Speaker 1: Every year, thousands of people climb a mountain in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. They wake up at two in
Speaker 1: the morning in a monastery that has stood in the
Speaker 1: Egyptian desert for nearly fifteen hundred years. They strap on headlamps,
Speaker 1: they follow a rocky path carved by centuries of pilgrim's feet,
Speaker 1: and somewhere around four thirty in the morning, they reach
Speaker 1: the summit of Jebel Musa, a granite peak in the
Speaker 1: southern Sinai Peninsula, just in time to watch the sunrise
Speaker 1: burn across the desert floor. And they weep. They weep
Speaker 1: because they believe they are standing on the most sacred
Speaker 1: ground in human history, the place where the creator of
Speaker 1: the universe descended in fire and smoke, the place where
Speaker 1: Moses received the Ten Commandments, the place where an entire
Speaker 1: nation heard the voice of God and trembled. There is
Speaker 1: just one problem. They might be standing on the wrong mountain,
Speaker 1: and the evidence has been hiding in plain sight for
Speaker 1: two thousand years, written in a language most of them
Speaker 1: have never read. In a letter, most of them have
Speaker 1: skimmed past on Sunday mornings without realizing what it actually says.
Speaker 1: This is the story of how an entire civilization may
Speaker 1: have been looking for the most important mountain in human
Speaker 1: history in the wrong country, and if the real mountain
Speaker 1: has been found, it changes everything we thought we knew
Speaker 1: about the Exodus, the route the Israelites traveled, and where
Speaker 1: the foundation of Western law and morality was actually delivered.
Speaker 1: But before we go looking for the right mountain, we
Speaker 1: need to understand how we ended up at the wrong one,
Speaker 1: because that story, honestly is just as fascinating. Let us
Speaker 1: go back to the fourth century. The Roman Empire has
Speaker 1: just undergone the most dramatic religious transformation in human history.
Speaker 1: Emperor Constantine has legalized Christianity. His mother, a woman named Helena,
Speaker 1: has become perhaps the most enthusiastic pilgrim the world has
Speaker 1: ever seen. She is traveling across the Middle East, and
Speaker 1: she is on a mission to find every sacred site
Speaker 1: mentioned in the Bible and build something on top of it.
Speaker 1: Helena finds what she believes is the true Cross in Jerusalem,
Speaker 1: She identifies the site of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and
Speaker 1: then her attention turns south to the desert, to the
Speaker 1: question that had lingered for centuries, Where is Mount Sinai?
Speaker 1: Here is The thing you need to understand. Before Helena's era,
Speaker 1: nobody had identified a specific mountainous Sinai with any certainty.
Speaker 1: The location had essentially been lost. The Israelites had camped
Speaker 1: there for about a year, according to the Book of Exodus,
Speaker 1: and then they moved on. They did not build a
Speaker 1: permanent temple there. They did not leave a sign that
Speaker 1: said God was here. The mountain faded from living memory.
Speaker 1: So how did Helena's people choose the mountain in the
Speaker 1: southern Sinai Peninsula. The honest answer is that we do
Speaker 1: not entirely know. What we do know is that by
Speaker 1: the early fourth century, small communities of Christian monks had
Speaker 1: begun settling in the deserts of the Sinai Peninsula. They
Speaker 1: were drawn to the wilderness for the same reasons monks
Speaker 1: have always been drawn to wildernesses, silence, solitude, the feeling
Speaker 1: that God was closer when the noise of the world
Speaker 1: was far away. These monks had identified various peaks in
Speaker 1: the region as potentially sacred, and the tradition gradually coalesced
Speaker 1: around Jebel Musa. In the sixth century, Byzantine Emperor Justinian,
Speaker 1: the First built Saint Catharine's Monastery at the base of
Speaker 1: this mountain. It is one of the oldest continually operating
Speaker 1: monasteries in the world. It houses some of the most
Speaker 1: important ancient manuscripts ever discovered, including the Codex Sinieticus, one
Speaker 1: of the oldest complete copies of the New Testament. The
Speaker 1: monastery is a treasure in its own right, but step
Speaker 1: back and consider the timeline. The identification of this mountain
Speaker 1: as Sinai happened roughly seventeen hundred years after the events
Speaker 1: of the Exodus are traditionally dated. That is a gap
Speaker 1: of seventeen centuries between the event and the identification. Imagine
Speaker 1: someone in the year three thousand, seven hundred pointing at
Speaker 1: a hill in rural England and saying this is where
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence was signed, and you start to
Speaker 1: get the scale of the problem and the archaeological evidence.
Speaker 1: It is not encouraging. Researchers have spent decades searching the
Speaker 1: Sinai Peninsula for any material evidence of the Israelites, presence, pottery, shads,
Speaker 1: camp fire remains, anything that would indicate a large group
Speaker 1: of people passed through the area during the relevant time period.
Speaker 1: The results have been consistent and frustrating. No Exodus related
Speaker 1: archaeological remains dating to the Traditional period have been recovered
Speaker 1: anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula. Some scholars argue this is
Speaker 1: exactly what you would expect. The Israelites were nomadic people,
Speaker 1: living in tents. They used perishable materials, They did not
Speaker 1: build permanent structures during their wilderness wanderings. A group traveling
Speaker 1: through a desert three thousand years ago would not necessarily
Speaker 1: leave a trace we could find to day. That is
Speaker 1: a fair point, but it also means we are relying
Speaker 1: entirely on tradition, not evidence, when we point to this
Speaker 1: particular mountain. There is another problem with the traditional site
Speaker 1: that almost nobody talks about. The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter one,
Speaker 1: verse two contains a geographical clue that is astonishingly specific.
Speaker 1: It says it is eleven days from Horeb by way
Speaker 1: of Mount Sair to Kadesh Barnea. Eleven days of travel.
Speaker 1: That is not a poetic flourish, That is a distance measurement.
Speaker 1: Kadesh Barneya has been identified by archaeologists in the northeastern Sinai,
Speaker 1: near the border of modern Israel and Egypt. Mount Sayr
Speaker 1: is associated with the territory of Edom in modern southern Jordan.
