An experiment with Bing chatbot.

[mindlight]

Compared to ChatGPT's "measured" response, Bing is a fundamentalist.

I posed a more specific question to Bing on the subject.
Is Exodus supported by archaeological evidence?

The facts are there is no archaeological evidence which supports Exodus.

Regarding Exodus there are no facts that deny it, it is out of the scope of scientific discussion because nothing can be proven either way. An honest answer requires historical analysis using the primary sources available. ChapGPT when pressed on Exodus dating for example goes with the worldly consensus affirmed by sites like Wikipedia rather than with Christian tradition. But it is preprogrammed not to offend so it says nothing definite.

 

[mindlight]

This sounds very much like an AV argument of God removing evidence in this case of the global flood.

The archaeological evidence can be presented in two ways direct and indirect.
Let’s suppose the direct evidence for Exodus was removed such as 2,000,000+ men, women and children leaving no trace of their existence after roaming the Sinai for 40 years.

There is the indirect evidence from Egypt which contradicts the Exodus.
The population during the pharaonic period (3200 BC – 30 BC) never exceeded 3,000,000 as the amount of fertile land available through agriculture could not support larger populations.
A sudden population loss of 2,000,000+ would have meant the end of Egyptian civilization as the infrastructure would have collapsed.
The archaeological evidence from the pharaonic period shows Egypt went through three intermediate periods of instability caused by various factors such as climate change resulting in a decline of Egyptian agriculture as the annual Nile floods diminished in frequency, foreign incursions such as the Hyksos, and the rise in power of the priesthood which undermined the central authority of the pharaohs.
None of these however ended the Egyptian civilization.

Actually, estimates of Egyptian population capacity rise as high as 7.5 million in the Roman/Hellenistic period and estimates range to 5 million in the Exodus period. But all of this is really speculative as no one really knows and there is no scientific way to find this information out

Ancient Egypt Population Estimates: Slaves and Citizens - TheTorah.com

| Dr. Mark Janzen

www.thetorah.com

Given the Egyptian propensity to replace slaves with raiding expeditions and the focus of slave activity on one-off projects like pyramids which could simply be delayed until the workforce recovered this need not have completely crippled Egypt's economy though it may have forced some lazy 1%ers into the fields for a few years.

 

[sjastro]

ChatGPT seems to have gotten some of these questions right. The danger here is that the conversational AI becomes trusted for answers because mainly gets them right, but then it makes these really big mistakes, and because of people's reliance on the technology they are no longer trained enough to spot them. This relationship with AI will have to be a partnership and requires people to be at a certain level of proficiency to be able to ask the right questions and spot obvious errors. The notion that machine learning can generate results meaningful to humans requires that rules are enforced and reality checking is built in

Even if chatbots reach a stage where the quality of the content is beyond question another issue is while the anonymity of a poster should be respected in social media such as this forum, it should not include if the poster is human or a chatbot.

In this forum I had no idea for a time a chatbot was responding to my posts.
Apart from the nonsensical responses from a technical aspect, the chatbot conveyed a friendly conciliatory nature which was not a reflection of the human user using the chatbot.
It came across as a form of deception.

 

[sjastro]

Actually, estimates of Egyptian population capacity rise as high as 7.5 million in the Roman/Hellenistic period and estimates range to 5 million in the Exodus period. But all of this is really speculative as no one really knows and there is no scientific way to find this information out

Ancient Egypt Population Estimates: Slaves and Citizens - TheTorah.com

| Dr. Mark Janzen

www.thetorah.com

Given the Egyptian propensity to replace slaves with raiding expeditions and the focus of slave activity on one-off projects like pyramids which could simply be delayed until the workforce recovered this need not have completely crippled Egypt's economy though it may have forced some lazy 1%ers into the fields for a few years.

