WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.680 Every year, thousands of people climb a mountain in the 2 00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:06.480 middle of the night. They wake up at two in 3 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:09.199 the morning in a monastery that has stood in the 4 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:14.519 Egyptian desert for nearly fifteen hundred years. They strap on headlamps, 5 00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:19.160 they follow a rocky path carved by centuries of pilgrim's feet, 6 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.760 and somewhere around four thirty in the morning, they reach 7 00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:26.120 the summit of Jebel Musa, a granite peak in the 8 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:30.160 southern Sinai Peninsula, just in time to watch the sunrise 9 00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:35.240 burn across the desert floor. And they weep. They weep 10 00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:38.399 because they believe they are standing on the most sacred 11 00:00:38.439 --> 00:00:42.000 ground in human history, the place where the creator of 12 00:00:42.039 --> 00:00:47.000 the universe descended in fire and smoke, the place where 13 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:51.079 Moses received the Ten Commandments, the place where an entire 14 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:54.920 nation heard the voice of God and trembled. There is 15 00:00:55.159 --> 00:00:59.119 just one problem. They might be standing on the wrong mountain, 16 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:02.520 and the evidence has been hiding in plain sight for 17 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.400 two thousand years, written in a language most of them 18 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:09.239 have never read. In a letter, most of them have 19 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:14.400 skimmed past on Sunday mornings without realizing what it actually says. 20 00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:18.920 This is the story of how an entire civilization may 21 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:22.040 have been looking for the most important mountain in human 22 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:26.239 history in the wrong country, and if the real mountain 23 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:30.040 has been found, it changes everything we thought we knew 24 00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:34.400 about the Exodus, the route the Israelites traveled, and where 25 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:38.439 the foundation of Western law and morality was actually delivered. 26 00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:42.159 But before we go looking for the right mountain, we 27 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:45.359 need to understand how we ended up at the wrong one, 28 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:51.239 because that story, honestly is just as fascinating. Let us 29 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:54.640 go back to the fourth century. The Roman Empire has 30 00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:59.519 just undergone the most dramatic religious transformation in human history. 31 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:05.959 Emperor Constantine has legalized Christianity. His mother, a woman named Helena, 32 00:02:06.359 --> 00:02:09.759 has become perhaps the most enthusiastic pilgrim the world has 33 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:13.319 ever seen. She is traveling across the Middle East, and 34 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:16.159 she is on a mission to find every sacred site 35 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:19.639 mentioned in the Bible and build something on top of it. 36 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:24.280 Helena finds what she believes is the true Cross in Jerusalem, 37 00:02:24.759 --> 00:02:28.639 She identifies the site of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and 38 00:02:28.759 --> 00:02:33.240 then her attention turns south to the desert, to the 39 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:39.159 question that had lingered for centuries, Where is Mount Sinai? 40 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:44.280 Here is The thing you need to understand. Before Helena's era, 41 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:49.639 nobody had identified a specific mountainous Sinai with any certainty. 42 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:54.479 The location had essentially been lost. The Israelites had camped 43 00:02:54.520 --> 00:02:58.280 there for about a year, according to the Book of Exodus, 44 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:01.919 and then they moved on. They did not build a 45 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:05.319 permanent temple there. They did not leave a sign that 46 00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:09.680 said God was here. The mountain faded from living memory. 47 00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:13.960 So how did Helena's people choose the mountain in the 48 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.360 southern Sinai Peninsula. The honest answer is that we do 49 00:03:18.439 --> 00:03:21.879 not entirely know. What we do know is that by 50 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:26.439 the early fourth century, small communities of Christian monks had 51 00:03:26.479 --> 00:03:30.479 begun settling in the deserts of the Sinai Peninsula. They 52 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.400 were drawn to the wilderness for the same reasons monks 53 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:39.280 have always been drawn to wildernesses, silence, solitude, the feeling 54 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:41.960 that God was closer when the noise of the world 55 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:46.680 was far away. These monks had identified various peaks in 56 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:51.439 the region as potentially sacred, and the tradition gradually coalesced 57 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:57.120 around Jebel Musa. In the sixth century, Byzantine