Speaker 1: If you calculate eleven days of travel on foot from
Speaker 1: Kadesh Barnea back through Mount Sayr, you end up in
Speaker 1: the mountains of northwest Arabia, not in the southern Sinai Peninsula.
Speaker 1: The traditional Jebil Musa is far too close to Kadesh Banaya.
Speaker 1: You could walk from the traditional site to Kadesh in
Speaker 1: significantly less than eleven days. And then there is the
Speaker 1: Elijah test. In First Kings chapter nineteen, the prophet Elijah
Speaker 1: flees from Queen Jezebel. He starts at Beersheba in the
Speaker 1: south of Israel and travels forty days and forty nights
Speaker 1: to reach Horeb, the Mountain of God. Forty days of
Speaker 1: walking from Beersheba. If Mount Sinai is at the traditional
Speaker 1: location in the southern Sinai Peninsula, the journey from Beersheba
Speaker 1: would take roughly seven to ten days on foot. A
Speaker 1: fit traveler could do it in a week. Forty days
Speaker 1: makes no sense for that distance unless Elijah was walking
Speaker 1: in circles. But if Horeb is in northwest Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: the distance from Beersheba through the Negev down to the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Akaba, a cross inter Midian, and then to
Speaker 1: the Jabal al Laws range is roughly the kind of
Speaker 1: journey that would require forty days of wilderness travel. The
Speaker 1: numbers actually work two independent distance calculations in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Both point away from the traditional site and toward Arabia,
Speaker 1: and yet for seventeen hundred years we have ignored them.
Speaker 1: So if the traditional site was chosen based on monk
Speaker 1: settlements and imperial patronage rather than historical evidence, the question
Speaker 1: becomes obvious. Did the ancient texts themselves ever tell us
Speaker 1: where to look? The answer is yes, and what they
Speaker 1: say might surprise you. We need to talk about a
Speaker 1: man named Paul. Before he became the most influential missionary
Speaker 1: in Christian history. Paul was a Pharisee. He was trained
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem under Gamilee Well, one of the leading rabbinical
Speaker 1: scholars of the first century. He knew the Torah, he
Speaker 1: knew the Hebrew scriptures inside and out, he knew the
Speaker 1: geography of the ancient world, and around forty nine a d.
Speaker 1: He wrote a letter to a group of believers in
Speaker 1: the region of Galatia in modern Turkey, In that letter,
Speaker 1: in the fourth chapter, verse twenty five, Paul writes something
Speaker 1: that has been sitting in the New Testament for two
Speaker 1: thousand years, waiting for people to actually pay attention to it.
Speaker 1: He writes, for this, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, Arabia,
Speaker 1: not Egypt, not the Sinai Peninsula, Arabia. Some defenders of
Speaker 1: the traditional site will argue that the Sinai Peninsula was
Speaker 1: considered part of Arabia in Paul's day, and there is
Speaker 1: some truth to this. The Roman province called Arabia Petraea
Speaker 1: did include parts of the Sinai Peninsula, along with modern Jordan,
Speaker 1: southern Syria, and northwest Saudi Arabia. So the word Arabia
Speaker 1: in the first century was broader than our modern usage.
Speaker 1: But there is a problem with this defense. When Paul
Speaker 1: uses the word Arabia, he is not just throwing out
Speaker 1: a vague geographic term. He is making a theological argument.
Speaker 1: He is connecting Hagar, Abraham's slave wife to the covenant
Speaker 1: of the Law given at Sinai, and he is placing
Speaker 1: that mountain specifically in Arabia, using the term in a
Speaker 1: way his readers would have understood. So what would a
Speaker 1: first century Jewish reader have understood Arabia to mean. The
Speaker 1: historian Josephus, writing around the same time as Paul, consistently
Speaker 1: uses Arabia to refer to the territory east of the
Speaker 1: Jordan River and the Gulf of Akaba. He specifically described
Speaker 1: Sinai as being between Egypt and Arabia, suggesting it was
Speaker 1: on the Arabian side of that boundary. When Josephus talks
Speaker 1: about the Nabataean kingdom, when he talks about the Midianites,
Speaker 1: when he talks about the territory of Ishmael's descendants, he
Speaker 1: points east across the gulf into what we now call
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. And Josephus is not alone. Philo of Alexandria,
Speaker 1: writing in the first century, Origin in the third century,
Speaker 1: Eusebius in the fourth century, Jerome also in the fourth century.
Speaker 1: These early Church scholars, writing before and during the period
Speaker 1: when the traditional site was being established, all seemed to
Speaker 1: place Sinai in Arabia proper, not in the Egyptian peninsula.
Speaker 1: Even the Quran, written in the seventh century refers to
Speaker 1: Moses receiving the law at Tour Sinai and places. The
Speaker 1: burning bush event in Madyan, Midian and Midian has always
Speaker 1: in every ancient source we possess, been located in what
Speaker 1: is now northwest Saudi Arabia. So here is the situation.
Speaker 1: We have the apostle Paul, trained as a Pharisee, explicitly
Speaker 1: saying Sinai is in Arabia. We have Josephus, the most
Speaker 1: important Jewish historian of the first century, suggesting the same.
Speaker 1: We have multiple early church fathers pointing in the same direction.
Speaker 1: And then several centuries later, a tradition develops around a
Speaker 1: mountain in Egypt, a tradition that sticks because an empress
Speaker 1: built a church there and an emperor built a monastery.
Speaker 1: What if they were all right, the early writers, not
Speaker 1: the later tradition. What if the real Mount Sinai has
Speaker 1: been sitting in Saudi Arabia this entire time? That question
Speaker 1: is not ritorracle, because in the last few decades people
Speaker 1: have gone looking and what they found at the base
Speaker 1: of a mountain called Jabal al Laws next to a
Speaker 1: blackened peak called Jabal Makla, is either the most significant
Speaker 1: biblical discovery of the modern era or one of the
Speaker 1: most elaborate cases of wishful thinking in archaeological history. The
Speaker 1: evidence goes both ways, and we are going to look
Speaker 1: at all of it. But first we need to do
Speaker 1: something that almost nobody in this debate does properly. We
Speaker 1: need to open the original Hebrew text and let Moses
Speaker 1: tell us where he actually was. If you want to
Speaker 1: understand where Mount Sinai really is, you cannot start with
Speaker 1: a map. You have to start with a word. In
Speaker 1: the third chapter of Exodus, verse one, the Hebrew text
Speaker 1: says something that most English translations flatten into nothing. Moses
Speaker 1: is tending the flock of his father in law, Jethro,
Speaker 1: who is called the priest of Midian, and the text
Speaker 1: says Moses led the flock a cha hamidbar, which means
Speaker 1: beyond the wilderness or to the far side of the wilderness.