One of the problems with Exodus is the identity of the pharaoh is unknown.
This makes the dating of the Exodus difficult but the common consensus is that if the Exodus did occur it was in the early New Kingdom (NK) in the 18th or 19th dynasty which preceded the Roman/Hellenistic era by well over a 1000 years.

​

The population of Egypt according your link during the New Kingdom was no more than 3,000,000.
Exodus states there was 600,000 men so including women and children a figure of over 2,000,000 is realistic.
There is no way a civilization could survive if it suddenly lost two thirds of its population and is further compounded by the fact Egypt was at its most powerful militarily and economically during the early New Kingdom.

 

[sjastro]

Regarding Exodus there are no facts that deny it, it is out of the scope of scientific discussion because nothing can be proven either way. An honest answer requires historical analysis using the primary sources available. ChapGPT when pressed on Exodus dating for example goes with the worldly consensus affirmed by sites like Wikipedia rather than with Christian tradition. But it is preprogrammed not to offend so it says nothing definite.

I had this "conversation" with Bing where I disagreed with it and it admitted its error.

Who is the first historically attested individual found in the Bible?

The first historically attested individual mentioned in the Bible is difficult to determine with certainty. The Bible contains accounts of many individuals, some of whom have been confirmed through archaeological evidence and extra-biblical sources. However, the chronology and historicity of these accounts are often debated among scholars. One of the earliest figures mentioned in the Bible who has been confirmed through archaeological evidence is King David. The Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone dating to the 9th century BCE, contains an Aramaic inscription that refers to the "House of David," providing evidence for the existence of a historical King David .

My response to this comment.
You are wrong.
King David is not historically attested, the earliest known individual historically attested in the Bible is the pharaoh Shoshenq I known as Shishak in the Bible.

You are correct. Shoshenq I, also known as Shishak in the Bible, is indeed one of the earliest historically attested individuals mentioned in the Bible. He was a pharaoh of Egypt who reigned from 945-924 BCE and is mentioned in 1 Kings 11:40 and 2 Chronicles 12:2-9. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

The point behind this "discussion" I was able to manipulate Bing into going from a Christian tradition answer to a Wiki type answer as you put it.
It's not preprogrammed, its answers are very much dependent on how one frames the question.

 

[mindlight]

One of the problems with Exodus is the identity of the pharaoh is unknown.
This makes the dating of the Exodus difficult but the common consensus is that if the Exodus did occur it was in the early New Kingdom (NK) in the 18th or 19th dynasty which preceded the Roman/Hellenistic era by well over a 1000 years.

​

The population of Egypt according your link during the New Kingdom was no more than 3,000,000.
Exodus states there was 600,000 men so including women and children a figure of over 2,000,000 is realistic.
There is no way a civilization could survive if it suddenly lost two thirds of its population and is further compounded by the fact Egypt was at its most powerful militarily and economically during the early New Kingdom.

Except it did survive. Faced with this kind of sudden population drain as a politician in charge of a country with an intact infrastructure but lacking workers I would expect:

1) Bluff to foreign powers - exaggerating national population and capabilities - for fear that otherwise, the pillaging armies of the neighbors would swoop in.
2) Say nothing about how the Hebrews left, they could neither say they were allowed to go nor forced their way out because both would imply weakness on Egypt's part
3) Launch raids into Nubia or Libya to replenish my stock of slaves and tell my population to have babies or else
4) Force children and non-fertile age women into roles previously mainly reserved for adults

In this way the historical record would not reflect the disaster, basic services would be kept running and within a generation, the gaps would have been filled. There is no scientific way to disprove the cover-up, but it is the most probable response of the Egyptian authorities to such a calamity and loss.

 

[sfs]

It's not preprogrammed, its answers are very much dependent on how one frames the question.

The answers are also random to some extent. BTW, when I asked ChatGPT the GR question, it thought for a long time and then didn't answer.

 

[Halbhh]

This sounds very much like an AV argument of God removing evidence in this case of the global flood.

