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Where is Mount Sinai?
A friend (a great friend) recently lent me Professor Colin Humphrey’s book “The Miracles of Exodus”. Prof. Humphrey tries to find scientific explanations for the miracles associated with the Israelites’ exit from Egypt. His view is that natural explanations of the events in the Exodus do not make them any less miraculous. God can work in, with, and through natural events, causing natural events to happen at a certain time and place to achieve His purpose.
In the process, he argues that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, and then arrived at Mount Sinai – present day Mount Bedr in Saudi Arabia.
His arguments seem convincing. Regarding Mount Sinai, it is in the land of the Midians, which is in the north-east of present day Saudi Arabia, on the east coast of the Red Sea. Mount Bedr is a volcano, matching the smoke, dense clouds, fire, tremors, trumpet blasts, … in Exodus 19. It is within a eleven day walking distance from Kadesh Barnea, as mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:2. It is an isolated mountain, as implied by Exodus 19:12, which says to put limits around the mountain. …
Of course, Mount Bedr is only one of the many candidates put forth as the Biblical Mount Sinai. It is a fascinating story anyway.
3 comments:
A little off-topic, but reading your post made me think of this:
I remember that some great theologian (was it C.S. Lewis? Or it might have been John Stott) wrote that God probably deliberately made sure that "no original fragments of the Bible survived", so that we would not treat those as something more than what they really are -- just pieces of paper with writing on them.
When I read about the difficulty that Bible archaeologists often have in trying to pin down exact locations of where Biblical events happened (I mean, how hard could it be to find a freakin' mountain! And yet, they can't decide on where it is!!!), I wonder if God is trying to do the same thing. Maybe he's trying to make sure that we don't fall into the temptation of seeing those places as more than they are -- just locations where He chose to exercise His mighty power -- and to focus on Him alone?
(Not to say that I disapprove of Biblical archaeology. I am as much of a sucker for good historical evidence as you are :-))
Happy Chinese New Year! Long time no see.
I watched a documentary (by Discovery Channel) few months ago in ATV and it was about Exodus too. Some scientists have been trying to find scientific explanations to the “Ten Plagues” in Egypt. It said that could be a chain of incidents caused by an earthquake, initially. (and finally the first-born could be killed by CO2 fume , since only their bed were on the ground floor)
Too bad I didn’t record the program...
This mountain is too far from Kadesh to make in in 11 days by foot. On the other hand a straight line can be draw from Goshen to Mt. Badr that runs exactly through Jebel al-Lawz the probably mountain of Moses.
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