Speaker 1: The word midbar in Hebrew does not mean what you
Speaker 1: probably picture when you read wilderness in English. When you
Speaker 1: hear wilderness, you imagine thick forests, maybe bears may be
Speaker 1: a survival show. But the Hebrew midbar is something completely different.
Speaker 1: It comes from the root d'avar, which means to speak
Speaker 1: or to drive. A mid bar is an open, arid
Speaker 1: place where flocks are driven to graze. It is the
Speaker 1: land beyond the settled areas, the pasture land at the
Speaker 1: edge of civilization. Pay attention to this next detail because
Speaker 1: it changes the geography of the entire debate. The text
Speaker 1: says Moses went beyond or behind the mid bar. The
Speaker 1: Hebrew word achah means behind, after, or to the far
Speaker 1: side of Moses did not just walk into the wilderness.
Speaker 1: He went through it and came out the other side.
Speaker 1: He went to the far edge of the grazing lands
Speaker 1: of Midian. And where did he end up? At the
Speaker 1: mountain of God horeb. This is crucial. Moses was in Midian,
Speaker 1: He was tending the flocks of a Midianite priest. He
Speaker 1: walked to the far side of the Midianite wilderness, and
Speaker 1: he arrived at the mountain of God. So where was Midian?
Speaker 1: This is one of the rare cases in Biblical geography
Speaker 1: where there is virtually no scholarly disagreement. Midian was in
Speaker 1: the northwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula in what is
Speaker 1: now Saudi Arabia. The ancient city of Midian has been
Speaker 1: identified with the modern town of Albad in the Tabuk
Speaker 1: region of Saudi Arabia. Archaeological excavations have confirmed this identification.
Speaker 1: The Midianites were an Arabian people. Think about what this
Speaker 1: means for the traditional site. If Moses was in Midian
Speaker 1: tending Midianite flocks, and he walked to the far side
Speaker 1: of the Midianite wilderness and found the Mountain of God,
Speaker 1: that mountain should logically be in or near Midian in Arabia,
Speaker 1: not hundreds of miles away on the Egyptian side of
Speaker 1: the Sinai Peninsula. Defenders of the traditional site will argue
Speaker 1: that Moses could have traveled a great distance with his flocks.
Speaker 1: Shepherds do cover large areas, but the text does not
Speaker 1: describe an epic journey. It describes a shepherd going to
Speaker 1: the far edge of his pasture land, which is a
Speaker 1: normal thing shepherds do. The burning bush is presented as
Speaker 1: something that happened to during an ordinary day of work,
Speaker 1: not at the end of an expedition. Let us keep reading.
Speaker 1: After the burning bush encounter, God tells Moses to bring
Speaker 1: the Israelites back to this same mountain. In Exodus chapter three,
Speaker 1: verse twelve. God says, when you have brought the people
Speaker 1: out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
Speaker 1: The Hebrew is clear Hahar Hazei. This mountain, the one
Speaker 1: Moses is standing on the one in or near Midian.
Speaker 1: This is where the Exodus route becomes critical. The standard
Speaker 1: assumption is that the Israelites left Egypt, crossed the Red
Speaker 1: Sea somewhere near the modern Suez Canal, and then wandered
Speaker 1: through the Sinai Peninsula. That is the route you see
Speaker 1: on the maps in the back of every study Bible.
Speaker 1: But those maps were drawn to match the traditional site.
Speaker 1: They are not derived from the text itself. Let us
Speaker 1: look at what the text actually describes. The Hebrew word
Speaker 1: for the body of water the Israelites crossed is yamsuf.
Speaker 1: For generations, this was translated as red sea, but soof
Speaker 1: in Hebrew means reeds. It literally translates to sea of reeds.
Speaker 1: Some scholars have argued that this refers to a marshy
Speaker 1: lake near the Mediterranean coast or somewhere along the modern
Speaker 1: Suez Canal, but First Kings, chapter nine, verse twenty six
Speaker 1: uses the same term yam souf to describe the body
Speaker 1: of water near Etziongebe, which is at the northern tip
Speaker 1: of the Gulf of Akaba, that is, the narrow body
Speaker 1: of water that separates the Sinai Peninsula from Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: If the Yamsuf crossing happened at the Gulf of Akaba
Speaker 1: rather than at the Suez Canal area, the entire exodus
Speaker 1: route shifts dramatically. Instead of wandering around the Sinai Peninsula,
Speaker 1: the Israelites would have traveled down the western coast of
Speaker 1: the peninsula, crossed the Gulf of Akaba, and arrived in
Speaker 1: Midian in Arabia, where Paul said Sinai was where Moses
Speaker 1: was already familiar with, the territory where the Mountain of
Speaker 1: God was waiting. One proposed crossing point is a beach
Speaker 1: on the Sinai coast called nu Weba. Several researchers have
Speaker 1: noted that an underwater land bridge extends from Nueba across
Speaker 1: the Gulf of Akaba toward the Saudi coast. The water
Speaker 1: on either side of this ridge drops to significant depth,
Speaker 1: but the ridge itself is relatively shallow. Whether this natural
Speaker 1: formation played any role in the Exodus account remains speculative,
Speaker 1: but the geography is suggestive. A crossing at New Weba
Speaker 1: would deposit the Israelites directly in the Midian region within
Speaker 1: reach of Jabal al Laws. There is another Hebrew detail
Speaker 1: that gets overlooked when the Israelites arrive at Sinai. The
Speaker 1: text describes the mountain in very specific terms. Exodus chapter nineteen,
Speaker 1: verse eighteen says that Mount Sinai was altogether in smoke
Speaker 1: because the Lord descended upon it in fire. The Hebrew
Speaker 1: uses the phrase kulo ashen, meaning all of its smoke,
Speaker 1: and compares it to the smoke of a kiln a kivshan,
Speaker 1: the entire mountain smoked like an industrial furnace. Some scholars
Speaker 1: have suggested this description sounds volcanic, and that is an
Speaker 1: interesting observation because there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula.
