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Data Analysis in the Bible



Data Analysis in the Bible


Site: Jayden12.com › Rock › Dashboard › Data

Section: Intro ⋅ Books ⋅ Chapters ⋅ Genealogies ⋅ Tribes ⋅ Moses ⋅ Numbers ⋅ Kings of Israel ⋅ Apostles ⋅ Timeline ⋅ Population ⋅ More








I've been a professional data guy for over 20 years. I analyze data and transform it into insight all the time. Sometimes that comes with a visual. Certainly the more fun insight involves a visual. So after nearly 20 years of text-based insight into the Bible logged on this website, I figured it was time to put my data visualization skills to work on Biblical themes. This is the long version, which includes analysis and source data. Click here for the short version (the dashboard).









This is a simple screen shot from Microsoft Excel (link). Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't allow us to custom sort the data except by weighting, but if I weight the books then they by definition won't look the same size. The Old Testament properly shows before the New, and the books within each section (History, Wisdom, Gospels, etc.) sort correctly, it's just the sections which aren't sorted right. But it still looks cool. Here it is with the weighting (so this is sorted completely right, we just can't see the labels of the smaller books).


The word count is noted on the table below, under the next visual. Word count is of course arbitrary because it depends what language and translation you're analyzing. In this case it was the KJV translation and the data came from here. KJV is not my favorite, but it's as good as any for this purpose.









Chapter and verse counts are mostly standard and based on the original texts. Speaking of originals, the Interlinear Bible is a great resource. Here's the table:

# Book Chapters Verses Words
1 Genesis 50 1,533 38,262
2 Exodus 40 1,213 32,685
3 Leviticus 27 859 24,541
4 Numbers 36 1,289 32,896
5 Deuteronomy 34 959 28,352
6 Joshua 24 658 18,854
7 Judges 21 618 18,966
8 Ruth 4 85 2,574
9 1 Samuel 31 810 25,048
10 2 Samuel 24 695 20,600
11 1 Kings 22 816 24,513
12 2 Kings 25 719 23,517
13 1 Chronicles 29 942 20,365
14 2 Chronicles 36 822 26,069
15 Ezra 10 280 7,440
16 Nehemiah 13 406 10,480
17 Esther 10 167 5,633
18 Job 42 1,070 18,098
19 Psalms 150 2,461 42,704
20 Proverbs 31 915 15,038
21 Ecclesiastes 12 222 5,579
22 Song of Solomon 8 117 2,658
23 Isaiah 66 1,292 37,036
24 Jeremiah 52 1,364 42,654
25 Lamentations 5 154 3,411
26 Ezekiel 48 1,273 39,401
27 Daniel 12 357 11,602
28 Hosea 14 197 5,174
29 Joel 3 73 2,033
30 Amos 9 146 4,216
31 Obadiah 1 21 669
32 Jonah 4 48 1,320
33 Micah 7 105 3,152
34 Nahum 3 47 1,284
35 Habakkuk 3 56 1,475
36 Zephaniah 3 53 1,616
37 Haggai 2 38 1,130
38 Zechariah 14 211 6,443
39 Malachi 4 55 1,781
40 Matthew 28 1,071 23,343
41 Mark 16 678 14,949
42 Luke 24 1,151 25,640
43 John 21 879 18,658
44 Acts 28 1,007 24,229
45 Romans 16 433 9,422
46 1 Corinthians 16 437 9,462
47 2 Corinthians 13 257 6,046
48 Galatians 6 149 3,084
49 Ephesians 6 155 3,022
50 Philippians 4 104 2,183
51 Colossians 4 95 1,979
52 1 Thessalonians 5 89 1,837
53 2 Thessalonians 3 47 1,022
54 1 Timothy 6 113 2,244
55 2 Timothy 4 83 1,666
56 Titus 3 46 896
57 Philemon 1 25 430
58 Hebrews 13 303 6,897
59 James 5 108 2,304
60 1 Peter 5 105 2,476
61 2 Peter 3 61 1,553
62 1 John 5 105 2,517
63 2 John 1 13 298
64 3 John 1 14 294
65 Jude 1 25 608
66 Revelation 22 404 11,952
Total 1,189 31,103 788,280

Again, the 788K word count comes from KJV. Another site (here) claims NASB has 807K, although this site claims NASB has 783K and NIV has 728K. Whether it's 728K or 788K or 807K is not my point here, so the margin of error of around 3% is acceptable.