The archaeological evidence can be presented in two ways direct and indirect.
Let’s suppose the direct evidence for Exodus was removed such as 2,000,000+ men, women and children leaving no trace of their existence after roaming the Sinai for 40 years.

There is the indirect evidence from Egypt which contradicts the Exodus.
The population during the pharaonic period (3200 BC – 30 BC) never exceeded 3,000,000 as the amount of fertile land available through agriculture could not support larger populations.
A sudden population loss of 2,000,000+ would have meant the end of Egyptian civilization as the infrastructure would have collapsed.
The archaeological evidence from the pharaonic period shows Egypt went through three intermediate periods of instability caused by various factors such as climate change resulting in a decline of Egyptian agriculture as the annual Nile floods diminished in frequency, foreign incursions such as the Hyksos, and the rise in power of the priesthood which undermined the central authority of the pharaohs.
None of these however ended the Egyptian civilization.

Well, as the article said about the number 2 million:

"Note that Herodotus claims that a million Persians invaded Greece in 480 BCE. The numbers were undoubtedly exaggerated, as in most ancient records. But nobody claims the invasion of Greece never happened.
"That said, as the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen points out, the Hebrew word for thousand, eleph, can mean different things depending upon context. It can even denote a group/clan or a leader/chief. Elsewhere in the bible, "eleph" could not possibly mean "a thousand”. For example: 1 Kings 20:30 mentions a wall falling in Aphek that killed 27,000 men. If we translate eleph as leader, the text more sensibly says that 27 officers were killed by the falling wall. Bv that logic, some scholars propose that the Exodus actually consisted of about 20,000 people."

Ok?

Let me emphasize something though regarding this part "...end of Egyptian civilization as the infrastructure would have collapsed." -- it's just good to notice that collapses and recoveries aren't exceptional so much as the norm -- so ordinary and common that we always expect any lasting civilization to eventually wind down, often in just decades or a century, and go through a period of low organisation, before a recovery later.

E.g. -- "The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt..."

Egypt does stand out though in its ability to recover quickly (even no doubt on smaller cycles even in just mere years!), due to it's extremely reliable agricultural ability due to Nile flooding.

So, in addition to the major collapses, it would have very minor ones from which it recovers more quickly, one would expect.

It's fun to see those bigger ones of course. We used to watch some of the high quality videos on of Egyptian history due to my daughter's interest, so we got a lot on these periods in much detail:

"The history of ancient Egypt is divided into three main periods: the Old Kingdom (about 2,700-2,200 B.C.E.), the Middle Kingdom (2,050-1,800 B.C.E.), and the New Kingdom (about 1,550-1,100 B.C.E.). The New Kingdom was followed by a period called the Late New Kingdom, which lasted to about 343 B.C.E." etc.

Dynasties [ushistory.org]

www.ushistory.org

---------
Ok, back to the topic:

As I was trying to make clear above: if there was easy and compelling evidence of God in any way, it would obviate a key part of the New Testament. When people try to prove the flood was more than just a massive regional flood, or find the 'shroud of turin' or whatever, I think of those as odd enterprises of people that aren't considering what's in the new testament, where "faith" is to believe in what isn't seen. I.e. -- if we have just outright proof of something key in the bible connected to miracle, it would preclude the chance to have the faith God wishes us to come to have: faith without seeing proof (ahead of time).

Really, that's not a small thing. It's the central thing in the New Testament.

So, believing what's in the New Testament, I start out instantly very skeptical when someone is trying to prove some miraculous event in the Old TEstament -- as they are in effect trying to disprove a key part of the New Testament.

 

[sjastro]

Except it did survive. Faced with this kind of sudden population drain as a politician in charge of a country with an intact infrastructure but lacking workers I would expect:

1) Bluff to foreign powers - exaggerating national population and capabilities - for fear that otherwise, the pillaging armies of the neighbors would swoop in.
2) Say nothing about how the Hebrews left, they could neither say they were allowed to go nor forced their way out because both would imply weakness on Egypt's part
3) Launch raids into Nubia or Libya to replenish my stock of slaves and tell my population to have babies or else
4) Force children and non-fertile age women into roles previously mainly reserved for adults

In this way the historical record would not reflect the disaster, basic services would be kept running and within a generation, the gaps would have been filled. There is no scientific way to disprove the cover-up, but it is the most probable response of the Egyptian authorities to such a calamity and loss.