Speaker 1: There have not been any active volcanic features there in
Speaker 1: recorded geological history. But northwest Saudi Arabia, that region sits
Speaker 1: on the edge of a major volcanic field. The Haret
Speaker 1: Rahat lava fields extend through western Arabia. The geology of
Speaker 1: the Jabal a Laws region includes volcanic rock, basalt formations,
Speaker 1: and evidence of ancient thermal activity. Does this prove the
Speaker 1: mountain was a volcano. No, the text attributes the fire
Speaker 1: and smoke to the presence of God, not to geological processes.
Speaker 1: But it is worth noting that the description fits the
Speaker 1: geology of Arabia far better than it fits the geology
Speaker 1: of the Sinai Peninsula. There is one more Hebrew word
Speaker 1: we need to examine, and this one might be the
Speaker 1: most telling of all. The mountain has two names in
Speaker 1: the Hebrew Bible. It is called Sinai and it is
Speaker 1: called Horeb. Scholars have debated for centuries whether these are
Speaker 1: two names for the same place or two different locations
Speaker 1: within the same mountain range. The Protestant reformer John Calvin
Speaker 1: believed they were the same mountain, with Sinai referring to
Speaker 1: the eastern face and Horeb to the western face. But
Speaker 1: look at the meaning of the names themselves. Scholars believe
Speaker 1: Sinai may derive from sin, the Mesopotamian moon deity, suggesting
Speaker 1: the mountain was associated with moon worship before the Israelites arrived,
Speaker 1: and Horeb. The Hebrew word churev means dry place or desolation,
Speaker 1: but it also carries the sense of glowing heat. Some
Speaker 1: etymologists connect it to the idea of scorching or burning
Speaker 1: a mountain associated with the moon on one side and
Speaker 1: burning heat on the other. A mountain that smoked like
Speaker 1: a furnace, A mountain in the land of Midian, beyond
Speaker 1: the wilderness in Arabia. If you are the kind of
Speaker 1: person who reads the original languages, you are probably sitting
Speaker 1: up a little straighter right now, because everything in the
Speaker 1: Hebrew text points away from the Sinai Peninsula and toward Arabia.
Speaker 1: The geographical references, the descriptions, the names, the distance calculations.
Speaker 1: So the obvious question is has anyone actually gone to
Speaker 1: Arabia and looked? The answer is yes, and what they
Speaker 1: found there has ignited a firestorm of controversy that the
Speaker 1: academic world is still trying to process. But before I
Speaker 1: take you to that mountain, I want you to think
Speaker 1: about something for a moment. Have you ever been absolutely
Speaker 1: certain you knew where something was. Maybe it was your
Speaker 1: ka keys, maybe it was a relationship, maybe it was
Speaker 1: your purpose in life. You were so sure you knew
Speaker 1: where to find it that you never bothered looking anywhere else,
Speaker 1: And then one day you realized you had been searching
Speaker 1: in the wrong room. The entire time, the thing you
Speaker 1: were looking for was never where everyone told you it
Speaker 1: would be. That is what this story is about, not
Speaker 1: just for archaeologists, for all of us. Because if we
Speaker 1: can get the location of the single most important divine
Speaker 1: encounter in the Hebrew Bible wrong for seventeen centuries, what
Speaker 1: else might we be wrong about? What other assumptions have
Speaker 1: we inherited without questioning? What other truths are sitting in
Speaker 1: the original text waiting for someone to actually read them.
Speaker 1: That is the real mystery here, not just where the
Speaker 1: mountain is, but why we stopped looking. In nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: a man named Ron Wyatt claimed he had found the
Speaker 1: real Mount Sinai. We need to be honest about Ron Wyatt.
Speaker 1: He was an amateur archaeologist from Tennessee who also claimed
Speaker 1: to have found Noah's Ark, the ark of the cu
Speaker 1: Evenant chariot, wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea,
Speaker 1: and several other biblical artifacts. His track record was, to
Speaker 1: put it charitably, controversial. Many of his claims have been
Speaker 1: thoroughly debunked. The professional archaeological community largely regards his work
Speaker 1: with skepticism, but there is a principle of logic that
Speaker 1: matters here it is called the genetic fallacy. It means
Speaker 1: that discounting a conclusion solely because of who made it
Speaker 1: is a logical error. A broken clock is right twice
Speaker 1: a day, and just because Ron Wyatt had a problematic
Speaker 1: reputation does not automatically mean he was wrong about everything.
Speaker 1: Wyatt pointed to a mountain range in northwest Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: near the ancient city of Midian in the Tabuk region.
Speaker 1: The range is called Jabal a Laws, which means mountain
Speaker 1: of almonds. Next to it sits a slightly short a
Speaker 1: peak called Jabal Makla, which in Arabic means something that
Speaker 1: should get your attention, the burnt mountain. Wyatt was not
Speaker 1: alone in looking here. In nineteen eighty eight, two Americans
Speaker 1: named Bob Kornuk and Larry Williams made a now famous
Speaker 1: expedition to the site. They entered Saudi Arabia, traveled to
Speaker 1: the mountain range, and documented what they saw before being
Speaker 1: detained by Saudi authorities. What they brought back was a
Speaker 1: set of photographs and descriptions that, whether you believe them
Speaker 1: or not, are genuinely remarkable. Let us walk through what
Speaker 1: has been found at this site and I want to
Speaker 1: be clear about something. I am going to present the evidence,
Speaker 1: and I am going to present the counter arguments. Because
Speaker 1: this is a detective case, not a sermon. You deserve
Speaker 1: to see both sides. The blackened peak the summit of
Speaker 1: Jabalm Lacla is black, not dark brown, not shadowed black.