The blue vertical line for the flood is based on Genesis 7:6 and 11 (along with doing the math of when Noah was born) and the purple vertical line for the incident at Babel is based on Genesis 10:25 and doing the math of when Peleg was born, reinforced by the detail that chapter 10 genealogy ends with Peleg). Detail is explored in both my Real History article and Timeless Lessons, but the visual and the table have been copied here. Here's the table: (period after number indicates not explicitly given in scripture but rather a guess)

Man Year
Born		 Dad's
Age
at
Birth		 Lived
After
First
Son		 Final
Age		 Year
Died		 Verse
References		 Ch
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Adam 0 0 930 930 Gen 2:7-4:1, 4:25-5:5 x x x x
Cain 100. 100. 912. 1012. Gen 4:1-17 x
Enoch 205. 105. 905. 1110. Gen 4:17-18 x
Irad 310. 105. 910. 1220. Gen 4:18 x
Mehujael 415. 105. 895. 1310. Gen 4:18 x
Methushael 520. 105. 950. 1470. Gen 4:18 x
Lamech 625. 105. 900. 1525. Gen 4:18-24 x
Jabal 730. 105. 926. 1656. Gen 4:20 x
Seth 130 130 912 1042 Gen 4:25-26, 5:3-8 x x
Enosh 235 105 905 1140 Gen 4:26, 5:6-11 x x
Kenan 325 90 910 1235 Gen 5:9-14 x
Mahalalel 395 70 895 1290 Gen 5:12-17 x
Jared 460 65 962 1422 Gen 5:15-20 x
Enoch 622 162 365 987 Gen 5:18-24 x
Methuselah 687 65 969 1656 Gen 5:21-27 x
Lamech 874 187 777 1651 Gen 5:25-31 x
Noah 1056 182 950 2006 Gen 5:28-9:29 x x x x x
Shem 1558 502. 500 600 2158 Gen 5:32-11:11 x x x x x x x
Arpachshad 1658 100 403 438 2096 Gen 10:22-24, 11:10-13 x x
Shelah 1693 35 403 433 2126 Gen 10:24, 11:12-15 x x
Eber 1723 30 430 464 2187 Gen 10:24-25, 11:14-17 x x
Peleg 1757 34 209 239 1996 Gen 10:25, 11:16-19 x x
Reu 1787 30 207 239 2026 Gen 11:18-21 x
Serug 1819 32 200 230 2049 Gen 11:20-23 x
Nahor 1849 30 119 148 1997 Gen 11:22-25 x
Terah 1878 29 205 2083 Gen 11:24-27 x
Abram 1948 70 175 2123 Gen 11:26-25:8 x
Isaac 2048 100 180 2228 Gen 21:2-35:29
Jacob 2108 60 135 2243 Gen 25:26, 47:9, 49:33
Joseph 2182 84* 110 2292 Gen 30:23-50:26
(*calculated: link)

Jacob's age wasn't explicitly provided when any of his children were born, so we have to calculate it from other relevant dates. Jacob's birth was recorded in Genesis 25:26, and he was the younger twin brother of Esau. Jacob tricked Esau out of his rights as the firstborn when they were 40 years old in Genesis 26:34. In Genesis 28:1-2, he's told by his father to go visit his uncle Laban (his age is not specified). In Genesis 29:18, he'd been there a month and agreeed to work for 7 years to marry Laban's daughter, Rachel. Jacob (who's name means trickster) got his own medicine and got tricked into marrying the wrong girl, so agrees to work 7 more years in return for the "privilege" of marrying the girl he had intended to marry, in Genesis 29:27 (this time the work came after the marriage). It's during this second 7 year period that Jacob has 12 children with Leah, her servant, Rachel, and her servant. The twelfth was Joseph, and that's the last event recorded before Jacob requests of his father-in-law to be released to go home. Based on Genesis 30:25, and that enough time had passed for 4 women to birth a dozen children for this man, it's not a stretch that Joseph was born pretty close to the end of that second 7 year period. (His final brother was born in Genesis 35:18.) We still haven't pinpointed Jacob's age, and to do that we need more math, such as that described in this article, which concludes Jacob was 60 at the time of Genesis 28:1-2, which would make him about 70 when Levi (his third son) was born (60+7+3) and about 84 when Joseph was born (60+7+7). Levi will come up again below. That same article provides evidence that Joseph was 47 years old when he meets Pharaoh, and he had two sons in the next 7 years (Genesis 41:50).









Commentary... add from numbers 2: List verses where source data came from. Mention Jacob's one daughter. Hierarchy visual was made with PowerPoint.


Compass Rose image from clipart-library.com.

[data table coming soon...]









Dinah is the little remembered sole daughter of Jacob. Born in chapter 20, she is the center of attention in Genesis 34, mentioned once in chapter 46, then not mentioned again. Of course Joseph was Rachel's first son, and Benjamin was her second, but for the sake of the illustration, to align with the twelve tribes of Israel, and because of limitations in Excel, I've skipped over Joseph.