This is an example where Occam’s razor applies where the simplest case is correct that Egypt survived because the Exodus never occurred.

Exodus raises serious problems.
Firstly is the case of demographics how is it possible two thirds of the Egypt’s population was ethnically non Egyptian?
Secondly ancient Egypt was a peasant based economy where the vast percentage of the population worked on the land.
If two thirds of the population decided to get up and leave the most basic service of feeding the existing population would cease and would not have the luxury of time of being resolved within a generation.
Thirdly was the Egyptian empire of the New Kingdom when the Exodus supposedly occurred.

Note that Canaan was Egyptian territory at the time.
Do you think the Egyptians would have been so accommodating to allow two thirds of their population to escape and resettle in another region of their empire?

 

[sjastro]

Well, as the article said about the number 2 million:

"Note that Herodotus claims that a million Persians invaded Greece in 480 BCE. The numbers were undoubtedly exaggerated, as in most ancient records. But nobody claims the invasion of Greece never happened.
"That said, as the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen points out, the Hebrew word for thousand, eleph, can mean different things depending upon context. It can even denote a group/clan or a leader/chief. Elsewhere in the bible, "eleph" could not possibly mean "a thousand”. For example: 1 Kings 20:30 mentions a wall falling in Aphek that killed 27,000 men. If we translate eleph as leader, the text more sensibly says that 27 officers were killed by the falling wall. Bv that logic, some scholars propose that the Exodus actually consisted of about 20,000 people."

Ok?

No it’s not OK.
Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 11:21 make it perfectly clear 600,000 men fled Egypt.
If Exodus is considered literal the entire package should be accepted including the numbers quoted in the Bible.

Let me emphasize something though regarding this part "...end of Egyptian civilization as the infrastructure would have collapsed." -- it's just good to notice that collapses and recoveries aren't exceptional so much as the norm -- so ordinary and common that we always expect any lasting civilization to eventually wind down, often in just decades or a century, and go through a period of low organisation, before a recovery later.

E.g. -- "The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt..."

Egypt does stand out though in its ability to recover quickly (even no doubt on smaller cycles even in just mere years!), due to it's extremely reliable agricultural ability due to Nile flooding.

So, in addition to the major collapses, it would have very minor ones from which it recovers more quickly, one would expect.

It's fun to see those bigger ones of course. We used to watch some of the high quality videos on of Egyptian history due to my daughter's interest, so we got a lot on these periods in much detail:

"The history of ancient Egypt is divided into three main periods: the Old Kingdom (about 2,700-2,200 B.C.E.), the Middle Kingdom (2,050-1,800 B.C.E.), and the New Kingdom (about 1,550-1,100 B.C.E.). The New Kingdom was followed by a period called the Late New Kingdom, which lasted to about 343 B.C.E." etc.

Dynasties [ushistory.org]

www.ushistory.org

Where do you think the chronological history of Egypt came from?
It is based on the work of the historian Manetho in the third century BC and largely supported by the archeological evidence.

The intermediate periods between the Old and Middle and Middle and New Kingdoms are archaeologically attested.
The Egyptians stopped building on a large scale and the quantity and quality of Egyptian art seriously declined indicating a collapse of the political and social structure.

If you accept the Exodus numbers, a loss of two thirds of the workforce would have destroyed the peasant economy and led to similar outcomes, yet Egypt in the early New Kingdom when Exodus supposedly occurred was at its most prosperous and stable.
Then there is the total lack of evidence of 2,000,000 individuals occupying the Sinai for forty years.

