Talk:Numbering of the people

"The census, so far as completed, showed that there were at least 1,300,000 fighting men in the kingdom, indicating at that time a population of about six or seven millions in all."

Taking the numbers as a literal reading, ancient Israel during the time of David was as large as modern Israel is today in 2006. Archaeologically there is zero support for this. Indeed, most scholars would believe the numbers of 1,300,000 men should be understood as an exaggeration of one hundred-fold (a common practice for ancient military stats). This would reduce the fighting force to 13,000 trained men, with a total of around 150,000 people in the kingdom of Israel/Judah--excluding Coastal Canaan/Philistia, Phonecia, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, which if included would put this figure was over a quarter million for all of Palestine. This latter figure fits nicely into the bounds of proven archaeology.--71.222.48.14 01:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)