Father Mother Son (Tribe) Person of Interest Reference
Jacob Leah Reuben -
Simeon -
Levi Moses ...
Judah Othniel ...
David ...
Issachar Tola ...
Zebulun Ibzan ...
Elon ...
Dinah -
Bilhah Dan Samson ...
Naphtali -
Zilpah Gad -
Asher -
Rachel Benjamin Ehud ...
Saul ...
Mannaseh Gideon ...
Jair ...
Jephthah ...
Ephraim Joshua ...
Abdon ...
Samuel ...
(not recorded) (not recorded) Shamgar ...
Deborah ...











Genesis 15:13 says Abram's descendants would live as foreigners for 400 years but Genesis 15:16 only seems to say that would span 4 generations. This timeline is confirmed in Exodus 12:40-41 and the genealogic detail was elaborated on in Exodus 6:16-20. How could 400 years be only 4 generations? Is the text wrong? This is an example where a little bit of knowledge can lead us away from God, but a lot will bring us right back to Him.

First, let's look at precedence. Fortunately, the Bible goes out of is way to document when sons were born in Genesis.


The data for this column graph came from a table above on the genealogies of Genesis. It reminds us Abraham's father, Terah, was 70 when Abram was born, Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, Isaac was 60 when Jacob/Israel was born, etc.

The reconciliation is when God said "for 400 years" in Genesis 15:13, He was referring to all of Abraham's descendents, beginning with Isaac. Then He mentioned the slavery in Egypt, so the "fourth generation" in Genesis 15:16 was not of all the descendents but just of those who would live in Egypt.

Father Generation
after Abraham		 Generation
begin year		 Generation
in Egypt		 Reference
Isaac 1 0 (baseline)
Jacob 2 60 Gen 25:26
Levi 3 130 (calculated, see above)
Kohath 4 208 1 (estimating)
Amram 5 286 2 (estimating)
Moses 6 364 3 (estimating)
Gershom 7 442 4 (estimating)
(next) 8 520 5 (estimating)

If each generation lived about a century (Genesis 25:7, 35:28, 47:28, 50:26), and each generation bore the next at an average age of 78, then the fourth generation born in Egypt would have been born in the 400th year after Isaac was born, and 30 years later (when Exodus 12:41 says the Exodus occured) the 4th generation that had been born in Egypt would have been the youngest. And this estimation still leaves 48 years margin of error in case Kohath, Amram, or Moses's generation had children earlier than their ancestral average. The math adds up, and God's promises, and His prophecies, are true! Remember, the point here is not to validate if the record makes sense using our cultural norms, but rather to validate the record is consist with itself, which gives us insight into their culture then, multiple millennia ago. This interpretation is not a new idea constructed to force the Bible to make sense, it was Paul's understanding 2 millenia ago because he aluded to it in Galatians 3:16-17. Like so much other theology, most of us have just culturally forgotten.

In Exodus 12:40 the NIV says "the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years." This is very contradictory to my logic above. Many of us have been culturally programed to immediately ask ourselves then if the record is wrong and if we'll have to come up with some lame excuse for why we can spend all this effort to prove the Bible to be true, only get thrown under the bus by details like this. But if we read the original Hebrew (here) we can see the NIV translation team got it wrong, not God's original word. The original says "the sojourn of the sons of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years." Restructuring the English translated sentence just to provide context could look like this: "the sons of Israel, who had lived for some time in Egypt, sojourned a total of 430 years." Again, God for the win.

The math does add up, but even if it didn't, our goal is not to critique the scripture but to understand what was intended to be communicated when it was originally recorded. When God said 4th generation, He wasn't using Webster's Dictionary and He wasn't even using English. He could've meant a generational time period rather than the minimal time needed to get from generation A to B as judged by 21st century norms. As usual, the math adds up and terminology isn't a concern, but that also doesn't mean we've explained everything and it's all neat and tidy for our randomly curious minds. The concept that truth is stranger than fiction mustn't be forgotten when we think about events that happened millenia ago, especially when God was involved (Genesis 17:17, Exodus 14:22, 17:6, etc.)









I could never keep the kings straight, so made this visual to help. In an age before the Gregorian calendar, being aboslute on the timing is difficult for an amateur. The visualization is based on the reign (in years) of each king. This leaves some subtle discrepancy when compared to how they measure up in the cross reference of the year of the king of the opposite kingdom. But the kings are listed in the right order, and with the right color, whether they're a few pixels off left or right. The prophets names have been added in gray with doted lines because their exact timing is often unkown, but these prophets we at least know what king(s) they interacted with. Here's the table, then more analysis is below:

