The Bible as Comedy

It's fun to find writers who dig into the Bible in new and different ways. Bart Ehrman does this. And, I found someone recently who went after statistics about Moses and the Jews "after they escaped Egypt." As every reader here no doubt knows, there is no evidence they "escaped" because it doesn't seem large numbers were captive. There may have been Jews who were slaves but probably there were Egyptian slaves also. Lots of records have survived but none about Jews who were captive nor Jews who "escaped." There are names of high officials in surviving records of Egypt that appear to have been Jews. The "escape" tale was made up for political purposes by Jews later. 

The latest thing about the "escape" is a detailed tally of how the Jews would have appeared after they "escaped" from Egypt. There is considerable information about how many Jews were in Egypt at the time of the story. It was about 2 1/2 million. Thus, 2 1/2 million people would have had to live "in the desert" for 40 years after the "escape." This is not a huge desert. A person can walk across it in a few days. 

A group of 2 1/2 million people would have been a city in the desert about 6 to 10 miles across. One product humans leave behind is their waste. This rich material generates plant and insect life that live for many thousands of years. A writer figured out that 2 1/2 million people would have generated 95,000 gallons of waste per day for 40 years. It there had been trucks it would have required 30 large truck loads per day. There is only one word for the sewage left behind, massive.  

Decades ago, the government of Israel decided to fund studies to once and for all prove their history of Moses and the escape from Egypt is true. They retained local scholars to do this. They came up empty and have said so publicly. 

The story of the escape from Egypt and Moses carrying the stone tablets down the mountain will provide comedians with material for generations to come.