Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult

[A_Nony_Mouse]

But talking about 8th through 3rd c. is not in the running for being called rapid or sudden.

But Finkelstein is not talking about the 3d century. The rapid increase in population occurs in the 8th-7th centuries and went from a small village to something in the 10-12,000 range. In the 6th century the town is sacked and burned by the Babylonians and remains vacant until the Persian period. Even then, based on the built-up area, Finkelstein calculates that there was little more than a small compound of perhaps 400 people ( back to not much more than Athas' fortified manor house concept!). To be fair, another Israeli archaeologist, Oded Lipschitz, suggests a population of 1,000. However, both are a far cry from the ludicrous numbers of Ezra 2

At some point it appears we are posting at cross purposes. I was responding to how I read your post which appeared to say the pop increase was over five centuries. No mind.

Other than Finkelstein and Silberman's (?) book Finkelstein appears to be very mindful of his funding, keeping away from controversy after that and avoiding the juicier issues even in the book. He could lose his funding and maybe his job if he were aggressively against the mythology. Zionists politics is ruthless.

In any event an increase in city size can have at least two explanations, the first being total population increase and the other being simply a greater fraction living in cities. The latter would be a change from farming village to city. Given the increase in number of farmers suggested by the ratio of sizes an increase in total population does not appear reasonable unless it was something like using a plow or terraced farming or discovering there is a market for olives. 7th c. would be impossibly late for such discoveries.

Thus I would go with the latter the change from farming villages with a few specialized functions to real cities with populations that never farm anything and are specialized in their work like centralized wine making or olive pressing.

64 The whole company numbered 42,360, 65 besides their 7,337 male and female slaves; and they also had 200 male and female singers. 66 They had 736 horses, 245 mules, 67 435 camels and 6,720 donkeys.

The amusing thing is that even after the Romans and/or Herod the Great installed aqueducts to increase the water supply the city never had a population of that size. Just made up shit by the bible thumpers.

Again rather than exaggerations large numbers appear to have been used as adjectives. At least that is my view. If it were exaggeration I would expect numbers to always increase to one-up the last claim. With such a limited literate and "numerate" population who are the numbers supposed to impress? Only the ruling class could even pretend to read it and they would know the real numbers. Or maybe they were somehow sacred or calender numbers.

When it comes to the Persians and Greeks the number of Persians could as likely be the claim of the Persians as the Greeks. The clearest reason for the large number would for the Persians to intimidate the Greeks and the Greeks just repeated it.