Speaker 1: When you look at the mountain from the surrounding plain,
Speaker 1: the top portion appears scorched, as if intense heat had
Speaker 1: been applied to the rock surface. The surrounding mountains in
Speaker 1: the same range do not share this feature. They are
Speaker 1: the normal tan and brown color you would expect in
Speaker 1: the Arabian desert. When early visitors broke open some of
Speaker 1: these darkened rocks, they reported that only the outer surface
Speaker 1: was blackened. The interior was a different colour. This suggested
Speaker 1: to them that something had happened to the exterior of
Speaker 1: the rock that did not affect its interior, like extreme
Speaker 1: heat applied from outside. Exodus chapter nineteen describes God descending
Speaker 1: on Sinai in fire, with smoke rising like a furnace,
Speaker 1: and the whole mountain trembling. If you take that description
Speaker 1: at face value and then look at a mountain with
Speaker 1: an inexplicably blackened peak in the exact region where the
Speaker 1: Bible places the events. The connection is hard to ignore,
Speaker 1: but the counter argument is significant. Geologist doctor John Morris
Speaker 1: examined rock samples from Jabal Machler and concluded that the
Speaker 1: dark coloring is natural metamorphic rock typical for the volcanic region.
Speaker 1: The area sits on Precambrian geological formations that include contact
Speaker 1: metamorphic rocks, which are naturally dark. Geologist doctor Glenn Fritz,
Speaker 1: who actually supports the Jabal al Law's theory for other reasons,
Speaker 1: agrees that the blackened rock is natural basalt, not the
Speaker 1: result of divine fire. He points out that the basic
Speaker 1: chemical composition of granite does not transform into dark rock
Speaker 1: through surface heat eating. It might melt, flow and recrystallize
Speaker 1: at extreme temperatures, but it would not become the type
Speaker 1: of dark rock found on Jabal Makla. So the blackened
Speaker 1: peak is suggestive. It is visually striking, it fits the narrative,
Speaker 1: but the geology is ambiguous at best. The split rock,
Speaker 1: several kilometers to the northwest of the main mountain, on
Speaker 1: what would have been the approach route from the Red
Speaker 1: Sea coast, sits one of the most photographed objects in
Speaker 1: the entire Mount Sinai debate. A massive rock approximately sixty
Speaker 1: feet tall, split cleanly down the middle. The rock stands
Speaker 1: on an elevated hill. At its base, the ground shows
Speaker 1: clear signs of water erosion, with smooth channels and worn
Speaker 1: rock surfaces. This is in a region that receives roughly
Speaker 1: half an inch of rainfall per year. The erosion is
Speaker 1: present on this rock and the area immediately surrounding it,
Speaker 1: but not on other rocks near by. Exodus chapter seventeen
Speaker 1: tells the story of the Israelites running out of water
Speaker 1: at a place called Rephidim. God instructs Moses to strike
Speaker 1: a rock at Horeb, and water pours out to supply
Speaker 1: the entire camp. The text says Moses named the place
Speaker 1: Massa and Meribah, which means testing and quarreling, because the
Speaker 1: people had quarreled and tested the Lord. If you are
Speaker 1: looking for a rock that was split open with water
Speaker 1: flowing from it in the vicinity of the Mountain of God,
Speaker 1: this rock fits the description almost too perfectly, but again
Speaker 1: the counter arguments deserve a hearing. Split rocks are not
Speaker 1: unique to this location. Northwest Saudi Arabia has multiple examples
Speaker 1: of large stones split vertically, a phenomenon cause by frost wedging.
Speaker 1: Desert temperatures swing dramatically between day and night, Water seeps
Speaker 1: into cracks during rare rainfall freezes during cold desert nights, expands,
Speaker 1: and over thousands of years, splits the rock cleanly. The
Speaker 1: smooth surfaces at the base could be the result of
Speaker 1: occasional flash flooding rather than a miraculous water flow. Doctor
Speaker 1: Glen Fritz, despite supporting the jabal our laws theory overall,
Speaker 1: has specifically dismissed this particular rock as having any connection
Speaker 1: to the biblical narrative. He considers it a natural geological formation.
Speaker 1: So the split rock is compelling. It is in the
Speaker 1: right area. It shows water erosion in an arid zone,
Speaker 1: but it may be a coincidence of nature. The plane
Speaker 1: and the camp site. Before we get to the Golden
Speaker 1: car Falter, there is a feature of this site that
Speaker 1: deserves attention because it addresses one of the biggest logistical
Speaker 1: questions in the entire Exodus debate. The Book of Numbers
Speaker 1: record census figures suggesting the Israelite camp may have included
Speaker 1: six hundred thousand fighting men plus women, children, and a
Speaker 1: mixed multitude of non Israelites who joined them. Conservative estimates
Speaker 1: put the total population somewhere between one and two million people.
Speaker 1: More critical scholars argue the numbers are symbolic or exaggerated,
Speaker 1: but whatever the actual number, the camp was large, very large.
Speaker 1: Any proposed Mount Sinai needs a plane at its base
Speaker 1: big enough to support that kind of population, even temporarily tents, livestock,
Speaker 1: water sources, grazing land for animals. The traditional site at
Speaker 1: Jebel Musa has a relatively small plane in front of it,
Speaker 1: called Eraha. It measures roughly two miles long by about
Speaker 1: half a mile wide. Some researchers have argued this is
Speaker 1: simply not large enough for the camp described in Exodus.
Speaker 1: Jabal Makla has a wide eastern plain stretching out from
Speaker 1: the base of the mountain that is significantly larger. Multiple
Speaker 1: researchers who have visited the site have described it as
Speaker 1: easily capable of accommodating a massive encampment. The plain extends
Speaker 1: for miles and is bordered by low hills that would
Speaker 1: have provided natural boundaries for the camp, which is consistent
Speaker 1: with the biblical description of the Israelites camping before the mountain.
Speaker 1: There is also a dry stream bed that runs from
Speaker 1: one of the peaks down to the base of the mountain,
Speaker 1: right next to the altar site. Deuteronomy chapter nine, verse
Speaker 1: twenty one describes Moses grinding the golden calf to powder
Speaker 1: as fine as dust and throwing it into the brook
Speaker 1: that descended out of the mount a seasonal stream flowing
Speaker 1: from the mountain to the camp at jabal Makla. That
Speaker 1: stream exists and roughly a mile north of the camp area,
Speaker 1: outside what would have been the boundaries of the Israelite encampment,
Speaker 1: researchers have documented an ancient pre Islamic graveyard. Exodus chapter
Speaker 1: thirty two records that after the golden calf incident, Moses
Speaker 1: ordered the Levites to punish those who had participated in
Speaker 1: the idolatry. The text says about three thousand men died
Speaker 1: that day. A burial ground outside the camp perimeter, in
Speaker 1: the right location and of uncertain but ancient date, fits
Speaker 1: this account. Again, none of this is conclusive on its own.
