The Red Sea vs. The Sea of Reeds

[volgadon]

What I understand by this is that they flew that high, not that they were piled up that high. They were live birds, not dead birds; that is why the Israelites had to spend time to catch them, not just pick them up:

Numbers 11

:

32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.

If they were lying dead on the ground, they wouldn

[consiglieri]

The quail was a one time thing.

They fly from Europe to Africa and back, every autumn and spring.

Why is this thread starting to remind me of a Monty Python sketch?

[zerinus]

Who says they had to be dead? Quail make the journey in stages. They stop to rest which makes them easy to catch. If a sudden wind knocked them of course, they would be in a bit of a daze.

Look at the text.

and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day

[LeSellers]

if they were alive they would be running around or flying around, at approximately the height suggested, so that the Jews could catch them.

I wonder what the Simeonites and the Reubenites ate while the Jews were feasting on quail.

Lehi

[zerinus]

I wonder what the Simeonites and the Reubenites ate while the Jews were feasting on quail.

Evidently bug poop, according to Consig!

[LeSellers]

bug poop, according to Consig!

As I recall, the quail came along the evening before the manna appeared for the first time. (See Ex 16:13~15.) So the rest, the non-Jewish Israelites, starved that night?

Lehi

[zerinus]

As I recall, the quail came along the evening before the manna appeared for the first time. (See Ex 16:13~15.) So the rest, the non-Jewish Israelites, starved that night?

Lehi

I don't really know what your question is to be honest. The manna as well as the quails served all the Israelites that journeyed in the wilderness with Moses.

[LeSellers]

I don't really know what your question is to be honest. The manna as well as the quails served all the Israelites that journeyed in the wilderness with Moses.

One of my pet peeves is the use of "Jew" to mean "Israelite" or even "any of the patriarchs". There were no Jews before Judah's sons (Er, Onan, and Shelah, then Pherez and Zarah) were born. And even then, only those who were descended from Judah himself. The Reubenites and Simeonites (inter alia) were not "Jews". All Coloradans are USmericans, but not all USmericans are Coloradans. There were no USmericans before 1776.

Lehi

[zerinus]

One of my pet peeves is the use of "Jew" to mean "Israelite" or even "any of the patriarchs". There were no Jews before Judah's sons (Er, Onan, and Shelah, then Pherez and Zarah) were born. And even then, only those who were descended from Judah himself. The Reubenites and Simeonites (inter alia) were not "Jews". All Coloradans are USmericans, but not all USmericans are Coloradans. There were no USmericans before 1776.

Lehi

The word "Jew" sometimes is used loosely to refer to all Israelites, even in the book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.

[USU78]

Why is this thread starting to remind me of a Monty Python sketch?

Naw . . . Abbott and

: "What's the guy's name on second base."

[Jason]

The word "Jew" sometimes is used loosely to refer to all Israelites, even in the book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.

The Book of Mormon begins after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel. In every instance I can think of it is in fact referring to the Jews (the Kingdom of Judah), not "Israelites" in general.

[LeSellers]

The word "Jew" sometimes is used loosely to refer to all Israelites, even in the book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.

In the Book of Mormon, there was the clarifying phrase "them from whence I came".

8 I have charity for the Jew

[zerinus]

In the Book of Mormon, there was the clarifying phrase "them from whence I came".

That doesn't address the point being made. Take a look at this search result which identifies all the usages of the word Jew (and derivatives) in the Book of Mormon. Note especially 1 Nephi 15:17, 19-20. The expressions ". . . Jews, or of the house of Israel" makes it clear that the word "Jew" is knowingly used by Nephi to refer to the house of Israel. Also note that the Bible is constantly referred to as the "record of the Jews," when in fact it is a record of all the house of Israel (that lived in Palestine at that time).

And where did the Nephites learn their terminology? From Nephi who lived among Jews with all but rare exception.

The Doctrine and Covenants may perpetuate the error of sloppy linguistics, but that does not negate the fact that Jews are Jews and Israelites are a superset. Precision in language avoids misunderstanding.

