You see I've seen a common argument that all Bible Prophecy must have been fulfilled by 70 AD. And well that's just not workable with this verse.
And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, "Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them."A Thousand Millions is a Billion. The entire world's Population didn't reach even 1 Billion till the 1800s. And Human population tends to reproduce exponentially, meaning it doubles about every 50-70 years, or broadly speaking a generation. Which means there is certainly no way descendants of just Rebekah (Israelites and Edomites) reached at least 2 Billion before 70 AD.
Another factor to point out about population growth is how both Genesis 48 and Deuteronomy 33 foretell Ephraim to dwarf Manasseh in population. This never happened in the recorded Biblical History of Israel, every census had Manasseh significantly larger in population then Ephraim. These Prophecies clearly expand into the post exile history of the House of Joseph.
Consider pdeigree colapse. Every thousand years the planet is polulated by and descended from every succseful progenator from the previous millennium. We are all (the entire world population) 20th cousins.
ReplyDeleteIndeed
DeleteI think the KJV has it wrong on this one. The Hebrew says thousands of ten thousands i.e. 10 million. Your statement still stands as both Israel & Edom's populations would'nt even come come close to a million by 70 AD
ReplyDeleteInteresting, thanks for the observation.
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