Biblical Mount Sinai

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For other uses of the name Mount Sinai, please see: Mount Sinai (disambiguation).

Biblical Mount Sinai refers to the place where, according to the Bible, Exodus 19 and 20, God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. There are many conflicting theories of where this occurred.

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Origin of name

The name Sinai comes probably from the Moon God Sin, similar to the Desert of Sin. Judaism teaches that as soon as the Jewish people received the Bible at Mt. Sinai, they would be hated by the rest of the world for having been the ones to receive divine word (a state of affairs presented as a pun: Sinai as Seen-ah, which means hatred). The area was reached by the Hebrews in the third month after the Exodus. Here they remained encamped for about a year. The last twenty-two chapters of Exodus, together with the whole of Leviticus and Numbers ch. 1-11, contain a record of all the transactions which occurred while they were at Mount Sinai. From Rephidim (Ex. 17:8-13) the Israelites journeyed to "the desert of Sinai," and encamped there "before the mountain."

Possible locations

In the Bible, Mt. Sinai is also called Mt. Horeb and the "Mount of God".

Jewish scholars have long asserted that the exact location of Mount Sinai was unknown, the reason being that its location was purposefully terra incognita.

In Biblical times, the location of the mountain was apparently well-known, as seen in the description of Josephus:

“taking his station at the mountain called Sinai, he drove his flocks thither to feed them. Now this is the highest of all the mountains thereabout, and the best for pasturage, the herbage being there good; and it had not been before fed upon, because of the opinion men had that God dwelt there, the shepherds not daring to ascend up to it”. Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, CHAPTER 12.

The location was also known in the days of Ahab, King of Israel, as is recounted in the story of Elijah's journey:

"And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God." 1 Kings 19:8.

The location of the mountain was evidently later forgotten.

Note: Mount Horeb, according to the Bible (Galatians 4 : 25), is in Arabia and that Horeb is the same as Sinai( Agar) And Moses's father was living in Arabia close to Mount Horeb, the Holy Mountain of God, the same mountain as the burning bush.

Local tour and religious groups presently advertise Jabal Musa (Arabic: "Mountain of Moses") in the Sinai Desert as the Biblical Mount Sinai described in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Old Testament). However, there is a considerable weight of historical counter-evidence to support the view that Jabal Musa and the Biblical Mount Sinai are not the same. Other sites have been suggested, with Menashe Har-El claiming that some 13 sites have been named.

Jabal Musa (Jebel Musa)

The claim of the Jabal Musa location goes back to the time of Helena of Constantinople. The earliest known claim was by two monks who claimed they found the Burning Bush of Moses, circa 300 CE. This bush is today located in the monastery of Santa Catarina, Egypt. The belief of Mount Sinai's location here has survived almost 1700 years and has become part of tradition.

Historians and archaeologists, however, point out that there is no one accepted tradition as to which mountain is "the" Biblical Mount Sinai, and in fact there are several other small mountains in the area that some groups hold to be the Biblical Mount Sinai.

Mount Jabal Helal

A mountain located in the north of the Sinai peninsula.

Mount Jabal Serbal

A mountain located in the south of the Sinai peninsula.

Jebel Sin Bishar

Located in west-central Sunai, as proposed by Menashe Har-El, a biblical geographer at Tel Aviv University, in his book The Sinai Journey's: The Route of the Exodus.

The Ralph Ellis, in his books; Tempest and Exodus and Solomon, Falcon of Sheba, asserts that the Great Pyramid is the actual Mount Sinai. And that the Ancient Israelites, in their avoidance of anything Egyptian, reidentified it.

Mount Har Karkom

Also called Jabal Ideid, it is located in the southwest Negev desert in Israel, north of the Sinai peninsula. Favored by Emmanuel Anati.[link][link]

In his book The Gold of Exodus by Howard Blum opts for Jabal al-Lawz[link] in Saudi Arabia[link]. Ron Wyatt has also postulated Jabal al-Lawz as the Mt Sinai.

Jabal al-Manifa

Located 20 kilometers north of Ajnuna near Wadi al-Hrob in Saudi Arabia. As proposed, independently of each other, by Alois Musil and H. Philby.

Hala'l Bedr

Prof. Colin Humphreys has argued in favor of the volcano Hala-'l Badr further south in Arabia in his book The Miracles of Exodus, claiming that an erupting volcano would explain many of the phenomena described in Exodus. Jean Koenig also espused the theory in 1971.

See also: Edomites

Jebel Baggir

Proposed by Charles Beke, Jebel Baggir is located North-east of Gulf of Aqaba in the Negev desert in his 1878 book Sinai in Arabia and of Median. Beke also states that nearby Jebel Ertowa is Mt Horeb. Both are located near Wady Yutm.

The last Biblical mention of the place is in the New Testament, in Galatians 4:25: "For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia." From this quotation it follows that identification of Biblical Mount Sinai with a mountain in the vicinity of Petra, former Nabatean Kingdom capital, in present day Jordan, is sustainable on grounds of christian theology, moreover because apostle Paul probably had been personally in such place, since he wrote that he had travelled to Arabia after his stay in Damascus following conversion to Christianity, as it can be read in Galatians, 1:17.

Jabal al Madhbah

One of the more important suggestions was made by Ditlef Nielsen in 1927 when visiting Petra, the old nabatean kingdom capital, in present day Jordan. He considered Jebel-al-Madhbah (the high place) a strong candidate. This mountain, in the vicinity of Petra, is over a thousand meters high,presents millennia-old rock-excavated ceremonial structures such as a square altar and a round one, an open court able to receive multitudes, a ceremonial pool and an uphill rock staircase, among other details. Furthermore, it fits well in Apostle Paul's previously referred location of Mount Sinai in Arabia, effected with the geographical authority of one who had been travelling through Arabia following his stay in Damascus after conversion (see Paul of Tarsus).

Nielsen's proposal has been recently adopted by Collins and Herald in Mercy.

References

Howard Blum, The Gold of Exodus
Colin Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus
Charles Beke, Sinai in Arabia and of Meida
[Jabal -al-Lawz at bibleprobe.com]
[Jabal -al-Lawz at baseinstitute.org]
[Red Sea Crossing and the Sinai]
[Ron Wyatt on jabal al-Lawz]
[Official site] for Mount Har Karkom
[Mount Har Karkom informational page]