sooda
Veteran Member
If the writers of The Bible had any idea that there would someday be over 7.5 billion people in the world, do you think they would have thrown out a number like 144,000?
Even loosely/liberally estimating the population during the time The Bible was written to around 200 million, that puts 144,000 at 0.072%, and the writers of The Bible were almost assuredly ignorant of the actual scope of human population of Earth - and likely only took their most immediately surroundings on their own continent into account when coming up with that number.
When you balloon the number to the current 7.5 billion, that percentage drops to under 0.002%. Between 0.072% and 0.002% is a 3600% difference. And the percentage of people who are in this "chosen" group as a function of the entire population of Earth gets smaller and smaller as time goes on and the population increases.
Its a mistake to take any of that stuff literally.. Its highly symbolic and the ancients understood the symbolism perfectly.