of 2,000 weeks. So 2,000 x 20 miles gives us the
astounding total of 40,000 miles. Let us rephrase that. They walked,
limped, crawled, hopped, skipped, or trudged 1,000 miles a year. For 40
years. All to cross a mere 100 miles of desert. Yahweh be praised!

>
>Ralph (earlier)
>Because "Yahweh went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead
>them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light,
>so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud
>by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the
>people" (Exodus 13:21-22).
>
>That is what Dave snipped out of my other posting. He doesn't want you to
>know that the whole Exodus tale is nothing but a cock and bull story.
>
>(DAVE 4/25) Ralph: Yes, God led the Israelites. Now please explain to me
>how you have come to know that this forty years in the desert was not part
>of God's "leading"? Once again, the errantist is assuming he knows how or
>what God should be like or do - I snipped your quote only because it carried
>little weight.
>
>Let's get back to the issue - that Moserah and Mount Hor are not in the same
>place. You say they aren't. You are basing your claim, this "founded"
>assertion, on that fact that you can't possibly see how the Israelites would
>be in Sinai for 40 years when they could easily have passed through in much
>less time. You base this on the fact that God was leading them.

RALPH 4/25
Right. See above.

DAVE 4/25
>So, how do you come to conclude that God SHOULD lead them right through the
>Sinai in a fraction of 40 years?

RALPH
Any God worth his salt should be able to do that. Even if he weren't too
bright.
Bottom line, Yahweh is as sorry an excuse for a god as you can get. I
simply can't believe that he is real.

Regards,

Ralph. Born and raised in Edgewater and British Columbia. And Canada, too.

>DAVE
>Bottom line, I still see no evidence from anyone that Mount Hor and Moserah
>could not be referring to the same place/are or region. None. In other
>words, no contradiction.
>
>Regards,
>
>Dave. Born and raised in Toronto and Ontario.