[Avodah] Why so few first-borns??

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 01:27:45AM +1000, SBA wrote:
: From: AMK
:> Can somebody explain how is possible that from shishim riboy yiden  aged 20
:> -60 there were only 23 thousand bechorim

We discussed this before. See RGStudent's first post to Avodah (1999) at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol04/v04n089.shtml#08

and the discussion (2002) at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=P#PROPORTION%20OF%20FIRST%20BORNS%20TO%20ALL%20BNEI%20YISRAEL
(or http://bit.ly/9Xk8Oz )

RDRiceman suggested two effects: (1) astronomical family sizes; (2) if
the bekhorim were the priests, then they're more likely to have been
caught up in the eigel.

I questioned the first one, as you only need an average family size
of 6 (children surviving into adulthood) to get from 70 to 15mm in 210
years. Not even the medrash's 6 per birth.

RDSchoemen raised a similar argument as did RDR but also noted that more
older children would have refused to leave and therefore died in choshekh,
and more bechorim were more likely to have been thrown intho the ye'or.

RGS had the novel suggestion that it's only the bechorim who were born
after Moshe declared them qodesh. Those born beforehand had no special
qedushah (much like the way Pinechas wasn't born into qehunah?), and
thus weren't counted.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 48th day, which is
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