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An interesting argument I recently came across

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Shadowjak's Dancer

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So I recently came across an argument that is pro polygamy on a Christian site. The guy just decided to do some math and compared the number of firstborn males with the number of males who could go to war in Israel: 20 and above.

This number doesn't account for women or children under 20 years of age. Doing some basic math, assuming a roughly equal ratio of males to females, the guy came up with approximately 50+ persons per family.

Now, I can't say I checked the numbers, but it got the brain juices flowing.

If Pharaoh went on a campaign (one that probably didn't last merely a single day) to exterminate the Israelite males, how would the daughters of Israel find husbands and bear children but for Polygamy?

I think that last bit would be a fun question to pose to Christian polygamy opposers.
 
Very interesting. The basic maths is very sound. That article takes it a bit too far though, going on to assume an overly low number of children per wife (in my opinion) and therefore estimates unrealistically high numbers of wives. It is entirely feasible to average that number of children with 2-4 wives, you don't need 13. But it does show polygamy had to be common.
 
I found those stats years ago, but recently read an article that shed more light, and also gave a more reasonable average number of people for the households in ancient Israel.
The article pointed out that the number of firstborn males was only those who had been born since the first Passover in Egypt, all those prior having been already redeemed.
An average of 54 children per household is really not likely, as you have to average in families that are young and only have one or two children.

Anyhow, I think my search phrase was "number of Israelites in the exodus" and I think it was well worth reading. Clinging to false statistics could never truly help the cause.

Here is a link. If you go down to E. You will find the relevant info.

http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route-population-of-jews-hebrews.htm
 
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Fair about the firstborn thing. As I sais previously, I haven't really done a study on that bit, but it triggered a line of thinking in me about if Pharaoh killed off a huge chunk of the male Israelite population, leaving the girl children alive, it woulc have skewed the near 1:1 ratio that Biblical Polygyny opposers like to quote. Sure, just about any war will do that, but in this case we have a documented instance of where the males were specufically targeted for culling, if you will, leaving a disproportionate number of Israelite females in want of a single male to marry. I think this fact would be worth asking our brethren to consider.
 
jacobhaivri said:
Fair about the firstborn thing. As I sais previously, I haven't really done a study on that bit, but it triggered a line of thinking in me about if Pharaoh killed off a huge chunk of the male Israelite population, leaving the girl children alive, it woulc have skewed the near 1:1 ratio that Biblical Polygyny opposers like to quote. Sure, just about any war will do that, but in this case we have a documented instance of where the males were specufically targeted for culling, if you will, leaving a disproportionate number of Israelite females in want of a single male to marry. I think this fact would be worth asking our brethren to consider.
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A great approach. "Would you at least consider...."
I'm going to have to put this in my bag.
 
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