King (Judah) Cross ref Init
Age		 Reign Senti­ment Kings Chronicles King (Israel) Cross ref Reign Senti­ment Kings
Saul ? ? Bad (1SA 15:11,35) 1SA 10:23-24, 31:4 1CH 10:4
David 30 40 Great 2SA 2:7, 5:4, 1KI 2:10-12 1CH 11:3, 29:28 Ishbosheth 2 (not stated) 2SA 2:9-10, 4:7
Solomon ? 40 Good 1KI 1:39, 11:41-43 2CH 1:1, 9:30-31
Rehoboam 41 17 Bad (1KI 14:22) 1KI 14:21,31 2CH 12:13-16 Jeroboam* 22 Bad (1KI 12:26-28) 1KI 12:20, 14:20
Abijah 18th yr of Jeroboam 3 Bad (1KI 15:3) 1KI 15:1-2,8 2CH 13:1-2, 14:1
Asa 20th yr of Jeroboam 41 Good (1KI 15:11) 1KI 15:9-10,24 2CH 14:1-2, 16:12-13 Nadab 2nd yr of Asa 2 Bad (1KI 15:26) 1KI 15:25
Baasha* 3rd yr of Asa 24 Bad (1KI 15:34) 1KI 15:27-28,33, 16:6
Elah 26th yr of Asa 2 (not stated) 1KI 16:8,10
Zimri* 27th yr of Asa <1 Bad (1KI 16:19) 1KI 16:15,18
Omri* 31st yr of Asa 12 Worse (1KI 16:25) 1KI 16:23,28
Jehoshaphat 4th yr of Ahab 35 25 Good (1KI 22:43) 1KI 22:41-42 2CH 17:1,3-4, 21:1 Ahab 38th yr of Asa 22 Worse (1KI 16:30,33) 1KI 16:29, 22:37,40
Ahaziah 17th yr of Jehoshaphat 2 Bad (1KI 22:52-53) 1KI 22:51, 2KI 1:17
Jehoram 5th yr of Joram 32 8 Bad (2KI 8:18-19) 2KI 8:16-17,24 2CH 21:5-6,20 Joram 18th yr of Jehoshaphat 12 Less Bad (2KI 3:2-3) 2KI 3:1, 9:24
Ahaziah 12th yr of Joram 22 1 Bad (2KI 8:27) 2KI 8:25-26, 9:27-29 2CH 22:1-4,9
(Queen Athaliah) ? 6 Bad (2KI 11:1-2) 2KI 11:1,16 2CH 22:10, 23:15 Jehu* 28 Less Bad (2KI 10:30-31) 2KI 9:13, 10:35-36
Joash 7th yr of Jehu 7 40 Mixed (2KI 12:2-3, 2CH 24:17-18) 2KI 11:12,21, 12:1,20-21 2CH 23:11, 24:25 Jehoahaz 23rd yr of Joash 17 Bad (2KI 13:2) 2KI 13:1,9
Amaziah 2nd yr of Jehoash 25 29 Good (2KI 14:3) 2KI 14:1-2,17-22 2CH 25:1-2,27 Jehoash 37th yr of Joash 16 Bad (2KI 13:11) 2KI 13:10,13, 14:16
Uzziah 25th yr of Jeroboam II 16 52 Mixed (2KI 15:3, 2CH 26:16) 2KI 15:1-2,7 2CH 26:1,3-4,23 Jeroboam II 15th yr of Amaziah 41 Bad (2KI 14:24) 2KI 14:23,29
Zechariah 38th yr of Uzziah <1 Bad (2KI 15:9) 2KI 15:8,10
Shallum* 39th yr of Uzziah <1 (not stated) 2KI 15:13
Menahem* 39th yr of Uzziah 10 Bad (2KI 15:18) 2KI 15:17,22
Pekahiah 50th yr of Uzziah 2 Bad (2KI 15:24) 2KI 15:23,25
Jotham 2nd yr of Pekah 25 16 Good (2KI 15:34) 2KI 15:32-33,38 2CH 27:1-2,8-9 Pekah* 52nd yr of Uzziah 20 Bad (2KI 15:28) 2KI 15:27,30
Ahaz 17th yr of Pekah 20 16 Bad (2KI 16:2-3) 2KI 16:1-2,20 2CH 28:1-2,27 Hoshea* 12th yr of Ahaz 9 Less Bad (2KI 17:2) 2KI 17:1
Hezekiah 3rd yr of Hoshea 25 29 Great (2KI 18:3,5) 2KI 18:1-2, 20:21 2CH 29:1-2, 32:33
Manasseh 12 55 Mixed (2KI 21:2, 10-11, 2CH 33:12-13) 2KI 21:1,18 2CH 33:1-2,20
Amon 22 2 Worse (2KI 21:20-22, 2CH 33:23) 2KI 21:19,23 2CH 33:21-22,24
Josiah 8 31 Good (2KI 22:2) 2KI 22:1, 23:29 2CH 34:1-2, 35:23-24
Joahaz 23 <1 Bad (2KI 23:32) 2KI 23:31,33 2CH 36:2
Jehoiakim (Eliakim) 25 11 Bad (2KI 23:37) 2KI 23:34,36, 24:6 2CH 36:5
Jehoiachin 18 <1 Bad (2KI 24:9) 2KI 24:8 2CH 36:9
Zedekiah (Mattaniah)* 21 11 Bad (2KI 24:19) 2KI 24:17-18, 25:6-7 2CH 36:11-12

