Be Fruitful, and Multiply

Be Fruitful, and Multiply

The rain comes down and the flood breaks free
And ev’ryone dies, from Atlas to Russia
In the year 2348 BC –
Or so says Bishop Ussher.
And after the waters dissipate
Noah and sons and wives make eight.

The empty land is beckoning them –
Europe to Japheth, Egypt to Ham –
And Asia becomes the realm of Shem,
From Turkey to Vietnam.
So now that the land’s no longer wet,
Just how many kin will they beget ?

Well see, the Bible clearly lists out
Sixteen grandsons, thirty-six greats –
And these all boys (the girls are missed out),
To found the known-world’s states.
But such expansion cannot last long
Till plague and war and famine are strong.

So let’s say from here, things settle down
And nat’ral attrition soon appears,
And the time it takes to double a town
Is a hundred-and-fifty years –
In Ussher’s time, with coal and machine,
That’s the highest the world had ever seen.

So, taking his dating of when things happen
And taking that girls are as common as boys,
So fifty years later we’ll start our mapping
And tease some facts from the noise –
We’ve roughly a hundred, in all events,
And spread across three continents.

A cent’ry post-flood, or so James willed it,
The Tower of Babel raises its steeple –
But only forty-odd folks can build it –
That’s all of Asia’s people,
Including elders and babes-in-arms,
With no-one fishing or tending the farms.

Then God tells Abram to start his flock,
His chosen people set to thrive,
He’s having to choose from finite stock
Of just one-hundred-and-thiry-five.
Though he soon adds a son into the mix
To make it one-hundred-and-thirty-six.

In time, when Jacob’s family go
To Egypt – well, the dates allow
For Asia to have three-sixty-or-so
(Though down by seventy now.)
See, that’s how exponentials grow –
They end-up big but they start-off low.

Exodus – 1491,
(A shorter sojourn than modern lights),
And their descendants are on the run –
A-hundred-and-eighty-eight Israelites.
A count of six-hundred-thousand men ?
I think you’d better check it agen.

So, the Bible lists the male descendants down to the fourth generation (Noah’s great-grandsons).  If we assume that none are left out (and given the already unprecedented growth rate of 5.42%, I think we have to assume that this is everyone).

If we assume that nobody died, and nobody moved around (except when Ham & Japheth initially upped-sticks), and that this takes fifty years.  Separately, let’s also imagine if there was some natural drifting about to equalise the continents.  Now, we can take these numbers forward using Bishop Ussher’s dates and a generous if just-about-realistic growth rate of 0.46% to get:

Event	Ussher’s Date	HE Date	Years Later	Asia	Africa	Europe	Total	If equal
Flood	2348	7653	0	8	0	0	8	–
+50 yrs	2298	7703	50	24	58	30	112	37
Babel	2247	7754	51	30	73	38	142	47
Abram	1921	8080	326	135	327	169	632	211
Jacob	1706	8295	215	363	878	454	1695	565
to Egypt	1706	8295	215	293	948	–	–	–
Exodus	1491	8510	215	787	2542	1218	4547	1516
Israelites	1491	8510	215	–	188	–	–	–

So, which figures to use ?  I decided to go with the absolute ones, to highlight that when Jacob’s extended family trekked into Egypt, they took nearly a fifth of all Asians with them.  I’ve also calculated the number of Israelites from these seventy founders, and it’s not quite the hordes that the Book of Numbers claims…