Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
You keep saying all believers, I do not and have not! I am saying Jews in Judea will flee there! How many is that? Can't tell you! But they will not be believers when they flee. And a city that can house 30,000, for emergencies can easily crowd in several hundred thousand! It has been done all the time during wars and calamities.wilderness from the Greek means this
érēmos
- solitary, lonely, desolate, uninhabited
- used of places
- a desert, wilderness
- deserted places, lonely regions
- an uncultivated region fit for pasturage
- used of persons
- deserted by others
- deprived of the aid and protection of others, especially of friends, acquaintances, kindred
- bereft 1b
- of a flock deserted by the shepherd 1b
- of a woman neglected by her husband, from whom the husband withholds himself
Strong's
Of uncertain affinity; lonesome, that is, (by implication) waste (usually as a noun, G5561 being implied): - desert, desolate, solitary, wilderness.
Mounce's
deserted, remote, solitary; as a noun, desert, uninhabited wilderness, or grasslands, implying in some contexts to be a forsaken, desolate place
Translated Words
NAS (49) - DESOLATE, 2; WILDERNESS, 7; desert, 2; deserts, 1; desolate, 4; open, 1; pasture, 1; secluded, 5; unpopulated, 1; wilderness, 25
I am not convinced that only one village fits that description.
According to this link Zooming In on Petra
-at it's peak it was home to 30,000 people. If perhaps millions of people flee how would they ALL fit?
Another site suggests the population was much smaller.
"
Some writers have estimated that Petra might have had a population of 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. Interestingly enough, few academic sources substantiate these figures. (originally derived by a journalist). There was a limited amount of room within Petra’s city walls. If we calculated, say, 10 people to a household, this would come to at least 2000 large houses. The problem with this is that there was very little room within the city proper for private housing. The great majority all of the buildings uncovered to date have been public buildings. As an example, consider the market places. For years, part of Petra was deemed as having upper, middle, and lower marketplaces. When archaeologists decided to excavate the lower market in 1998, they discovered a series of public pools, gardens, and waterworks.
Most archeologists, however, now believe that Petra was a large, urban center. The Petra Scrolls clearly tell us of the crowded living conditions within the city during the Byzantine era, but little is known of Petra during its purely Nabataean days from around 60 BC to 200 AD.
As the Nabataeans were a nomadic people who traditionally lived in tents, it is assumed that for the first several hundred years of their occupation of the Inner Kingdom that they lived in tents, and did not erect stone houses. This is true in most of the Nabataean cities. It is only during the latter part of the Nabataean kingdom that suddenly the Nabataeans began constructing houses, and then they were often of incredible size, varying from 600 to 2000 square meters.
So, did people live in cities surrounded by the dead? The answer is not clear, but it may have been that most of the Nabataeans lived in tents scattered across the countryside, or in small centers such as Selah. Many also lived in smaller villages raising camels and horses. This would have required large tracts of grazing space. Others would be away with the caravans or trading ships.
So it only makes sense that they would cluster their public buildings around one spot, where the temples and Royal Courts and tombs were located. As for housing, perhaps for many years, and particularly during public festivals, the majority of people lived in tents in various tenting places around the city."
Petra
Petra is the best known of all of the Nabataean cities. Today thousands of tourists visit this site and stare in awe at the huge funerary monuments. While there are over 1000 monuments in Petra, there …nabataea.net
The idea of all believers fleeing to this little place for years seems unrealistic. It also does not strike me as the place God prepared for them all.
I do not care what modern moderate believers and secular authors declare---When God saya it it will come to pass.
And yes Petra is in the wilderness of the transjordanian desert. Tonight I will find the text I use to teach eschatology and pull all the verses to show why Petra is the only place aptly suitable for the Jews to flee from Judea.