Cursory analysis:
  • Asterisked names were not the prince.
  • Ishbosheth was a son of Saul who tried to inheret the throne and defy God's will for David to be next, but was unsuccessful. Since he only lasted 2 chapters, most of us forget he existed.
  • Israel had two stretches of dynasties: Omri and his descendants reigned for about 48 years, and Jehu and his descendants reigned for about 102.
  • Judah continued the dynasty of David the whole time, which was about 473 years (including David himself). This was only briefly interrupted with Queen Athaliah for half a dozen years about a third of the way through.
  • While Asa was praised in 1 Kings 15:11 and Jehoshaphat was in 1 Kings 22:43, these two were examples of how difficult it is to stand up to political pressure to abandon God and just be like everyone else. Asa was described in 2 Chronicles 16:7-10 as responding to God's prophet as a pagan might. For some reason Jehoshaphat buddied up with Ahab (1 Kings 22:4) who was a second generation in a row who acted worse than all the kings before him. He did advise Ahab to seek God (1 Kings 22:5-7), but he encouraged his son to marry one of Ahab's daughters (2 Kings 8:18, 2 Chronicles 18:1).
  • Joram is declared king of Israel twice, first in 2 Kings 1:17 and second in 2 Kings 3:1. In each case he's named as son of the same father, Ahab, and therefore brother of the previous king (1 Kings 22:51) and in each record his reign starts in a completely different year and lasts a very different number of years. Oddly the reference in chapter 1 can be calculated as occuring 9 years later (not earlier) than the reference in chapter 3. There's got to be a reason, but this is the first I've noticed the anomaly and I've not researched it yet.
  • Hoshea was spoken of half way nicely in 2 Kings 17:2, but it wasn't enough. The nation had been so corrupt for so long that it was too late. But kudos to Hoshea for getting that epitaph.
  • The name Ahaziah was a king first of the northern kingdom, the a few years after he died, then of another man (king) in the southern kingdom.
  • When Jerusalem fell to the Babalonians the first time in 2 Kings 24, the tribe of Judah was about all that was left of what was once referred to as the 12 tribes of Israel. (Benjamin remained with Judah, but was a small tribe, the other ten were part of Israel and had falled to the Assyrians in 2 Kings 17. The Assyrains fell to Babylonians somewhere in the century between 2 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 24.) When the people of Jerusalem were hauled off as slaves and other captives to Babylon, they got the name "Jews" because of their tribe of Judah.
  • While Zedekiah wasn't the prince, he was the uncle, so still in the line of David.









Tree map of the Apostles. Just needed a relevant excuse to have a Tree Map in here somehow.

[data table coming soon...]









One takeaway to highlight now is that 98% of the history of Bible takes place before the New Testament. Some people today are so confused, or perhaps concerned, that the God of the New Testament is all about love and the God of the Old Testament is all about wrath. Well we can easily find numerous single centuries at a time when God was happy with His people and said so. God's wrath is when His people disgrace Him (Ezekiel 36:22-23) and disregard His commands (essentially making up right and wrong for themselves, 1 Samuel 15:22-23, Isaiah 5:20).

[data table coming soon...]

Note, I started making this timeline using my own date calculations. And I almost finished it that way. But in the end, for the sake of consistency, I used the dates derived by the late James Ussher (Wikipedia) in his 1658 book, The Annals of the World (which I skimmed free on Google Books).









The graph looks the same no matter what growth rate percent we use. Only the axis numbers would change in that, the higher the rate, the higher the numbers would be on both axis. Using Usher's genealogic calculations, the Flood happened about 2350 BC. So any population growth needs to allow for the accumulation of 7.88 billion people in the last 4,370 years. Evolutionists, or anyone who believes God used evolution and long ages, think there hasn't been enough time to get this many people. Let's see about that, and start with precedence. Here's a table of human population growth over the last 2 centuries:

World Population Year Years to Double Growth Rate
1,000,000,000 1804 ? ?
2,000,000,000 1927 123 0.565%
4,000,000,000 1974 47 1.486%
8,000,000,000 2023 49 1.425%
Average 73 0.954%

So the current rate is to double every half century, though only a short time ago it was taking a little over a century. Let's see what rates in that range would produce if extrapolated over just a few millennia. We'll start with 6 people, even though there were eight on the Ark, because Noah (and his wife) wasn't recorded as having any more children besides his three sons, so he didn't contribute to the population growth after the flood (at least not in the strict mathematical sense).