Emperor Justinian, 58 00:03:57.159 --> 00:04:01.039 the First built Saint Catharine's Monastery at the base of 59 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:05.479 this mountain. It is one of the oldest continually operating 60 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:08.680 monasteries in the world. It houses some of the most 61 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:15.560 important ancient manuscripts ever discovered, including the Codex Sinieticus, one 62 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:19.319 of the oldest complete copies of the New Testament. The 63 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:22.759 monastery is a treasure in its own right, but step 64 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:27.399 back and consider the timeline. The identification of this mountain 65 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:32.120 as Sinai happened roughly seventeen hundred years after the events 66 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:36.120 of the Exodus are traditionally dated. That is a gap 67 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:42.040 of seventeen centuries between the event and the identification. Imagine 68 00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:45.720 someone in the year three thousand, seven hundred pointing at 69 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:49.279 a hill in rural England and saying this is where 70 00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:53.199 the Declaration of Independence was signed, and you start to 71 00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:57.160 get the scale of the problem and the archaeological evidence. 72 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:03.120 It is not encouraging. Researchers have spent decades searching the 73 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:09.079 Sinai Peninsula for any material evidence of the Israelites, presence, pottery, shads, 74 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:13.720 camp fire remains, anything that would indicate a large group 75 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:17.600 of people passed through the area during the relevant time period. 76 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:24.399 The results have been consistent and frustrating. No Exodus related 77 00:05:24.639 --> 00:05:29.519 archaeological remains dating to the Traditional period have been recovered 78 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:34.360 anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula. Some scholars argue this is 79 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:38.319 exactly what you would expect. The Israelites were nomadic people, 80 00:05:38.360 --> 00:05:42.839 living in tents. They used perishable materials, They did not 81 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:47.759 build permanent structures during their wilderness wanderings. A group traveling 82 00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:51.279 through a desert three thousand years ago would not necessarily 83 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:54.439 leave a trace we could find to day. That is 84 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:57.680 a fair point, but it also means we are relying 85 00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:02.839 entirely on tradition, not evidence, when we point to this 86 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:07.120 particular mountain. There is another problem with the traditional site 87 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:12.240 that almost nobody talks about. The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter one, 88 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:17.600 verse two contains a geographical clue that is astonishingly specific. 89 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:21.439 It says it is eleven days from Horeb by way 90 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:25.759 of Mount Sair to Kadesh Barnea. Eleven days of travel. 91 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:31.160 That is not a poetic flourish, That is a distance measurement. 92 00:06:31.720 --> 00:06:36.959 Kadesh Barneya has been identified by archaeologists in the northeastern Sinai, 93 00:06:37.319 --> 00:06:40.879 near the border of modern Israel and Egypt. Mount Sayr 94 00:06:41.079 --> 00:06:45.319 is associated with the territory of Edom in modern southern Jordan. 95 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:49.120 If you calculate eleven days of travel on foot from 96 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:53.120 Kadesh Barnea back through Mount Sayr, you end up in 97 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:58.160 the mountains of northwest Arabia, not in the southern Sinai Peninsula. 98 00:06:58.759 --> 00:07:02.639 The traditional Jebil Musa is far too close to Kadesh Banaya. 99 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:06.199 You could walk from the traditional site to Kadesh in 100 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:10.839 significantly less than eleven days. And then there is the 101 00:07:10.879 --> 00:07:16.519 Elijah test. In First Kings chapter nineteen, the prophet Elijah 102 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:20.759 flees from Queen Jezebel. He starts at Beersheba in the 103 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:24.759 south of Israel and travels forty days and forty nights 104 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:28.920 to reach Horeb, the Mountain of God. Forty days of 105 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:33.519 walking from Beersheba. If Mount Sinai is at the traditional 106 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:37.839 location in the southern Sinai Peninsula, the journey from Beersheba 107 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:41.399 would take roughly seven to ten days on foot. A 108 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:44.600 fit traveler could do it in a week. Forty days 109 00:07:44.639 --> 00:07:49.399 makes no sense for that distance unless Elijah was walking 110 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:54.120 in circles. But if Horeb is in northwest Saudi Arabia, 111 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:58.480 the distance from Beersheba through the Negev down to the 112 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:02.240 Gulf of Akaba, a cross inter Midian, and then to 113 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:05.920 the Jabal al Laws range is roughly the kind of 114 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:10.399 journey that would require forty days of wilderness travel. The 115 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:16.120 numbers actually work two independent distance calculations in the Bible. 