Where are all the dead bodies ?

[blackstrap]

As I read about the history of Israel in the distant past , I am struck by the thousands of people killed in wars .There would be a thousand here, ten thousand there , thirty thousand elsewhere. One case has several thousand killed in the temple grounds. It seems to me that there must be mass graves all over the place because leaving that many bodies in the desert heat for weeks until they were all buried would result in serious desecration of a city. Anyone here familiar with ancient practices and uncovery of grave sites in Israel please chime in. 

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, blackstrap said:

As I read about the history of Israel in the distant past , I am struck by the thousands of people killed in wars .There would be a thousand here, ten thousand there , thirty thousand elsewhere. One case has several thousand killed in the temple grounds. It seems to me that there must be mass graves all over the place because leaving that many bodies in the desert heat for weeks until they were all buried would result in serious desecration of a city. Anyone here familiar with ancient practices and uncovery of grave sites in Israel please chime in. 

I remember Bill Hamblin talking about this once. The Cliff's Notes version is that most people in history overstated the number of people involved in wars. I seem to remember thinking that the Greeks did a passable job of reporting their own numbers on occasion, but pretty much everyone was bad at estimating the other side. So whenever you see something that says X-thousand people were slain in such-and-such a battle, don't read that as an actual number - just assume the author is saying there were a whole bunch of people. 

 

[CV75]

2 hours ago, blackstrap said:

As I read about the history of Israel in the distant past , I am struck by the thousands of people killed in wars .There would be a thousand here, ten thousand there , thirty thousand elsewhere. One case has several thousand killed in the temple grounds. It seems to me that there must be mass graves all over the place because leaving that many bodies in the desert heat for weeks until they were all buried would result in serious desecration of a city. Anyone here familiar with ancient practices and uncovery of grave sites in Israel please chime in. 

[carbon dioxide]

3 hours ago, Amulek said:

I remember Bill Hamblin talking about this once. The Cliff's Notes version is that most people in history overstated the number of people involved in wars. I seem to remember thinking that the Greeks did a passable job of reporting their own numbers on occasion, but pretty much everyone was bad at estimating the other side. So whenever you see something that says X-thousand people were slain in such-and-such a battle, don't read that as an actual number - just assume the author is saying there were a whole bunch of people. 

 

The same thing happens today.  Both Ukraine and Russia report the number of people they killed on the other side as if Russians and Ukrainians are allowing the other side to walk around the battlefield and count dead bodies.   They are all estimates and some of them are wildly off the true number.  

[blackstrap]

So, what you are saying is that the numbers simply stand for , " small , medium , large, huge , etc ? " Still , if 30,000 dead were really only 3000 dead, that is still a lot of bodies to deal with that need to be removed quickly before they contaminated the city. What was the process ? 

[Diamondhands69]

Allegedly a few hundred thousand are strewn all about hill cumoden. At least that is according to the B of M. 

[Diamondhands69]

Just now, Diamondhands69 said:

Allegedly a few hundred thousand are strewn all about hill cumoden. At least that is according to the B of M. 

Cumorah, not cumoden. What a wierd word to auto correct to. 

[The Nehor]

The chroniclers were probably lying or repeating exaggerations . They did this about a lot of numbers. The census for Israel leaving Egypt in the book of Numbers is absurdly high. 

[sunstoned]

It also needs to be remembered that the victors are usually the writers of history. 

[Peppermint Patty]

On 6/6/2023 at 3:26 PM, blackstrap said:

As I read about the history of Israel in the distant past , I am struck by the thousands of people killed in wars .There would be a thousand here, ten thousand there , thirty thousand elsewhere. One case has several thousand killed in the temple grounds. It seems to me that there must be mass graves all over the place because leaving that many bodies in the desert heat for weeks until they were all buried would result in serious desecration of a city. Anyone here familiar with ancient practices and uncovery of grave sites in Israel please chime in. 

They say that you can't throw a stick in Israel without hitting bones or a culturally significant archaeological dig. Archaeology Today is reporting that right now there are over 35,000 different archaeological excavations going on in Israel.