---------
Ok, back to the topic:

As I was trying to make clear above: if there was easy and compelling evidence of God in any way, it would obviate a key part of the New Testament. When people try to prove the flood was more than just a massive regional flood, or find the 'shroud of turin' or whatever, I think of those as odd enterprises of people that aren't considering what's in the new testament, where "faith" is to believe in what isn't seen. I.e. -- if we have just outright proof of something key in the bible connected to miracle, it would preclude the chance to have the faith God wishes us to come to have: faith without seeing proof (ahead of time).

Really, that's not a small thing. It's the central thing in the New Testament.

So, believing what's in the New Testament, I start out instantly very skeptical when someone is trying to prove some miraculous event in the Old TEstament -- as they are in effect trying to disprove a key part of the New Testament.

There is a problem here; Exodus is as much part of Egyptian history as it part of the Bible and so it should be subject to the same standards of being archaeologically attestable and not be ignored due to some theological argument.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Note that Canaan was Egyptian territory at the time.

Hmm, its almost as if the people who wrote Exodus didn't know that. (Also camels.)

 

[sjastro]

Hmm, its almost as if the people who wrote Exodus didn't know that. (Also camels.)

This brings up an interesting point.
Scholars believe Exodus was written around 600 BC centuries after Canaan was part of the Egyptian empire.
The authors of Exodus may have been unaware of this.
Yet Bing despite the claims of bias against the Christian view gives the following answer.

The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Bible. It narrates the story of the Exodus, in which the Israelites leave slavery in Egypt through the strength of Yahweh, who has chosen them as his people². The date of writing for the Book of Exodus is debated among scholars. Some suggest it was written between 1440 and 1400 B.C.³, while others argue for either a 15th-century B.C.E. or 13th-century B.C.E. date for Israel’s Exodus from Egypt⁴. Is there anything else you would like to know?

Source: Conversation with Bing, 05/04/2023
(1) Book of Exodus - Wikipedia. Book of Exodus - Wikipedia.
(2) Summary of the Book of Exodus - Bible Survey | GotQuestions.org. Summary of the Book of Exodus - Bible Survey | GotQuestions.org.
(3) The Exodus: Fact or Fiction? - Biblical Archaeology Society. The Exodus: Fact or Fiction?.
(4) Exodus | Definition, Summary, & Facts | Britannica. Exodus | Definition, Summary, & Facts.
(5) An Introduction to the Book of Exodus | Bible.org. An Introduction to the Book of Exodus | Bible.org.

Yet when quizzed on Exodus being written around 600 BC it gives a different answer.

Traditionally, the Book of Exodus was ascribed to Moses himself. However, modern scholars see its initial composition as a product of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), based on earlier written sources and oral traditions, with final revisions in the Persian post-exilic period (5th century BCE)¹. Is there anything else you would like to know?

Source: Conversation with Bing, 05/04/2023
(1) Book of Exodus - Wikipedia. Book of Exodus - Wikipedia.
(2) The Exodus: Fact or Fiction? - Biblical Archaeology Society. The Exodus: Fact or Fiction?.
(3) Exodus | Definition, Summary, & Facts | Britannica. Exodus | Definition, Summary, & Facts.

It shows you can get any answer you want depending on how the question is posed.

 

[Hans Blaster]

This brings up an interesting point.
Scholars believe Exodus was written around 600 BC centuries after Canaan was part of the Egyptian empire.
The authors of Exodus may have been unaware of this.
Yet Bing despite the claims of bias against the Christian view gives the following answer.


Yet when quizzed on Exodus being written around 600 BC it gives a different answer.

It shows you can get any answer you want depending on how the question is posed.

The answer based on this "chat" and a few others you've posted from Bing seem to indicate that BingChat is a weak-willed mushbrain with no fixed notion of what the "facts" are.

I wonder if (in this case) the bot is confused by the use of the word "believe" in academic circles with those in religious circles. (This is why I avoid the term in the "academic sense" on this board.)