Speaker 1: Desert graveyards can come from any period. Dry stream beds
Speaker 1: are common. Large plains exist across the Arabian landscape. But
Speaker 1: the convergence of all these features at the same site
Speaker 1: in the same spatial arrangement described in the text adds
Speaker 1: another layer to an already compelling pattern, the Golden calf alter.
Speaker 1: This is where things get really interesting. Approximately one point
Speaker 1: eight miles from the base of Jabal Makla, there is
Speaker 1: a pile of large rocks roughly thirty feet by thirty
Speaker 1: feet by twenty feet high, with a flat top. On
Speaker 1: and around these rocks, researchers have found petroglyphs, rock carvings,
Speaker 1: specifically carvings of bulls and cows, and carvings of human
Speaker 1: figures who appear to be engaged in worship around these cattle.
Speaker 1: Finding pictures of cattle in Saudi Arabia is unusual. Cattle
Speaker 1: are not indigenous to the Arabian deserts yes, goats, yes,
Speaker 1: but cattle. In the desert of northwest Arabia, the petroglyphs
Speaker 1: depict animals that some researchers believe resemble the Egyptian bull
Speaker 1: god APIs and the cow goddess Hathor. According to Exodus
Speaker 1: chapter thirty two, while Moses was on the mountain receiving
Speaker 1: the commandments, the Israelites grew impatient. They asked Aaron, moses brother,
Speaker 1: to make them gods. Aaron collected their gold jewelry, melted
Speaker 1: it down, and fashioned a golden calf. The people built
Speaker 1: an altar in front of it and began to worship.
Speaker 1: The text specifically says they sat down to eat and
Speaker 1: drink and rose up to play, a Hebrew phrase that
Speaker 1: implies something far more intense than a picnic. Some translations
Speaker 1: render this as revelry, and the Hebrew strongly suggests sexual activity.
Speaker 1: The text it also says the people were perua, which
Speaker 1: means unrestrained or naked. At the jabal Makhla site, the
Speaker 1: rock carvings appear to show naked figures engaged in celebratory
Speaker 1: or worship activities around bull images. A pile of rocks
Speaker 1: with a flat top sits at the centre, precisely the
Speaker 1: sort of structure you would expect from an improvised altar.
Speaker 1: The Saudi government has erected security fences around this site.
Speaker 1: A sign in both Arabic and English confirms it is
Speaker 1: an area of archaeological significance. Saudi police patrolled the area.
Speaker 1: According to the published Saudi Archaeological Survey there is a
Speaker 1: local tradition that this is where the Golden Calf episode
Speaker 1: took place, and that gold is buried underneath the stones.
Speaker 1: The Saudi government's official position, published in their archaeological reports,
Speaker 1: is that the petroglyphs are part of a gen cultural
Speaker 1: tradition of cattle representation spanning from the Neolithic to the
Speaker 1: Nabataean period. They deny any correlation between these images and
Speaker 1: the Exodus narrative. Doctor Charles Whittaker challenged this conclusion in
Speaker 1: his two thousand and three doctoral dissertation. When you compare
Speaker 1: the bull images at this site to depictions of APIs
Speaker 1: and Hathor from Egyptian art, there are clear stylistic similarities.
Speaker 1: He was cautious about drawing definitive conclusions. He pointed out
Speaker 1: that bovine imagery appears at other sites across the Arabian Peninsula,
Speaker 1: But he also noted that the Saudi government's published conclusion
Speaker 1: seems designed to distance the site from any mosaic connection,
Speaker 1: and that raises another question. Why would the Saudi government
Speaker 1: fence off these particular rocks and patrol them with police.
Speaker 1: Why the official denial, What exactly are they protecting? We
Speaker 1: may never get a definitive answer to that question, but
Speaker 1: the fact that it hangs in the air is itself
Speaker 1: part of the story. The twelve pillars and the altar
Speaker 1: at the base of Jabal Makla's eastern face, researchers have
Speaker 1: documented what they describe as the remains of a stone
Speaker 1: structure consistent with an altar, flanked by the remnants of
Speaker 1: stone pillars. Exodus chapter twenty four describes Moses building an
Speaker 1: altar at the foot of the mountain and setting up
Speaker 1: twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Animal
Speaker 1: sacrifices were performed at this altar as part of the
Speaker 1: covenant ceremony. The structure at jabal Makhla includes what researchers
Speaker 1: describe as two parallel rows of uncut stones forming a
Speaker 1: channel shape consistent with an animal will shoot used for
Speaker 1: sacrificial purposes. Behind this formation, partially buried in the ground,
Speaker 1: are stone pillars. Critics point out that the pottery found
Speaker 1: at this site has been identified by Saudi archaeologists as Nabataean,
Speaker 1: dating to a period considerably later than the Exodus. The
Speaker 1: Nabataeans were an Arabian people who thrived from roughly the
Speaker 1: fourth century BC to the second century AD. If the
Speaker 1: pottery is Nabataean, the altar structure may have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Moses. However, proponents argue that a sacred site
Speaker 1: could have been reused over centuries. The fact that later
Speaker 1: peoples used the same spot for religious purposes does not
Speaker 1: preclude earlier use, and they note that Nabataean pottery at
Speaker 1: a site does not mean the site's origins a Nabataean.
Speaker 1: It only means the Nabataeans were there at some point.
Speaker 1: Elijah's Cave First Kings, Chapter nineteen tells the story of
Speaker 1: the prophet Elijah, centuries after Moses, fleeing from Queen Jezebel.
Speaker 1: The text says Elijah traveled forty days and forty nights
Speaker 1: until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he
Speaker 1: went into a cave and spent the night. God spoke
Speaker 1: to him, not in the wind, not in the earthquake,
Speaker 1: not in the fire, but in a still, small voice.