116 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:20.600 Both point away from the traditional site and toward Arabia, 117 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:25.079 and yet for seventeen hundred years we have ignored them. 118 00:08:25.639 --> 00:08:29.959 So if the traditional site was chosen based on monk 119 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:36.000 settlements and imperial patronage rather than historical evidence, the question 120 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:41.279 becomes obvious. Did the ancient texts themselves ever tell us 121 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:45.320 where to look? The answer is yes, and what they 122 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.759 say might surprise you. We need to talk about a 123 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:53.879 man named Paul. Before he became the most influential missionary 124 00:08:53.879 --> 00:08:58.480 in Christian history. Paul was a Pharisee. He was trained 125 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:02.320 in Jerusalem under Gamilee Well, one of the leading rabbinical 126 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:06.279 scholars of the first century. He knew the Torah, he 127 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:09.720 knew the Hebrew scriptures inside and out, he knew the 128 00:09:09.799 --> 00:09:14.120 geography of the ancient world, and around forty nine a d. 129 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:17.000 He wrote a letter to a group of believers in 130 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:21.159 the region of Galatia in modern Turkey, In that letter, 131 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:24.840 in the fourth chapter, verse twenty five, Paul writes something 132 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:27.240 that has been sitting in the New Testament for two 133 00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:31.759 thousand years, waiting for people to actually pay attention to it. 134 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:39.080 He writes, for this, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, Arabia, 135 00:09:39.720 --> 00:09:44.840 not Egypt, not the Sinai Peninsula, Arabia. Some defenders of 136 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:48.759 the traditional site will argue that the Sinai Peninsula was 137 00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:52.720 considered part of Arabia in Paul's day, and there is 138 00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:56.879 some truth to this. The Roman province called Arabia Petraea 139 00:09:57.279 --> 00:10:01.480 did include parts of the Sinai Peninsula, along with modern Jordan, 140 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:07.440 southern Syria, and northwest Saudi Arabia. So the word Arabia 141 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:10.919 in the first century was broader than our modern usage. 142 00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:14.799 But there is a problem with this defense. When Paul 143 00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:18.120 uses the word Arabia, he is not just throwing out 144 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:23.039 a vague geographic term. He is making a theological argument. 145 00:10:23.720 --> 00:10:28.080 He is connecting Hagar, Abraham's slave wife to the covenant 146 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.840 of the Law given at Sinai, and he is placing 147 00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:36.120 that mountain specifically in Arabia, using the term in a 148 00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:40.000 way his readers would have understood. So what would a 149 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:45.600 first century Jewish reader have understood Arabia to mean. The 150 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:50.919 historian Josephus, writing around the same time as Paul, consistently 151 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:54.840 uses Arabia to refer to the territory east of the 152 00:10:54.919 --> 00:10:59.519 Jordan River and the Gulf of Akaba. He specifically described 153 00:10:59.559 --> 00:11:04.919 Sinai as being between Egypt and Arabia, suggesting it was 154 00:11:04.919 --> 00:11:08.960 on the Arabian side of that boundary. When Josephus talks 155 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:12.759 about the Nabataean kingdom, when he talks about the Midianites, 156 00:11:13.159 --> 00:11:16.960 when he talks about the territory of Ishmael's descendants, he 157 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:21.799 points east across the gulf into what we now call 158 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:28.000 Saudi Arabia. And Josephus is not alone. Philo of Alexandria, 159 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:32.799 writing in the first century, Origin in the third century, 160 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:38.559 Eusebius in the fourth century, Jerome also in the fourth century. 161 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:43.039 These early Church scholars, writing before and during the period 162 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:46.559 when the traditional site was being established, all seemed to 163 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:51.120 place Sinai in Arabia proper, not in the Egyptian peninsula. 164 00:11:51.799 --> 00:11:55.559 Even the Quran, written in the seventh century refers to 165 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:59.840 Moses receiving the law at Tour Sinai and places. The 166 00:11:59.879 --> 00:12:05.799 burning bush event in Madyan, Midian and Midian has always 167 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:09.480 in every ancient source we possess, been located in what 168 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:14.600 is now northwest Saudi Arabia. So here is the situation. 