 

[sfs]

It shows you can get any answer you want depending on how the question is posed.

It helps if you think of these chatbots as identifying word or phrase associations rather than as knowing anything about the world. When you asked the first time, Bing clearly was sidetracked into an association with all of the writing about when the Exodus occurred rather than wen the book was written.

 

[Neutral Observer]

It helps if you think of these chatbots as identifying word or phrase associations rather than as knowing anything about the world.

So less sophisticated humans then. Heavily biased. Easily manipulated. And seemingly incapable of differentiating fact from fiction.

 

[Halbhh]

I agree the text specified 600,000 (update/edit: but then I just read this entirely new to me information a few hours later: How many Israelites left Egypt in the exodus? | GotQuestions.org, so...600,000 isn't definitely the correct understanding after all possibly...), as I already knew when posting above, but I was thinking you perhaps thought the entire story apocryphal or such, and was offering you what you then might like to see more about -- just an archeological based viewpoint, strictly...

The intermediate periods between the Old and Middle and Middle and New Kingdoms are archaeologically attested.
The Egyptians stopped building on a large scale and the quantity and quality of Egyptian art seriously declined indicating a collapse of the political and social structure.

Yes, as I wrote above, we were watching high quality video laying that out.

It was quite interesting actually, with a lot of visual archelogy detail. If someone is interesting in seeing more on those, I could search up what we watched, and offer a link.

Ok, switching to a very different topic:

If you accept the Exodus numbers, a loss of two thirds of the workforce

I did muse to myself when reading Exodus that if the events of Israel escaping Egypt was basically most of the labor force, then the Egyptians would have to do some rather intense adjustment to do after that, many would have to work for the first time, just to avoid starvation.
I think it's not a good analogy to Egypt as if like a modern western economy where everything is highly interdependent so that a computer chip shortage leads to progressive economic damage akin to falling dominoes.

Why not?

Because their economy was vastly more simple. Basically, with the labor force that might build monuments and do the agricultural work (under Egyptian overseers/bosses) gone, much of the remaining Egyptian population for some time would have to change and begin to focus on just agricultural production. Quite a simple economy really. It's not a highly interdependent type of economy in that sector back at that time.

e.g. --

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture​

AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM
12/06/2020
The civilization of ancient Egypt was indebted to the Nile River and its dependable seasonal flooding. The river's predictability and fertile soil allowed the Egyptians to build an empire on the basis of great agricultural wealth. Egyptians are credited as being one of the first groups of people to practice agriculture on a large scale. This was possible because of the ingenuity of the Egyptians as they developed basin irrigation. Their farming practices allowed them to grow staple food crops, especially grains such as wheat and barley, and industrial crops, such as flax and papyrus. They excelled in horticulture. Orchards and gardens were developed in addition to field planting in the floodplains. This horticulture generally took place further from the floodplain of the Nile, and as a result, they required much more work. The perennial irrigation required by gardens forced growers to manually carry water from either a well or the Nile to water their garden crops. Additionally, while the Nile brought silt which naturally fertilized the valley, gardens had to be fertilized by pigeon manure. These gardens and orchards were generally used to grow vegetables, vines and fruit trees. The Egyptians grew a variety of crops for consumption, including grains, vegetables and fruits. However, their diets revolved around several staple crops, especially cereals and barley. (continues...)

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

www.fao.org

In short, many that might have lived as overseers or even just in luxury would be forced to participate in the agricultural work. But that work isn't super complex or technological, of course, nor highly skilled.

They'd just have to roll up their sleeves (so to speak, figuratively) -- get their hands dirty.

To me, personally, in my own view, that's not even a hard life...it's...surprisingly refreshing and rewarding, in my experience. (so long as there is water, but they have that...)

 

[Halbhh]

There is a problem here; Exodus is as much part of Egyptian history as it part of the Bible and so it should be subject to the same standards of being archaeologically attestable and not be ignored due to some theological argument.

