Tales Of Wilderness Wanderings (Part 8 of 13): Logistical Improbabilities in the Wilderness-Wandering Tales At Least the Priests Had Meat

by Farrell Till

In "Yahweh's Quails," we looked at what Yahweh's "inspired" word said about a near food riot when the people grew weary of manna and demanded meat to eat. After Moses had cooled the petulant Yahweh's temper in this matter, Yahweh said that he would send them meat to eat until it became loathsome to them and was coming out of their nostrils (Num. 11:19). This was done through a wind from the sea (of all places) that blew in quails that fell for a depth of three feet all around the camp for a distance of a day's journey (20-25 miles). The people didn't get to enjoy their meat, however, for before they could consume it, Yahweh sent a plague to kill the rebellious ones. Then all was well again until Miriam and Aaron complained about Moses' leadership (chapter 12) and the people trembled at the report of the spies (chapters 13 and 14). It seems that there was just always something turning the chosen ones against the god who went before them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, talked to them from the door of the tabernacle, brought them water from rocks, parted the Red Sea, etc., etc., etc. Boy, talk about a lack of appreciation! These chosen ones had it. We have to wonder why the inscrutable Yahweh selected such an ungrateful lot to be his chosen people above all nations on the face of the earth (Deut. 7:6-7). Ah, well, God's ways are not to be questioned, and in the sweet by and by, we will undoubtedly understand it all.

At any rate, the people bellyached at the lack of meat in their diet, but we could hardly suppose that the priests had any complaints. This is because the priests were required to eat many of the sacrifices after they had been offered: "And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin-offering. In the place where the burnt-offering is killed shall the sin-offering be killed before Yahweh. It is most holy. The priest that offers it for sin shall eat it. In the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting" (Lev. 6:24-27). Of sacrifices boiled in earthen vessels, "every male among the priests shall eat thereof; it is most holy" (v:29). Every male among the priests shall eat thereof? Well, that would have been four at the most, Aaron and his two sons Eleazar and Ithamar, and then later Eleazar's son Phinehas (Num. 25:10-13).

The same commandment applied to "trespass-offerings." The priest was to "burn them upon the altar" (Lev. 7:5), and then "every male among the priests shall eat thereof; it shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy" (v:6). Every male among the priests were to eat of it? Well, there really wasn't much danger that some female priest might eat it, was there? Anyway, if the people were to have meat coming out of their nostrils after the quail episode, with the number of sacrifices that only four priests had to officiate at and dispose of, the priests undoubtedly had meat coming out of every orifice. We have already seen that each priest would have had to officiate at 45 birth-purification sacrifices each day in a population of 3 million that had remained stable over a period of 40 years. But this was only one of many types of sacrifices. In the Hebrew sacrificial system a sin offering had to be offered each year in remembrance of individual sins (Heb. 10:3). Yahweh was apparently considerate enough not to hold children responsible for their conduct (Num. 14:31-33; Deut. 1:39), but if we assume that about 50% of the wilderness population were adults who would have had to sacrifice sin-offerings in order to comply with Yahweh's law, this would mean that about 1.5 million sin offerings were made each year, even if we allow only one such offering per year per adult. Leviticus 4:1-12 indicates that such offerings were to be made whenever one sinned "unwittingly," so as complicated as Yahweh's legal system was, this could have easily necessitated several sin-offerings per year for most people. However, in deference to Hebrews 10:3(cited above) and to give inerrantists every benefit of the doubt, we will assume that an adult offered a sin-offering only once per year. These 1.5 million sin offerings per year would have averaged 4,110 per day or 171 every hour of every day. If these were divided evenly among the four priests, each priest would have officiated at 43 sacrifices per hour, if all four of them worked around the clock throughout the year without even taking time to sleep. That would have been quite a task even with an altar a piece for the priests, but, in fact, there was only one altar in the tabernacle (where all offerings had to be made), so this altar would have had to accommodate all 171 sacrifices per hour, that were being offered each hour of every day.

How the priests could have managed this is inconceivable, especially since the sin-offering was a bullock, whose offal had to be carried 1.5 miles BY the priests to be burned outside the camp (Lev. 4:11-12). All this would have been in addition to the birth-purification sacrifices already mentioned, which would have averaged about 45 per day, per priest, and the "trespass-offerings" and meal offerings and burnt-offerings, etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum. The situation is further complication by the fact that the priests were to eat the sin-offerings after they were sacrificed (Lev. 6:24-26), so in addition to officiating at 171 sin-offerings every hour of every day, killing the animal at the altar; separating the fat, kidneys, liver, and other parts that were to be sacrificed on the altar; carrying the offal 1.5 miles to the outside of the camp and burning it, the priests also had to eat the parts that were sacrificed on the altar. Needless to say, weight problems must have plagued those poor priests, but perhaps the excess weight was worked off by the exercise involved in wagging the offal of 43 bullocks 1.5 miles each hour of every day to burn it outside the camp.

Common sense tells us--with the exception of biblical inerrantists--that just four priests could not have eaten all the meat that would have been offered by 1.5 million people offering the sacrifices required of them in these passages. The book of Leviticus has all the earmarks of having been written at a much later date by a priest or priests intent upon protecting their turf and ensuring their livelihood with a continual supply of food that they would take from the altar sacrifices. Unfortunately, these priests made the mistake of putting their sacrificial laws into a setting that made them logistically nonsensical. Anyone who doubts that this book was written by priests looking to ensure their livelihood should read Leviticus carefully (assuming that the boredom can be endured) with a view to noticing how many times the author(s) took care to point out what the priests' share should be of the sacrifices that were brought to the altar. Only a very gullible person could believe that this book accurately portrayed how sacrifices were offered by 3 million people in a desert wilderness and officiated over by just three or four priests.