Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.

[RoadRunner79]

...The main issue that I am aware of, is the exodus, which revolves around some disagreements about dates.  Those holding to later dates, saying that their isn't evidence, and those who figure on earlier dates saying that there is support (along with Jericho that follows).  The other major disagreement with the exodus (even considering a earlier date) , is with the number of people.   And there are some reasonable explanations here as well... 

The issue is not some disagreements about dates, the issue is logistics.

An army of 600,000 men.
Plus 600,000 wife’s.
2.3 children per family.
Plus an unknown number of non combatants. The elderly, the injured, the shepherds and herdsmen.

I think we're looking at close to three million people here.
Canaan was about 150 miles away so if this column of people were marching eight abreast with just one metre between rows the column would be 200 miles long. The front of the column would be 50 miles into the promised land while those at the rear, eight days later due to transit time, were still throwing stones at the Egyptians.
The average depth of the Red Sea is ~700 metres with coral reefs and fuck knows what else to navigate on both sides, with wagons full of old grannies and woman having babies. How many goats, sheep, oxen, horses?

OK, they are now on the other side. A camp area for this many people would be ~750 square miles and they would require ~1,500 tons of food per day and a million fucking gallons of water.




It didn't happen, and I'm fucked if I know how an educated person can believe it did.

I think that these are valid points, and I'm certainly sympathetic to them.   I think I've normally heard estimates of 1.5 to 2 million instead of 3, but that doesn't help much at all.

There are some who I think make a pretty good case concerning the word which is translated into 1000.   Again it has to do with the semantics and the range of meaning of the word eleph.  While it came to be used mostly in regards to a military group and eventually to mean 1000, it started as a description for a group of cattle, and later a much smaller military grouping.

I've not gotten into a very wide spread study concerning this, but it seems reasonable that over the years, and through changes of language, or even translations, that this may have come to be misunderstood.