Page 9 - BV17

Is Mt. Sinai the Mountain of YEHOVAH? 9

concluded that the mountain was a volcano somewhere SOUTHEAST OF THE DEAD SEA. He
thus raised many questions which cleared the desk for fresh and unfettered thinking regarding the
location of the mountain and the route of the Exodus.

Other Sources

Over the years many historians and scholars have realized the TRADITIONAL site of Mt.
Sinai in the peninsula between the two gulfs of the Red Sea is MISPLACED and UNTENABLE.
Sir Richard Burton, writing in 1883, summed up the various sites supposed to be Mount Sinai as
follows: "....the SO-CALLED SINAI (JEBEL MUSA) is simply a MODERN FORGERY, dating
probably from the 2nd century A.D.;...the first mount Sinai (Jebel Serbal) was INVENTED by the
Copts, the second (Jebel Musa) by the Greeks, the third (Jebel Musa) by the Moslems, and the
fourth (Jebel Susafeh) by Dr. Robinson...."

James Hastings, prolific author of Bible dictionaries and other study aids, also saw the ab-
surdity of the Sinai peninsula location. In an excellent critique he lays down the following points:

IF the Israelites really went into the Sinai peninsula, the route and goal of their wanderings
have probably been correctly identified. We have shown that the tradition in favour of Jebel
Musa is earlier and more constant than has generally been recognized. But the real difficulty
begins with the question whether the biblical Mt. Sinai was in the peninsula [OF SINAI],
after all. Objection after objection has been raised under this head, and some of them are not
easy to refute. (1) The biblical references to Mt. Sinai do not seem to warrant an identificat-
ion in the limits of the peninsula. Dt.1:2 gives a distance of 11 days from Horeb to the
mountains of Seir, and this would agree well enough with the distance from Jebel Musa.
But in other passages, such as Dt.33:2, Hab.3:8, the contiguity between Sinai and Edom
seems to be more pronounced: even if we grant a certain freedom of expression to poetical
passages, still such language as Dt.33:2:

I came from Sinai,
And rose from Seir unto them,

might, in view of Hebrew parallelism of the members, IMPLY MORE than that Sinai
was in the direction of Seir. It might be urged in reply that the passage continues –

He shined forth from Mt.
Paran,
And came from Meribah
Kadesh,

and Paran has been commonly identified with Feiran in the peninsula [of Sinai]. But this
identification has also been questioned on account of the parallelism with Kadesh and other
references. (2) Some of the places in the itinerary of Exodus have apparently been found
outside the limits of the peninsula, as Elim in Elath-Eloth, and the encampment by the sea in
the Gulf of Akaba. (3) Mt. Sinai is suspiciously connected with the land of Midian, and it

The Berean Voice September-October 2002