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Because of the intrafamily intermarrying that would have been required in the very early generations, I believe that the current estimate would be equal to the total number of people who have ever listed. One estimate puts that at 113 billion but I suspect that number is low. Of course, it also depends upon how you count miscarriages, still-borns . . . but I should stay out of philosophical and theological considerations.
As for Denise, she is of course right ... but I would point out that the point it time at which they become "countless" is not specified.
P.S. Vincent, my answer is serious i.e. current estimate of 113 billion even if I join Denise in a bit of fun.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
Drats - that takes the fun out of it. I would say that it cannot be determined. The genealogies generally omit females, appear to omit any who did not survive childhood, and are likely edited to include only those who were considered "relevant" to the ancestral history of the Israelites.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
P.S. Vincent, my answer is serious i.e. current estimate of 113 billion even if I join Denise in a bit of fun.
Vincent, I hope you won't be offended, but your question highlights early Genesis.
1. MJ's estimate is a severe undercount (being a literalist, the number is equal to the stars in the sky)
2. Confirming MJ's point before the flood, just looking at the sons of God and the daughters they 'took' (part Seth-ian?), the number explodes in just a couple of verses.
3. I thought your question was leading to the Sethians of gnostic fame. But probably not.
Ok, back to Seth.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
Serious? I thought the OT promised the semitic for countless.
Or I misunderstood.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
Apologies, what I should have said was the offspring up until the time of the flood.