169 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:19.360 We have the apostle Paul, trained as a Pharisee, explicitly 170 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:23.639 saying Sinai is in Arabia. We have Josephus, the most 171 00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:28.159 important Jewish historian of the first century, suggesting the same. 172 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:32.480 We have multiple early church fathers pointing in the same direction. 173 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:37.679 And then several centuries later, a tradition develops around a 174 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:41.639 mountain in Egypt, a tradition that sticks because an empress 175 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:44.840 built a church there and an emperor built a monastery. 176 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:49.720 What if they were all right, the early writers, not 177 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:54.080 the later tradition. What if the real Mount Sinai has 178 00:12:54.120 --> 00:12:58.440 been sitting in Saudi Arabia this entire time? That question 179 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:03.440 is not ritorracle, because in the last few decades people 180 00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:06.399 have gone looking and what they found at the base 181 00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:10.440 of a mountain called Jabal al Laws next to a 182 00:13:10.519 --> 00:13:15.279 blackened peak called Jabal Makla, is either the most significant 183 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:18.519 biblical discovery of the modern era or one of the 184 00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:24.120 most elaborate cases of wishful thinking in archaeological history. The 185 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:27.759 evidence goes both ways, and we are going to look 186 00:13:27.799 --> 00:13:30.840 at all of it. But first we need to do 187 00:13:30.879 --> 00:13:35.080 something that almost nobody in this debate does properly. We 188 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:39.039 need to open the original Hebrew text and let Moses 189 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:42.279 tell us where he actually was. If you want to 190 00:13:42.360 --> 00:13:46.399 understand where Mount Sinai really is, you cannot start with 191 00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:50.080 a map. You have to start with a word. In 192 00:13:50.159 --> 00:13:53.960 the third chapter of Exodus, verse one, the Hebrew text 193 00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:59.440 says something that most English translations flatten into nothing. Moses 194 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:02.639 is tending the flock of his father in law, Jethro, 195 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:06.639 who is called the priest of Midian, and the text 196 00:14:06.919 --> 00:14:12.519 says Moses led the flock a cha hamidbar, which means 197 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:17.720 beyond the wilderness or to the far side of the wilderness. 198 00:14:18.399 --> 00:14:21.759 The word midbar in Hebrew does not mean what you 199 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:25.720 probably picture when you read wilderness in English. When you 200 00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:30.559 hear wilderness, you imagine thick forests, maybe bears may be 201 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:36.320 a survival show. But the Hebrew midbar is something completely different. 202 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:40.960 It comes from the root d'avar, which means to speak 203 00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:45.399 or to drive. A mid bar is an open, arid 204 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:48.799 place where flocks are driven to graze. It is the 205 00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:52.559 land beyond the settled areas, the pasture land at the 206 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:57.279 edge of civilization. Pay attention to this next detail because 207 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:01.039 it changes the geography of the entire debate. The text 208 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:05.679 says Moses went beyond or behind the mid bar. The 209 00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:10.600 Hebrew word achah means behind, after, or to the far 210 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:15.000 side of Moses did not just walk into the wilderness. 211 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:17.960 He went through it and came out the other side. 212 00:15:18.559 --> 00:15:21.320 He went to the far edge of the grazing lands 213 00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:25.399 of Midian. And where did he end up? At the 214 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:31.120 mountain of God horeb. This is crucial. Moses was in Midian, 215 00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:35.080 He was tending the flocks of a Midianite priest. He 216 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:38.759 walked to the far side of the Midianite wilderness, and 217 00:15:38.879 --> 00:15:43.159 he arrived at the mountain of God. So where was Midian? 218 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:46.759 This is one of the rare cases in Biblical geography 219 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:51.320 where there is virtually no scholarly disagreement. Midian was in 220 00:15:51.399 --> 00:15:54.960 the northwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula in what is 221 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.519 now Saudi Arabia. The ancient city of Midian has been 222 00:15:58.519 --> 00:16:01.919 identified with the modern town of Albad in the Tabuk 223 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:07.559 region of Saudi Arabia. Archaeological excavations have confirmed this identification. 224 00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:12.240 The Midianites were an Arabian people. Think about what this 225 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:16.480 means for the traditional site. If Moses was in Midian 226 00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:20.759 tending Midianite flocks, and he walked to the far side 227 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:24.120 of the Midianite wilderness and found the Mountain of God, 228 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:31.000 that mountain should logically be in or near Midian in Arabia, 229 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:34.840 not hundreds of miles away on the Egyptian side of 230 00:16:34.879 --> 00:16:39.360 the Sinai Peninsula. Defenders of the traditional site will argue 231 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:42.759 that Moses could have traveled a great distance with his flocks. 