All the souls who came out of Jacob’s body were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt already.
A group of 70 people grew to several million in just a few hundred years.
Mathematics
6
passages in this field
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The cited passage
The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot who were men, in addition to children.
What current science says
This population growth is mathematically impossible. To go from 70 to 2-3 million in 400 years would require every woman to have dozens of surviving children, generation after generation. For comparison, the entire world population in 1000 BCE was only about 50 million people total.
What the text says
Exodus 1:5 states that 70 people came into Egypt. By Exodus 12:37, this has grown to 'about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children' — implying a total population of 2-3 million, an impossible growth rate for the timeframe described.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.