Didn't want you to feel I ignored this, even though to me personally it's not really a hot topic, for me. But I have to do some things so I'll try to get back later to offer thoughts on it.

 

[sjastro]

It helps if you think of these chatbots as identifying word or phrase associations rather than as knowing anything about the world. When you asked the first time, Bing clearly was sidetracked into an association with all of the writing about when the Exodus occurred rather than wen the book was written.

I realise this is the case.
Bing's solving of the logical problem is post #9 is a broader application of pattern recognition.

 

[sjastro]

I agree the text specified 600,000, as I already knew when posting above, but I was thinking you perhaps thought the entire story apocryphal or such, and was offering you what you then might like to see more about -- just an archeological based viewpoint, strictly...


Yes, as I wrote above, we were watching high quality video laying that out.

It was quite interesting actually, with a lot of visual archelogy detail. If someone is interesting in seeing more on those, I could search up what we watched, and offer a link.

Ok, switching to a very different topic:


I did muse to myself when reading Exodus that if the events of Israel escaping Egypt was basically most of the labor force, then the Egyptians would have to do some rather intense adjustment to do after that, many would have to work for the first time, just to avoid starvation.
I think it's not a good analogy to Egypt as if like a modern western economy where everything is highly interdependent so that a computer chip shortage leads to progressive economic damage akin to falling dominoes.

Why not?

Because their economy was vastly more simple. Basically, with the labor force that might build monuments gone, much of the population for some time would have to focus on just agricultural production. Quite simple in a way. It's not a highly interdependent type of economy in that sector back at that time.

e.g. --

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture​

AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM
12/06/2020
The civilization of ancient Egypt was indebted to the Nile River and its dependable seasonal flooding. The river's predictability and fertile soil allowed the Egyptians to build an empire on the basis of great agricultural wealth. Egyptians are credited as being one of the first groups of people to practice agriculture on a large scale. This was possible because of the ingenuity of the Egyptians as they developed basin irrigation. Their farming practices allowed them to grow staple food crops, especially grains such as wheat and barley, and industrial crops, such as flax and papyrus. They excelled in horticulture. Orchards and gardens were developed in addition to field planting in the floodplains. This horticulture generally took place further from the floodplain of the Nile, and as a result, they required much more work. The perennial irrigation required by gardens forced growers to manually carry water from either a well or the Nile to water their garden crops. Additionally, while the Nile brought silt which naturally fertilized the valley, gardens had to be fertilized by pigeon manure. These gardens and orchards were generally used to grow vegetables, vines and fruit trees. The Egyptians grew a variety of crops for consumption, including grains, vegetables and fruits. However, their diets revolved around several staple crops, especially cereals and barley. (continues...)

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

www.fao.org

In short, many that might have lived as overseers or even just in luxury would be forced to participate in the agricultural work. But that work isn't super complex or technological, of course, nor highly skilled.

They'd just have to roll up their sleeves (so to speak, figuratively) -- get their hands dirty.

To me, personally, in my own view, that's not even a hard life...it's...surprisingly refreshing and rewarding, in my experience. (so long as there is water, but they have that...)

Lets examine an actual historical event which comes as close as possible to what happens when you over 60% of your workforce.
This occurred in 14th century Europe with the advent of the Black Death.
Like ancient Egypt the economy of medieval Europe was based on an agrarian economy.
Medieval agriculture was considerably more advanced than New Kingdom agriculture which was highly dependent on the annual Nile floods.

It's estimated that around 50% of the labour force was wiped out by the Black Death.
Since there were fewer workers on the land, food production declined leading to shortages and famine.
If the Black Death didn't kill you, a compromised immune system as a result of a starvation diet in the appalling sanitary conditions of the time did.
The increased demand for labour led to considerable social change such as the gradual destruction of the feudal system as land workers could now negotiate for better conditions.

