Homepage of Rüdiger Heinzerling

main page

July 2005
Rezension des Beitrags

Die Größe der israelitischen Bevölkerung
während der Wüstenwanderung und Landnahme

von Uwe Zerbst

Seite 95 bis 136 aus dem Buch

Keine Posaunen vor Jericho?
Beiträge zur Archäologie der Landnahme

Cover of 'Keine Posaunen vor Jericho?'
Uwe Zerbst & Peter van der Veen (Hg.)
Studium Integrale Archäologie
Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen
Hänssler Verlag 2005
ISBN 3-7751-4419-6

(In my literature list)

This review is available in German only: PDF-file .

08.07.2006: I added a short note on an e-mail I received from Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher. See p.15.


(Rezension 4: "Die Größe der israelitischen Bevölkerung während der Wüstenwanderung und Landnahme
" von Uwe Zerbst)

Dr.Ing. Uwe Zerbst critically analysed the census numbers in The Book of Numbers. Starting from a creationist point of view, he tries to explain the numbers in a realistic-historical sense. Surprisingly, he decides in favor of the well-known model of G.E.Mendenhall, modified by allowing ‘multiple additions’, like R.E.D.Clarke and J.W.Wenham have done. Thus he achieves a multitude of free parameters to fit the data to his model.
In this approach the biblical numbers are discarded because they contradict archaeological evidence as well as contextual evidence within the Bible itself. The hypothesis is introduced that in some non-existent original text the numbers were written using a different notation, a notation of which no historical example can be given and which alleges the ancient scribes to be silly and careless bookkeepers.
The sums as well as the majority of the single numbers are being replaced by ‘adequately’ invented numbers, intended to be realistic in a historical sense. However, even so Uwe Zerbst did not find a solution that he would call ‘satisfying’. The wilderness journey begins and ends with a de facto - genocide by God, who slaughters 2/5 of his people on either occasion. Furthermore, the model suffers from some numerical contradictions.

© seit  2005  Rüdiger Heinzerling