Speaker 1: The Hebrew phrase is koldamama daka, which could be translated
Speaker 1: as a sound of thin silence or a voice of
Speaker 1: gentle stillness. On the lower eastern slopes of jabal Makhla,
Speaker 1: there is a cave. It is approximately twenty feet deep
Speaker 1: and fifteen feet high. It is exactly the sort of
Speaker 1: shelter a single person fleeing through the wilderness would seek out.
Speaker 1: Its location on the mountain matches the biblical description of
Speaker 1: being part way up the mountainside. Is this the specific
Speaker 1: cave where Elijah heard the voice of God? There is
Speaker 1: absolutely no way to prove that any mountain in the
Speaker 1: Middle East could have a cave of similar dimensions, But
Speaker 1: the convergence of features is notable. The cave is on
Speaker 1: a mountain in the right region, on a peak that
Speaker 1: matches multiple other biblical descriptions, at a site where other
Speaker 1: archaeological features align with the Exodus narrative. No single piece
Speaker 1: of evidence here is conclusive. The blackened peak might be
Speaker 1: natural geology. The split rock might be frost wedging. The
Speaker 1: petroglyphs might be general Arabian cattle imagery. The pillars might
Speaker 1: be Nabataean. The cave might be just a cave. But
Speaker 1: consider this, what are the odds that all of these features,
Speaker 1: every single one described in the Biblical text would converge
Speaker 1: on the same mountain in the exact region where the
Speaker 1: Bible places the events in the land of Midian in Arabia,
Speaker 1: when no comparable convergence of evidence exists at the traditional
Speaker 1: site in Egypt. Each individual piece might have an alternative explanation,
Speaker 1: but the pattern, the pattern is harder to dismiss. We
Speaker 1: have been building a case, and if you are the
Speaker 1: kind of person who values intellectual honesty, you should be
Speaker 1: feeling a certain tension right now, because the evidence for
Speaker 1: Jabal Matla is genuinely compelling. But the counter arguments are
Speaker 1: also real, and a responsible investigation examines both sides without flinching.
Speaker 1: So let us take the strongest objections seriously. The first
Speaker 1: and most significant objection comes from archaeology itself. The professional
Speaker 1: archae logical establishment has been largely skeptical of the Jabal
Speaker 1: al Laws theory, and their reasons are not trivial. The
Speaker 1: Armstrong Institute published a detailed two part analysis in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four defending the traditional site. Their central argument is this,
Speaker 1: the people who popularize the Saudi Arabia theory, from Ron
Speaker 1: Wyatt to Bob Kornuk to Larry Williams, were not trained archaeologists.
Speaker 1: They were adventurers, treasure hunters, and in some cases individuals
Speaker 1: with documented credibility problems. Not a single claim made by
Speaker 1: these explorers has been verified through peer reviewed archaeological methodology.
Speaker 1: No controlled excavations have been conducted at the site, no
Speaker 1: stratigraphic analysis, no systematic pottery dating beyond the Saudi government's
Speaker 1: Nabataean identification. That is a legitimate critticism. In archaeology, how
Speaker 1: you dig matters as much as what you find. An
Speaker 1: artifact without context, without proper documentation of where exactly it
Speaker 1: was found and in what layer of soil, tells you
Speaker 1: almost nothing, and the evidence from Jabal Makla has come
Speaker 1: primarily from surface observations, photographs taken during unauthorized visits, and
Speaker 1: reports from people who were often more interested in proving
Speaker 1: a point than conducting careful science. The second objection concerns
Speaker 1: the word Arabia in Paul's letter. Gordon Franz, a biblical
Speaker 1: archaeologist who has written extensively on this topic, makes a
Speaker 1: detailed case that Paul's use of Arabia in Galatians four
Speaker 1: twenty five would have been understood broadly by his first
Speaker 1: century readers. Franz points to Josephus's writings which describe Arabia
Speaker 1: as encompassing territory from southern Syria to the Sinai Peninsula.
Speaker 1: The Roman province of Arabia Petraea included the Sinai, So
Speaker 1: when Paul says Sinai is in Arabia, he may not
Speaker 1: be pointing to Saudi Arabia specifically. He may simply be
Speaker 1: saying it is in the broader region that Romans called Arabia,
Speaker 1: which could include the Sinai Peninsula. Franz also makes a
Speaker 1: chronological point about the word itself. The term arab and
Speaker 1: Arabia do not appear in the Book of Exodus at all.
Speaker 1: These words entered the historical record much later, first appearing
Speaker 1: in Assyrian inscriptions around eight hundred fifty three BC. So
Speaker 1: Paul is using a term from his own time, not
Speaker 1: from Moses time, and we should interpret it according to
Speaker 1: first century geography, not modern maps. This is a fair argument,
Speaker 1: but it has a weakness. Even if Arabia could technically
Speaker 1: include the Sinai Peninsula under Roman provincial boundaries, the core
Speaker 1: of what first century people meant by Arabia was the
Speaker 1: land east of the Jordan and the Gulf of Akaba.
Speaker 1: The Sinai peninsula was the edge case the border line territory.
Speaker 1: When Paul says Sinai is in Arabia, the most natural
Speaker 1: reading for his audience would point east, not west, especially
Speaker 1: since he is connecting Sinai to Hagar, whose descendants, the Ishmaelites,
Speaker 1: were associated with the Arabian interior, not the Egyptian frontier.
Speaker 1: There is also a third candidate for Mount Sinai that
Speaker 1: deserves mention because intellectual honesty requires it. An Italian archaeologist
Speaker 1: named Emmanuel Annati spent over thirty years excavating a ridge
Speaker 1: in the Negev Desert of southern Israel called Har Karkom.
Speaker 1: At Har Karkom, Anati discovered over thirteen hundred archaeological sites,
Speaker 1: forty thousand rock engravings, and more than one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty rock cult sites. He became convinced that Har Kharkom
Speaker 1: was the biblical Mount Sinai. At a two thy thirteen
Speaker 1: colloquium in Israel, an international group of scholars debated Anati's
Speaker 1: claims alongside the Saudi Arabia theory. The scholars who attended
Speaker 1: did not even discuss the traditional Jebel Musa site. They
Speaker 1: considered it essentially ruled out. The real debate was between
Speaker 1: har Karkom and the Arabian candidates. Anatis problem is chronological.