232 00:16:43.559 --> 00:16:47.639 Shepherds do cover large areas, but the text does not 233 00:16:47.799 --> 00:16:51.720 describe an epic journey. It describes a shepherd going to 234 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:54.679 the far edge of his pasture land, which is a 235 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:58.639 normal thing shepherds do. The burning bush is presented as 236 00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:02.000 something that happened to during an ordinary day of work, 237 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:06.400 not at the end of an expedition. Let us keep reading. 238 00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:11.279 After the burning bush encounter, God tells Moses to bring 239 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:15.680 the Israelites back to this same mountain. In Exodus chapter three, 240 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:19.680 verse twelve. God says, when you have brought the people 241 00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:23.759 out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. 242 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:30.359 The Hebrew is clear Hahar Hazei. This mountain, the one 243 00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:34.359 Moses is standing on the one in or near Midian. 244 00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:39.079 This is where the Exodus route becomes critical. The standard 245 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:43.319 assumption is that the Israelites left Egypt, crossed the Red 246 00:17:43.359 --> 00:17:47.279 Sea somewhere near the modern Suez Canal, and then wandered 247 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:51.519 through the Sinai Peninsula. That is the route you see 248 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.039 on the maps in the back of every study Bible. 249 00:17:54.680 --> 00:17:57.960 But those maps were drawn to match the traditional site. 250 00:17:58.599 --> 00:18:02.240 They are not derived from the text itself. Let us 251 00:18:02.279 --> 00:18:06.400 look at what the text actually describes. The Hebrew word 252 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:10.240 for the body of water the Israelites crossed is yamsuf. 253 00:18:10.799 --> 00:18:15.720 For generations, this was translated as red sea, but soof 254 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:20.519 in Hebrew means reeds. It literally translates to sea of reeds. 255 00:18:21.400 --> 00:18:24.079 Some scholars have argued that this refers to a marshy 256 00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:28.160 lake near the Mediterranean coast or somewhere along the modern 257 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:33.319 Suez Canal, but First Kings, chapter nine, verse twenty six 258 00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:38.079 uses the same term yam souf to describe the body 259 00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:41.720 of water near Etziongebe, which is at the northern tip 260 00:18:41.799 --> 00:18:45.079 of the Gulf of Akaba, that is, the narrow body 261 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:49.119 of water that separates the Sinai Peninsula from Saudi Arabia. 262 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:53.240 If the Yamsuf crossing happened at the Gulf of Akaba 263 00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:57.759 rather than at the Suez Canal area, the entire exodus 264 00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:02.880 route shifts dramatically. Instead of wandering around the Sinai Peninsula, 265 00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:06.119 the Israelites would have traveled down the western coast of 266 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:09.960 the peninsula, crossed the Gulf of Akaba, and arrived in 267 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:15.039 Midian in Arabia, where Paul said Sinai was where Moses 268 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:18.240 was already familiar with, the territory where the Mountain of 269 00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:22.680 God was waiting. One proposed crossing point is a beach 270 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:27.519 on the Sinai coast called nu Weba. Several researchers have 271 00:19:27.640 --> 00:19:32.119 noted that an underwater land bridge extends from Nueba across 272 00:19:32.119 --> 00:19:36.079 the Gulf of Akaba toward the Saudi coast. The water 273 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:39.160 on either side of this ridge drops to significant depth, 274 00:19:39.599 --> 00:19:43.680 but the ridge itself is relatively shallow. Whether this natural 275 00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:47.960 formation played any role in the Exodus account remains speculative, 276 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:52.839 but the geography is suggestive. A crossing at New Weba 277 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:57.400 would deposit the Israelites directly in the Midian region within 278 00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:02.079 reach of Jabal al Laws. There is another Hebrew detail 279 00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:06.319 that gets overlooked when the Israelites arrive at Sinai. The 280 00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:12.599 text describes the mountain in very specific terms. Exodus chapter nineteen, 281 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:17.079 verse eighteen says that Mount Sinai was altogether in smoke 282 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:21.240 because the Lord descended upon it in fire. The Hebrew 283 00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:25.880 uses the phrase kulo ashen, meaning all of its smoke, 284 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:29.880 and compares it to the smoke of a kiln a kivshan, 285 00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:35.440 the entire mountain