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:
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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? 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.