Population Growth Rate:
Doubling World Population 1.748% 1.396% 1.162% 0.995% 0.870% 0.773% 0.696% 0.632% 0.579% 0.535% 0.496% 0.463%
0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 12 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150
2 24 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300
3 48 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450
4 96 160 200 240 280 320 360 400 440 480 520 560 600
5 192 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
6 384 240 300 360 420 480 540 600 660 720 780 840 900
7 768 280 350 420 490 560 630 700 770 840 910 980 1,050
8 1,536 320 400 480 560 640 720 800 880 960 1,040 1,120 1,200
9 3,072 360 450 540 630 720 810 900 990 1,080 1,170 1,260 1,350
10 6,144 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 1,100 1,200 1,300 1,400 1,500
11 12,288 440 550 660 770 880 990 1,100 1,210 1,320 1,430 1,540 1,650
12 24,576 480 600 720 840 960 1,080 1,200 1,320 1,440 1,560 1,680 1,800
13 49,152 520 650 780 910 1,040 1,170 1,300 1,430 1,560 1,690 1,820 1,950
14 98,304 560 700 840 980 1,120 1,260 1,400 1,540 1,680 1,820 1,960 2,100
15 196,608 600 750 900 1,050 1,200 1,350 1,500 1,650 1,800 1,950 2,100 2,250
16 393,216 640 800 960 1,120 1,280 1,440 1,600 1,760 1,920 2,080 2,240 2,400
17 786,432 680 850 1,020 1,190 1,360 1,530 1,700 1,870 2,040 2,210 2,380 2,550
18 1,572,864 720 900 1,080 1,260 1,440 1,620 1,800 1,980 2,160 2,340 2,520 2,700
19 3,145,728 760 950 1,140 1,330 1,520 1,710 1,900 2,090 2,280 2,470 2,660 2,850
20 6,291,456 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000 2,200 2,400 2,600 2,800 3,000
21 12,582,912 840 1,050 1,260 1,470 1,680 1,890 2,100 2,310 2,520 2,730 2,940 3,150
22 25,165,824 880 1,100 1,320 1,540 1,760 1,980 2,200 2,420 2,640 2,860 3,080 3,300
23 50,331,648 920 1,150 1,380 1,610 1,840 2,070 2,300 2,530 2,760 2,990 3,220 3,450
24 100,663,296 960 1,200 1,440 1,680 1,920 2,160 2,400 2,640 2,880 3,120 3,360 3,600
25 201,326,592 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750 2,000 2,250 2,500 2,750 3,000 3,250 3,500 3,750
26 402,653,184 1,040 1,300 1,560 1,820 2,080 2,340 2,600 2,860 3,120 3,380 3,640 3,900
27 805,306,368 1,080 1,350 1,620 1,890 2,160 2,430 2,700 2,970 3,240 3,510 3,780 4,050
28 1,610,612,736 1,120 1,400 1,680 1,960 2,240 2,520 2,800 3,080 3,360 3,640 3,920 4,200
29 3,221,225,472 1,160 1,450 1,740 2,030 2,320 2,610 2,900 3,190 3,480 3,770 4,060 4,350
30 6,442,450,944 1,200 1,500 1,800 2,100 2,400 2,700 3,000 3,300 3,600 3,900 4,200 4,500
31 12,884,901,888 1,240 1,550 1,860 2,170 2,480 2,790 3,100 3,410 3,720 4,030 4,340 4,650
32 25,769,803,776 1,280 1,600 1,920 2,240 2,560 2,880 3,200 3,520 3,840 4,160 4,480 4,800
33 51,539,607,552 1,320 1,650 1,980 2,310 2,640 2,970 3,300 3,630 3,960 4,290 4,620 4,950
34 103,079,215,104 1,360 1,700 2,040 2,380 2,720 3,060 3,400 3,740 4,080 4,420 4,760 5,100
35 206,158,430,208 1,400 1,750 2,100 2,450 2,800 3,150 3,500 3,850 4,200 4,550 4,900 5,250
36 412,316,860,416 1,440 1,800 2,160 2,520 2,880 3,240 3,600 3,960 4,320 4,680 5,040 5,400
37 824,633,720,832 1,480 1,850 2,220 2,590 2,960 3,330 3,700 4,070 4,440 4,810 5,180 5,550
38 1,649,267,441,664 1,520 1,900 2,280 2,660 3,040 3,420 3,800 4,180 4,560 4,940 5,320 5,700

Since the flood was 4,370 years ago, that's our window of time in which we have to get from 6 to almost 8 billion people on the planet. In the table, green numbers indicate surplus time available and red numbers indicate a deficit of time to reach that level of doubling using the column's growth rate. Gray numbers indicate a population level we haven't attained yet, but are shown anyway for relative comparisons.

