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Commentary in Talmud Sotah 34b appears to suggest the people might have crossed over in the formation of their encampment, but there is another suggestion they crossed in single file. One commentary says they achieved the crossing by packing together into a space little more than one square kilometre and moving forward. The Talmud is a commentary on The Bible, so it should not be regarded as definitive. If the Bible is literally true, there were 600,000 fighting men, plus women, children, the elderly and infirm, plus their livestock, wagons and possessions, which suggests that a single-file crossing would be entirely impractical. Packing, say, 2.5 million people together in such a small space, even if physically possible, would have resulted in numerous deaths and injuries, so we can also rule this out.

In the melee that would no doubt have ensued, we could imagine 100 men crossing at a time, spread out along the reach of the river, each assisting his womenfolk and children in the crossing. If the next 100 followed down the river banks just one minute later, then 6000 family groups would cross per hour. With no mishaps and crossing throughout day and night, the people could be across in a little over 4 days.


The Book of Joshua is a stirring story of conquest, but almost all modern scholars believe the Israelites never invaded Canaan or conquered the cities. The Israelites did not need to cross the River Jordan to invade the land of the Canaanites, because they were already there: the evidence is of peaceful, internal migration rather than of conquest. This is consistent with the modern scholarly consensus that the Israelites were never in Egypt and that there never was an Exodus from Egypt as described in the Bible.

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9y ago
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6mo ago

According to the Bible, it took the Israelites one day to cross the Jordan River when the waters miraculously parted for them to pass through.

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9y ago

A matter of hours (see Tosfot commentary, Talmud Sotah 34b). Also:

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Q: How long did it take for the Israelites to cross the Jordan river?
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