smoked like an industrial furnace. Some scholars 286 00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:39.640 have suggested this description sounds volcanic, and that is an 287 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:44.880 interesting observation because there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula. 288 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:49.039 There have not been any active volcanic features there in 289 00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:55.519 recorded geological history. But northwest Saudi Arabia, that region sits 290 00:20:55.559 --> 00:20:58.920 on the edge of a major volcanic field. The Haret 291 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:03.559 Rahat lava fields extend through western Arabia. The geology of 292 00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:09.680 the Jabal a Laws region includes volcanic rock, basalt formations, 293 00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:14.160 and evidence of ancient thermal activity. Does this prove the 294 00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:18.880 mountain was a volcano. No, the text attributes the fire 295 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:23.480 and smoke to the presence of God, not to geological processes. 296 00:21:24.119 --> 00:21:27.359 But it is worth noting that the description fits the 297 00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:31.440 geology of Arabia far better than it fits the geology 298 00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:36.119 of the Sinai Peninsula. There is one more Hebrew word 299 00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:39.079 we need to examine, and this one might be the 300 00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:42.799 most telling of all. The mountain has two names in 301 00:21:42.839 --> 00:21:46.599 the Hebrew Bible. It is called Sinai and it is 302 00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:51.480 called Horeb. Scholars have debated for centuries whether these are 303 00:21:51.519 --> 00:21:55.480 two names for the same place or two different locations 304 00:21:55.480 --> 00:22:00.319 within the same mountain range. The Protestant reformer John Calvin 305 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:03.960 believed they were the same mountain, with Sinai referring to 306 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.319 the eastern face and Horeb to the western face. But 307 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:12.400 look at the meaning of the names themselves. Scholars believe 308 00:22:12.519 --> 00:22:18.279 Sinai may derive from sin, the Mesopotamian moon deity, suggesting 309 00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:23.359 the mountain was associated with moon worship before the Israelites arrived, 310 00:22:24.359 --> 00:22:31.000 and Horeb. The Hebrew word churev means dry place or desolation, 311 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:35.480 but it also carries the sense of glowing heat. Some 312 00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:39.759 etymologists connect it to the idea of scorching or burning 313 00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:43.839 a mountain associated with the moon on one side and 314 00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:47.440 burning heat on the other. A mountain that smoked like 315 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:51.119 a furnace, A mountain in the land of Midian, beyond 316 00:22:51.119 --> 00:22:54.599 the wilderness in Arabia. If you are the kind of 317 00:22:54.680 --> 00:22:58.720 person who reads the original languages, you are probably sitting 318 00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:02.359 up a little straighter right now, because everything in the 319 00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:07.799 Hebrew text points away from the Sinai Peninsula and toward Arabia. 320 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:15.240 The geographical references, the descriptions, the names, the distance calculations. 321 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:19.920 So the obvious question is has anyone actually gone to 322 00:23:20.039 --> 00:23:25.039 Arabia and looked? The answer is yes, and what they 323 00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:29.599 found there has ignited a firestorm of controversy that the 324 00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:34.240 academic world is still trying to process. But before I 325 00:23:34.359 --> 00:23:37.000 take you to that mountain, I want you to think 326 00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:40.519 about something for a moment. Have you ever been absolutely 327 00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:44.119 certain you knew where something was. Maybe it was your 328 00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:47.839 ka keys, maybe it was a relationship, maybe it was 329 00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:50.759 your purpose in life. You were so sure you knew 330 00:23:50.839 --> 00:23:54.200 where to find it that you never bothered looking anywhere else, 331 00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:58.000 And then one day you realized you had been searching 332 00:23:58.039 --> 00:24:01.160 in the wrong room. The entire time, the thing you 333 00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:04.400 were looking for was never where everyone told you it 334 00:24:04.440 --> 00:24:08.519 would be. That is what this story is about, not 335 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:13.160 just for archaeologists, for all of us. Because if we 336 00:24:13.200 --> 00:24:16.640 can get the location of the single most important divine 337 00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:21.440 encounter in the Hebrew Bible wrong for seventeen centuries, what 338 00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:25.279 else might we be wrong about? What other assumptions have 339 00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:30.119 we inherited without questioning? What other truths are sitting in 340 00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:34.759 the original text waiting for someone to actually read them. 341 00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:38.519 That is the real mystery here, not just where the 342 00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:43.160 mountain is, but why we stopped looking. In nineteen eighty four, 343 00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:48.000 a man named Ron Wyatt claimed he had found the 344 00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:52.519 real Mount Sinai. We need to be honest about Ron Wyatt. 