The global population climb has't followed a calm, peaceful pattern. It's claimed more people died in the wars of the 20th century than in all previous wars combined. The two biggest were World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945). Then add insult to injury, in the same century, dictators may have murdered 100,000,000 of their own people (source). Diseases caused a much higher mortality rate before the world population hit 4 billion, though of course the quantity of people dying from disease is higher now. And there were an estimated 1.72 billion abortions globally between 1973-2003 (in the 40 years following the USA's landmark case Roe v. Wade, source). Here is some analysis:
  • To get from 1 billion to 8 billion, the world experienced an average growth rate of 0.954% over a 219 year period. If that had been the consistent rate for the last 4,370 years then we could expect 6*(1+0.00954)4370 = 6,280,334,355,324,230,000 (6 quintillion) people to be living on the planet today, and 29.4 billion people alive at the birth of Christ.
  • If those 1.7 billion children hadn't been aborted then the population would have reached 8 billion much sooner. The world population was supposedly at 6.3 billion in 2002 (source). If we had 8 billion people in 2002 then that would be a doubling from 4 billion in 1974, a duration of 28 years, which would result in a growth rate of 2.5%.
  • The larger table above implies that a very low growth rate was needed to get to our current population. To be exact, it was (8,000,000,000/6)^(1/4375)-1 = 0.481%, which doubles every 144.3 years.
  • We can be sure the growth rate of 0.481% wasn't consistent for 4 millenia because using that growth rate we would calculate that the global population would have only been 473,620 at the birth of Christ. But there were probably at least that many people in the area of Israel alone during that time. Unfortunately we have little solid data for that history, though genetics give us a strong clue, but is out of scope of this page. Hopefully someday I'll be able to add data relating to that...
  • The genealogies in the Bible are often skipped over, but do offer solid historical data. Usher, for one, used them to estimate how long ago creation and the flood were. In Genesis 10 we have what is commonly called the table of nations. These nations are basically family groups, and for every family/​tribe/​nation we can expect at least a husband and wife, and unknown number of children and grandchildren. The 70 nations were described in chapter 10 as setup for the events at Babel in chapter 11. The split at Babel happened 101 years after the flood ended. Starting with 6 people and ending up with at least 140 people after 101 years would mathematically look like this: (140/6)1/101-1=3.17% But we know that growth rate is much lower than reality, because the 140 doesn't account for ansestors who were still alive, nor does it account for the children (and grandchildren). And why would they be called "nations" if each couple had zero or just a few children? And remember God had specifically commanded Noah and his family to "be fruitful and multiply" in Genesis 9:1 (which was a repetition of the command in Genesis 1:28). If we include the minimum number of anscestors needed to get from 6 to 101 (which is 6+12+24+48+96=186) and if each couple had only 4 kids, then the formula looks like this: ((140+186+560)/6)1/101-1=5.07%, which is a global growth rate 1,053% higher than what we are currently experiencing. That's not crazy, even though modern Americans, Europeans, and Chinese only have 1 or 2 kids, we know from our friends the Catholics (who typically don't practice any form of contraception) that having 9-15 kids is very possible. If those 70 families in Genesis 10 each had 12 kids, that'd result in an estimated growth rate of ((140+186+(70*12))/6)1/101-1=5.356%, which would double every 13.3 years. (And that calculation is still only counting the children of the latest generation.)