So the idea that ancient Egypt could somehow compensate for a loss over 60% of its peasant workforce without suffering the consequences of economic, political and social collapse is not realistic.

 

[Halbhh]

No it’s not OK.
Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 11:21 make it perfectly clear 600,000 men fled Egypt.
If Exodus is considered literal the entire package should be accepted including the numbers quoted in the Bible.



There is a problem here; Exodus is as much part of Egyptian history as it part of the Bible and so it should be subject to the same standards of being archaeologically attestable and not be ignored due to some theological argument.

Ok, I'm back.

Before giving my main thought on this, first let me show you a (surprising) thing I was just reading on the topic of the number that left Egypt.

So, this part is sorta an aside, but it has something you might find very interesting:
=============================
I was going to reread the verses in context (a good habit) and searched to get the chapter with 'Exodus 600,000' and then happened to see this (new to me) analysis (from a generally conservative website I know gives just very mainstream views over and over on hundreds of topics):

It may surprise you, especially if you know the conservative and scholarly tendency of this site:

How many Israelites left Egypt in the exodus? | GotQuestions.org

How many Israelites left Egypt in the exodus? If there were around 600,000 military-aged men in the exodus, how many total people were there?

www.gotquestions.org

( It has some good points like this: "When Israel conducted their census of the Levites and the firstborn from the rest of the tribes (Numbers 3:39, 46), the number of firstborn males is recorded as just over twenty thousand. Using the traditional interpretation of 600,000 adult males implies that firstborns made up only 1 out of every 30 men. If that were the case, the average Israelite family would have about 60 children, boys and girls combined. This reckoning seems unreasonable." --- Indeed so! Families during such a putative nomadic life would not be having 60 kids, but I'd guess more like 2-6)

As you see, it's a bit surprising (I rarely hear an entirely new view by now, after many years of bible study groups that use 2-5 commentaries constantly as we go along).

I'd always just assumed it was simply 600,000 adult men (or thus maybe ~ 2,000,000 people in all).... That it might be 30,000 instead of 600,000.... wow. For now, I'll leave this at that....
Even with this, it's still of only of some minor interest to me even with this surprising new consideration...
Also, just another quick side note about whether they'd leave a trace we could find of the nomadic desert wandering... having spent a lot of time in the desert in my life, let me offer you an interesting observation: it's hard in a sand dune or a rocky/sandy surface also, either one, to find even where your own group walked a hour ago, much less where one walked/stopped/etc 3500 years ago.... Make sense? So, I would not expect to see traces of manna, nor some kind of archaeological evidence even if the story is partly literal. Even if tens of thousands camped stationary in one place for 40 days -- still would not expect evidence. You'd need a years long camp instead, where the people make pottery, etc. Long term camping (of years) isn't in the bible text though (so far as I recall), but instead they are led about by a column of smoke/fire, etc. and are eating 'manna' which falls from the sky, and so on, right? (I'm not really asking)

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Ok, here's the main thing I was going to say. And it's what I've said a long time here at CF over the years on this kind of question:

When we read events in the Old Testament, like Genesis chapters 2-3 the Garden of Eden story, or the Flood story of Genesis 6-8, and so on -- a reader ought to read as if they are reading a parable, because if they don't read as if they are reading a parable, they will probably entirely miss about 99% of the significance of the text.

The stories are only, solely in the text in order to work like parables for those reading/hearing: with a key message or 2 for us!

So, I try to tell people now and then here at CF -- if we focus on arguing typical modern side issues like how old the Earth is (it being 4.55 bn years old +/-1% as fact in my view) or evolution (fact, in my view) -- someone reading the text for those debate issues may miss the point entirely.

I often warn especially YEC folks about that -- they need to stop reading the text just to argue, and just read to listen instead, as if they know nothing, and are trying to hear something that is going to be worth their attention to hear.

In order to get the more subtle deeper meanings in the stories. But, of course, this good advice is useful to anyone, not just YEC folks.