I think you are being a bit pedantic here. We don't arbitrarily determine the vocabulary of a language. The people who use it do, by long usage. And if they want to use the word Jew to have a dual meaning, they have that right, and we have to respect that. Here is the same search result for the D&C by the way, showing the same thing. Note for example D&C 57:4: ". . . the line running directly between Jew and Gentile. "Jew and Gentile" here refers to the Lamanites, who were not strictly of the tribe of Judah. The same phenomenon is also observed in the Bible. Paul often uses the word Jew loosely to mean the house of Israel.

[volgadon]

I don't believe it means they were piled on top of each other, if that is what you are saying. That appears to be the mistake that he had been making; and that is what I was responding to. If you believe they were piled on top of each other, then I disagree with you.

Fine, but don't go into your righteous indignation mode when others don't accept all statements in scripture at face value, as you are guilty of the same.

How else to understand the statement that they were on the ground 2 cubits high, if not piled on top of each other?

[consiglieri]

How else to understand the statement that they were on the ground 2 cubits high, if not piled on top of each other?

Here, Kitty, Kitty!

[volgadon]

I thought I'd throw a little wrench into the works. Just noticed that Exodus 14 does not name the sea they crossed...

[Woody]

Crossing the Red Sea dryshod: Let an old beach bum tell you how it works. The bottom of the sea is usually mud, but in some places it's sand. When the water recedes from mud, the mud retains so much water for such a long time that it stays gooshy. Sand on the other hand doesn't retain a lot of water. It takes about 3 seconds when a wave runs back for the sand to go dry and become walkable. It might well be that feet could stay on top of it but chariot wheels couldn't.

Wood

[Woody]

I question anything and everything. If Gabriel announces the end of the world, I question "When? How? Where? Why?" Not because I doubt it; but because I want to understand it.

In a place like the eastern US, you plant crops, you harvest, and you eat. In the desert, there isn't enough water to do that. You can irrigate, but the procedure in the middle East seems to have been to put a layer between the people and the land - goats. The goats wander over the land and scavenge up every little weed that can find a moist crack to grow in, and then the people eat the goats. A square mile can feed about 1 human, something like that. So when you move 2 million people out into the desert, and not on a little weekend outing but for 40 years, there is a logistics problem. It simply could not be done, normally. Two people could go out there, 20 people with difficulty; 200 stretches the resources past starvation. 2000, 20K, 200K, 2M... all these numbers are implausible. As the writers of Exodus thru Joshua were aware - thus the explanations about the miraculous water, manna, and quails.

That does not tell us that it didn't happen. It just tells us something about the exigencies. This story has the Israelites living in a big camp in the desert - which no one else could do. If you draw a graph: number of people v. time spent in the desert, you can have either a small number dwelling in a desert for a long time (Elijah for instance) or you can have a large number for a short time (crowds going out to see John the Baptist or Jesus for instance.) The large number/long time corner of the graph is empty and if you are going to park a community there, people from that area will not believe your story unless you provide an explanation of how you fed them (as is done with both Elijah, and Jesus's crowds, when their positions got too close to that empty corner.)

So in questioning How? I think I'm understanding the story a little more. I still like the song, tho, from MST3K: "You ask how he eats and drinks / And other science facts / Remember that it's just a show / You really should relax." (And if I'm not mistaken the guy's name is Josh)

Wood

[Woody]

Insect excretions. There's a certain gross quality to it that would delight the Cub Scouts.

But honey is an "excretion" from an insect, and it's delicious.

How many men would get away with buying houses for their wives with walls made of plaster (crushed and accumulated exoskeletons from dead, rotten bottom feeding critters) ?

I wonder how many women would wear silk dresses if the label said "Insect Larval Excretion"????

Wood

Thinking of having some pig entrails for breakfast, with some fried chicken "m******** product".

aaa, the moderator grue's coming this way, RUN

[consiglieri]

But honey is an "excretion" from an insect, and it's delicious.

Is it coincidence that honey figures in the description of the taste of manna?

I wonder . . .

All the Best!

--Consiglieri