ABSTRACT
I.1.1 There was clearly a process of demographic multiplication and increase in the Land of Israel; this population increase eventually resulted in serious economic pressure. Unfortunately this assumption, in spite of its importance, cannot be proven. It is impossible to determine how many people lived in the Land of Israel during the Mishnah and Talmud periods. We do not know how many people lived there before then and we also do not know the “population threshold” of the Land of Israel or even how it can be determined. There have been a number of estimates regarding population numbers in the Land of Israel, but none is based on data which has been sufficiently examined (Broshi 1979; Avi-Yonah 1964, pp. 121 ff. See Byatt 1973 and Broshi 1979 for relevant literature).
