Exodus Population Revisited

In a previous post on the word eleph in the Exodus story, a commenter noted that reinterpreting the word eleph as "clan," "troop," or "family unit" would not fit with the final census numbers. In an article on the topic, George E. Mendenhall solves this issues by arguing the possibility that later scribes, unfamiliar with the terminology of ancient Israel's military organization, misunderstood the term eleph to mean "thousand," and consequently wrongly calculated the totals in Num. i 46 and xxvi 51.

Jacob Milgrom thinks this is a load of crap, arguing that recording practices in the ancient near east precluded such an error, as sums of each item were traditionally given separately and again as totals (as in Exodus xxxviii 24-30 and Num vii 84-88). Personally, I don't think Mendenhall's idea is so farfetched.

On a related note, E.W. Davies has an interesting theory on the Exodus population numbers. He argues that it is most likely that the numbers were just invented, possibly by P himself. Davies argues that P didn't care much about historical reality anyway (as in Num i, Ephraim and Menashe, the strongest tribes of the northern kingdon, are among the smallest numerically, while the small tribe of Shimon is represented as the third largest of all the Israelite tribes). To Davies, P was observing a recognized literary convention, common in Tanach and in the ancient Near East. Davies cites theological reasons for the number inflation in either direction enhancing the magnitude of Israel's victories or indicating the invincible power of God's people. In the case of the Exodus, Davies believes that the number inflation also emphasized that God's promise of innumerable descendants to the patriarchs was already being fulfilled.