I can hear some of my readers complaining, "Oh, there you go again, Bernie, twisting words." OK, let's assume God meant the actual number of stars that are theoretically visible as if Abram had telescopic sight.

In that case, there are at least 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 70 sextillion) Jews in the Universe because that is the latest estimate of how many stars there are in the visible universe ³. And this is most likely a very low, low number.

Well, here's a quandary: if we take God literally then there are too few Jews; if we take him figuratively, there's not enough room on Earth for that many cockroaches, let alone Jews. 70 sextillion is 7,000 times the total number of insects on this planet ⁴, not that I'm comparing Jews to cockroaches, I'm not a Muslim after all.

Well, perhaps he meant in the future when we are all tooling around like James T. Kirk from galaxy to galaxy.

Since Jews are always a minority wherever they go, this means that there must be at least 50 times this many humans in the universe. If Earth is any example, a planet our size and temperament probably is comfortable with 7 billion souls, so there are at least 500 trillion planets in the universe with intelligent life and at most a googleplex of them.

With this many inhabited planets I'm sure tens of centuries from now there will be a number without number of idiots who will complain that the Jews control Alpha Centauri or that MonstroGlobula, the great devastator of the Rigel Actinides Galaxy who killed 6 trillion Jewish souls in one day, was in fact himself a Jew.

Notes

(1):

Wikipedia, Jewish population

According to the estimates for 2007 of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, the world population of Jews is 13.2 million. [1]Adherents.com cites figures ranging from 12 to 18 million Jews.[2] These statistics incorporate both practicing Jews affiliated with synagogues and the Jewish community, and approximately 4.5 million unaffiliated and secular Jews.

(2):

Wikipedia, Naked eye in astronomy

Theoretically, at up to +6m the human eye would see about 2,500 stars in the clear sky...

(3):

Space.com, 22 Jul 2003, Imperfect Estimate Claims Universe Has 70 Sextillion Stars

Astronomers announced today that there are 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe, or some 70 thousand million million million. That's a 7 followed by 22 zeros.

The figure paints an inadequate picture of the scope of the cosmos, however.

Other scientists have previously tried to pin down this most elusive of astronomical numbers. The new figure is 10 times more accurate than previous attempts, according to those who made it. Still, the researchers admit that it is just an estimate, based on surveying only a small patch of sky.

"This is not the total number of stars in the universe, but it's the number within range of our telescopes, said Simon Driver of the Australian National University. "The real number could be much, much larger still -- some people think it is infinite."

(4):

Smithsonian Institute, Numbers of Insects (Species and Individuals)

In the last decade, much attention has been given to the entomofauna that exists in the canopies of tropical forests of the world. From studies conducted by Terry Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Entomology in Latin American forest canopies, the number of living species of insects has been estimated to be 30 million. Insects also probably have the largest biomass of the terrestrial animals. At any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive.

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