How many Israelites crossed the sea on dry ground? A straightforward reading of Exodus 12:37 says duh, 600,000. But some people interpret the Hebrew word translated into "thousand" as "clans," as explained in Timothy Mahoney's documentary: Patters of Evidence: The Moses Controversey (link). This other interpretation would put the number of Israelites at only 5-6,000. There is inadequate contextual evidence to definitively interpret the word either way, however there are at least a few reasons to favor the larger number.
  1. The Egyptians were terrified by the number of Hebrews (Israelites), as noted in Exodus 1:9-10, 12, 20, and 22.
  2. While Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 11:21 give an approximation, Numbers 1:45-46 and 26:51 give a very specific number.
  3. The word in question in the original Hebrew seems to be translated as "thousand" over 200 times and as "clan" or "family" only 11. Here's a link to the Interlinear for the verse, and here's a link for the word.
  4. God knew He was going to use the exodus as a reminder for the rest of time, or at least for the next millenia. The phrase "out of Egypt" is used over a hundred times in the Old Testament, after Exodus (link).
To add a data flair to this, and continue our goal of validating if either interpretation is implausable (if not conclusively more likely) let's employ the growth rate formulas identified above. We also need a timeframe. Using the deductions from Genesis 15, above, and the small table at the end of that section, we can estimate that the time to get from the initial 70 of Genesis 46:27 (and Deuteronomy 10:22) to the sea crossing in Exodus 12:37 was 430 - 169 = 261 years.
  • To get from 70 men to 600,000 men in 261 years would be (600000/70)^(1/261)-1 = 3.53%, or a doubling every 20 years. (Meaning every man would marry and have 4 children by the age of 20.)
  • To get from 70 men to 5,500 men in 261 years would be (5500/70)^(1/261)-1 = 1.69%, doubling every 41.5 years.
In the context of our Genesis 15 analysis above, where each generation could have been as long as 80 years, the lower growth rate would seem more likely. Remember, as noted above, the growth rate in the last quarter of the 20th century was 2.5%, and the average over the last 200 years was 0.95%. So the 1.69% rate is entirely believable. In light of Exodus 1:12 and 20 (and later Deuteronomy 7:13, 28:4, 28:11, and 30:9) even 3.5% isn't crazy. Let's keep going though. To get from Exodus 12:37 to 1 Chronicles 21:5, where the census claims the population of the nation included 1,570,000 fighting men, we can estimate 435 years, based on the timeline(s) given above.
  • To get from 0.6M to 1.57M in 435 years would be (1570000/600000)^(1/435)-1 = 0.2%, doubling every 329 years.
  • To get from 5.5K to 1.57M in 435 years would be (1570000/5500)^(1/435)-1 = 1.3%, doubling every 53.8 years.
These calculations don't prove anything, other than neither number is out of the question. In Deuteronomy 1:10, Moses makes a comment that might favor the larger number (of 600K), but then only 5 sentences later, in Deuteronomy 1:15, the allocation he describes might make more sense with the smaller number (of 5-6K). But even here, we must be careful that when we say "might favor," that's in the context of our modern times, with almost 9 billion people on the world. If the world population were radically smaller then, perhaps 5,500 people might seem like a gigantic number. (Which is also important to remember when reading Exodus 1:9-10.) Just a little later, in Deuteronomy 7:7, God makes a comment that is kind of on theme, but since He said "were" not "are" He was not referring to their current state but rather to when they were originally chosen (remember God started their people with one guy, Abraham, in Genesis 12:2) or when they went to Egypt as mentioned a few paragraphs later in Deuteronomy 10:22. Sometimes data and logic aren't enough to solve mysteries, and we need to speak to an eye witness.

Verse Number Description
Genesis 37:9 14 father, mother, 12 sons
Genesis 46:26-27 70 men, plus women & children
Exodus 12:37 600,000 men, plus women & children
Exodus 32:28 (3,000) people
Numbers 1:45-46 603,550 army men 20+
Numbers 10:36 ? people
Numbers 11:21 600,000 men
Numbers 26:51 601,730 men
Numbers 31:4-6 12,000 1K from each tribe
Deuteronomy 33:17 ? Ephraim & Mannaseh
Joshua 4:13 40,000 army men
Joshua 7:3-4 3,000 army men
Joshua 8:3 30,000 fighting men
Joshua 8:12 5,000 fighting men
Judges 4:6 10,000 men
Judges 5:8 40,000
Judges 7:3 -22,000 & +10,000 soldiers
Judges 12:6 (42,000) Ephraimites
Judges 15:11 3,000 men
Judges 20:15 26,000 swordsmen
Judges 20:17 400,000 swordsmen
Judges 20:46 (25,000) swordsmen
Judges 21:10 12,000 fighting men
1 Samuel 4:10 (30,000) foot soldiers
1 Samuel 11:8 330,000 men
1 Samuel 13:2 3,000 men
1 Samuel 15:4 200,000 food soldiers
1 Samuel 24:2 3,000 able young men
1 Samuel 26:2 3,000 select troops
2 Samuel 6:1 30,000 able young men
2 Samuel 18:7 (20,000) troops
2 Samuel 19:17 1,000 Bejamites
2 Samuel 24:9 1,300,000 fighting men
2 Samuel 24:15 (70,000) people
1 Kings 5:13 30,000 workers
1 Kings 5:15 150,000 workers
1 Kings 12:21 180,000 able young men
2 Kings 13:7 10,000 foot soldiers
2 Kings 24:14 (10,000) officers, fighting men, and skilled workers
2 Kings 24:16 (8,000) fighting men
1 Chronicles 21:5 1,570,000 fighting men
1 Chronicles 21:14 (70,000) men
1 Chronicles 23:3 38,000 Levites
1 Chronicles 23:4-5 34,000 men with responsibilities
2 Chronicles 11:1 180,000 able young men
2 Chronicles 13:3 1,200,000 able fighting men
2 Chronicles 13:17 (500,000) able men
2 Chronicles 14:8 580,000 army men
2 Chronicles 25:5-6 400,000 men fit for military service
2 Chronicles 26:13 307,500 army men
2 Chronicles 28:6 (120,000) soldiers
2 Chronicles 28:8 (200,000) wives, sons, and daughters



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We can also see all these visuals in one Dashboard (here), without all the text and the data tables.

Other people with similar ideas: Link to Logical Consistency...



Sources: fathers.com (link), randalolson.com (link), and johnstonsarchive.net (link)


http://rock.jayden12.com/data.php
Last Modified: Sunday 31 October 2021

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