345 00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:57.000 He was an amateur archaeologist from Tennessee who also claimed 346 00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:59.880 to have found Noah's Ark, the ark of the cu 347 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:02.839 Evenant chariot, wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea, 348 00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:08.680 and several other biblical artifacts. His track record was, to 349 00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:13.039 put it charitably, controversial. Many of his claims have been 350 00:25:13.119 --> 00:25:19.240 thoroughly debunked. The professional archaeological community largely regards his work 351 00:25:19.319 --> 00:25:23.039 with skepticism, but there is a principle of logic that 352 00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:27.680 matters here it is called the genetic fallacy. It means 353 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:31.680 that discounting a conclusion solely because of who made it 354 00:25:31.720 --> 00:25:35.799 is a logical error. A broken clock is right twice 355 00:25:35.799 --> 00:25:38.920 a day, and just because Ron Wyatt had a problematic 356 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:42.559 reputation does not automatically mean he was wrong about everything. 357 00:25:43.559 --> 00:25:47.519 Wyatt pointed to a mountain range in northwest Saudi Arabia, 358 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.440 near the ancient city of Midian in the Tabuk region. 359 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.720 The range is called Jabal a Laws, which means mountain 360 00:25:56.799 --> 00:26:00.240 of almonds. Next to it sits a slightly short a 361 00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:04.599 peak called Jabal Makla, which in Arabic means something that 362 00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:09.359 should get your attention, the burnt mountain. Wyatt was not 363 00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:13.839 alone in looking here. In nineteen eighty eight, two Americans 364 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:17.880 named Bob Kornuk and Larry Williams made a now famous 365 00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:22.359 expedition to the site. They entered Saudi Arabia, traveled to 366 00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:26.119 the mountain range, and documented what they saw before being 367 00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:30.559 detained by Saudi authorities. What they brought back was a 368 00:26:30.599 --> 00:26:34.359 set of photographs and descriptions that, whether you believe them 369 00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:38.559 or not, are genuinely remarkable. Let us walk through what 370 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:41.440 has been found at this site and I want to 371 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:45.119 be clear about something. I am going to present the evidence, 372 00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:50.079 and I am going to present the counter arguments. Because 373 00:26:50.119 --> 00:26:54.720 this is a detective case, not a sermon. You deserve 374 00:26:54.839 --> 00:26:59.319 to see both sides. The blackened peak the summit of 375 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:05.400 Jabalm Lacla is black, not dark brown, not shadowed black. 376 00:27:06.359 --> 00:27:08.960 When you look at the mountain from the surrounding plain, 377 00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:13.519 the top portion appears scorched, as if intense heat had 378 00:27:13.559 --> 00:27:17.240 been applied to the rock surface. The surrounding mountains in 379 00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:20.680 the same range do not share this feature. They are 380 00:27:20.720 --> 00:27:23.759 the normal tan and brown color you would expect in 381 00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:28.319 the Arabian desert. When early visitors broke open some of 382 00:27:28.359 --> 00:27:32.519 these darkened rocks, they reported that only the outer surface 383 00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:37.599 was blackened. The interior was a different colour. This suggested 384 00:27:37.640 --> 00:27:40.920 to them that something had happened to the exterior of 385 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:46.920 the rock that did not affect its interior, like extreme 386 00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:53.640 heat applied from outside. Exodus chapter nineteen describes God descending 387 00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:58.400 on Sinai in fire, with smoke rising like a furnace, 388 00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:02.759 and the whole mountain trembling. If you take that description 389 00:28:02.839 --> 00:28:05.880 at face value and then look at a mountain with 390 00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:10.359 an inexplicably blackened peak in the exact region where the 391 00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:14.359 Bible places the events. The connection is hard to ignore, 392 00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:19.799 but the counter argument is significant. Geologist doctor John Morris 393 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:24.119 examined rock samples from Jabal Machler and concluded that the 394 00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:29.599 dark coloring is natural metamorphic rock typical for the volcanic region. 395 00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:35.440 The area sits on Precambrian geological formations that include contact 396 00:28:35.559 --> 00:28:41.440 metamorphic rocks, which are naturally dark. Geologist doctor Glenn Fritz, 397 00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:46.039 who actually supports the Jabal al Law's theory for other reasons, 398 00:28:46.599 --> 00:28:50.880 agrees that the blackened rock is natural basalt, not the 399 00:28:50.960 --> 00:28:54.759 result of divine fire. He points out that the basic 400 00:28:54.839 --> 00:28:59.039 chemical composition of granite does not transform into dark rock 401 00:28:59.160 --> 00:29:03.480