10 June 2009

God's Killings in Exodus: A summary

Here's a summary of God's killings in Exodus. Let me know if I missed any.
Killing EventVerseEstimated number killedCumulative total
1 Hail Exodus 9:19-25 300,000 300,000
2 Egyptian firstborn Exodus 12:29-30 1,000,000 1,300,000
3 Egyptian army Exodus 14:24-25 5,000 1,305,000
4 Amalekites Exodus 17:10-16 1,000 1,306,000
5 God forced Israelites to kill each other as punishment for Aaron's golden calf Exodus 32:26-28 3,000 1,309,000
6 God sends a plague to punish the Israelites (again) for Aaron's golden calf Exodus 32:35 1,000 1,310,000

So in Exodus, there were 6 killing events and an estimated total of 1.3 million or so.

And now on to Leviticus.

10 comments:

TWF said...

In concurrence with Geds' earlier comment on that post, I think you need to up the death toll for the Egyptian army. You've got 600+ chariots, horsemen, and plain infantry too. Somewhere in the 5,000-10,000 range seems fair.

I think that you've got all of the explicit killings. (With all of that carrion and the flies around, the Egyptians possibly would have gotten other potentially-fatal illnesses.) Keep up the good work!

Steve Wells said...

Thanks, wise fool.

I meant to change that number. I'll make it 5,000 and revise the list.

busterggi said...

You have to list Yahweh as an accessory to Cain's murder of Abel.

Yahweh, being omnicient, knew that snubbing Cain would cause him to murder his brother but Yahweh did so anyway.

What kind of deity doesn't appreciate a nice fruit basket?

Steve Wells said...

I agree, busterggi, that Cain wouldn't have killed Abel (so the silly story goes) if God hadn't of preferred Abel's animal sacrifice to Cain's veggies. But I am trying to avoid borderline cases. If God had of told Cain to kill Abel, I'd add it to the list of God's killings. But he didn't (or so the Bible says), so I left it off the list.

RFK Action Front said...

Steve, thank you for all the great work you are doing! I gave you a shout out on my blog yesterday that you can see here:

http://www.rfkactionfront.com/2009/06/completely-fascinating-religion.html

I imagine your research, writing, indexing, and website coding takes tons of time and effort -- but it's really important and it will help make the world a better place. Thank you!

busterggi said...

Okay Steve but I still think Yahweh should have accepted the fruit basket.

Maybe the lack of fiber in his diet is why he's so irritable.

Matthew Blanchette said...

Mmmmm, must affect his colon pretty badly, wouldn't you say, busterggi? Perhaps that's why he likes to shit all over the world from time to time.

Anywho, quite the list you've compiled, Steve; however, what about the Egyptian that Moses killed? Shouldn't that one benighted fellow be added to the total?

Steve Wells said...

Matt,

I would add Moses' murder to the list, except I don't see how God was responsible for that one. Did I miss something?

Matthew Blanchette said...

Well, Steve, from my experience, most murders in the Bible by "holy" men occur when "the spirit of the LORD" comes upon them, so, yeah, you should probably add this one nameless fellow to the list.

charles ray loudermilk said...

Got the link from skeptics annotated bible.. did you see the Google ads on their page... priceless. Anyways I think you've really did an amazing Job in defense of believing in nothing. Good work.

Post a Comment