Speaker 1: The most significant archaeological remains at har Karkom date to
Speaker 1: the third millennium BC, roughly one thousand years before the
Speaker 1: traditional date of the exodus. If the exodus occurred around
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty b B or even twelve fifty BC, the peak
Speaker 1: of sacred activity at har Karkom was long over by then.
Speaker 1: So the Negev candidate has impressive archaeology but the wrong dates.
Speaker 1: The Saudi Arabia candidate has the right geography and the
Speaker 1: right textual support, but insufficient professional excavation. And the traditional
Speaker 1: site has the right tradition, but neither the archaeology nor
Speaker 1: the textual support. The third objection against Jabal Makla is geological.
Speaker 1: We discussed the blackened peak. Multiple geologists have confirmed that
Speaker 1: the dark rock on Jabal Makla is natural metamorphic basalt
Speaker 1: part of a Precambrian volcanic field. The entire mountain range
Speaker 1: includes volcanic rock. The dark coloring is not unique to
Speaker 1: the Peak of Makla. It extends across significant portions of
Speaker 1: the regional geology. This is perhaps the most damaging piece
Speaker 1: of counter evidence. If the blackened summit is simply natural basalt,
Speaker 1: rather than the result of divine fire, then one of
Speaker 1: the most visually striking features of the site loses its
Speaker 1: evidentary value. The mountain looks burnt, but looking burnt and
Speaker 1: being burnt are different things. The fourth objection concerns the petroglyphs.
Speaker 1: Bull and cattle imagery appears at archaeological sites across the
Speaker 1: entire Arabian Peninsula from the Neolithic period through the Nabatean era.
Speaker 1: People in this region carved images of animals on rocks.
Speaker 1: Finding bull petroglyphs near a mountain in Saudi Arabia is
Speaker 1: not unusual. It is expected the presence of bovine imagery
Speaker 1: does not automatically connect a site to the Exodus narrative. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: Rabbi Alexander Hull, author of Searching for Sinai, the Location
Speaker 1: of Revelation, raises an interesting theological objection. He argues that
Speaker 1: if the golden calf worship site had been real, the
Speaker 1: evidence would have been destroyed. Exodus chapter thirty four, Verse
Speaker 1: thirteen commands the Israelites to destroy altars and sacred stones
Speaker 1: associated with pagan worship. Moses himself ground the golden calf
Speaker 1: to powder, mixed it with water, and made the Israelites
Speaker 1: drink it. If Moses followed through on destroying the evidence
Speaker 1: of idolatry, why would we expect to find intact petroglyphs
Speaker 1: and altar structures thousands of years later. That is a
Speaker 1: genuinely clever argument. It turns the absence of evidence at
Speaker 1: the traditional site into a point in its favor. Maybe
Speaker 1: there is nothing to find at the real Sinai because
Speaker 1: the evidence was intentionally destroyed. But there is a counter
Speaker 1: to this counter. The command in Exodus thirty four is
Speaker 1: about Canaanite altars in the Promised Land, not about the
Speaker 1: Sinai camp. And while Moses destroyed the golden calf itself,
Speaker 1: the text does not say he destroyed the rock on
Speaker 1: which the altar stood or the surrounding petroglyphs. Rock carvings
Speaker 1: are not so easily eliminated. You can destroy an idol
Speaker 1: without erasing every carving on every stone in the vicinity.
Speaker 1: So where does all of this leave us? Somewhere uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: And I think that discomfort is important. The traditional site
Speaker 1: has tradition on its side, fifteen hundred years of monastic devotion,
Speaker 1: one of the world's great manuscripts discovered in its monastery,
Speaker 1: the weight of centuries of pilgrimage, but it has no
Speaker 1: archaeological support, a shaky textual foundation, and it requires the
Speaker 1: Israelis to have somehow ended up in a place that
Speaker 1: does not match the geography of their own story. The
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia site has geographical alignment, textual support, a convergence
Speaker 1: of physical features, and the weight of Paul's own words,
Speaker 1: but it has no controlled excavation natural geological explanations for
Speaker 1: its most dramatic features, and it relies heavily on the
Speaker 1: reports of untrained explorers whose methods would not pass academic muster.
Speaker 1: If you were on a jury, you would not have
Speaker 1: enough evidence to convict beyond reasonable doubt, but you would
Speaker 1: have more than enough for probable cause. And maybe that
Speaker 1: is the honest place to stand right now. Not certainty,
Speaker 1: not dismissal, but serious, warranted curiosity. Because here is what
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to. The text itself, the original
Speaker 1: Hebrew Exodus and the Letter to the Galatians, and the
Speaker 1: writings of Josephus, all point in the same direction. The
Speaker 1: text says Midian, the text says Arabia. The text says
Speaker 1: beyond the wilderness. The text says eleven days from Kadesh Barnea,
Speaker 1: and every one of those markers points east across the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Akaba to the mountains of northwest Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: The tradition says otherwise. And we have to ask ourselves
Speaker 1: when the text and the tradition disagree, which one do
Speaker 1: we follow. That is not just an archaeological question. That
Speaker 1: is a life question, and we need to sit with
Speaker 1: it for a moment, because think about your own life
Speaker 1: right now. How many of the things you believe about yourself,
Speaker 1: about God, about how the world works did you actually
Speaker 1: derive from the original source, And how many did you
Speaker 1: inherit from a tradition that someone started centuries ago for
Speaker 1: reasons that may have had no nothing to do with truth.
Speaker 1: We all have our traditional mount sineyes, the places where
Speaker 1: we have built monasteries of certainty, the mountains we climb
Speaker 1: in the dark, absolutely convinced we are going to the
Speaker 1: right summit, and sometimes may be more often than we
Speaker 1: want to admit, we are climbing the wrong mountain because
Speaker 1: someone we trusted pointed us there, and we never thought
Speaker 1: to check the map ourselves. The Hebrew Bible has a
Speaker 1: word for this, ta ah. It means to wander, to stray,
Speaker 1: to go astray, and it is exactly the word used
Speaker 1: to describe sheep that have lost their way. There is
Speaker 1: no shame in the wandering. The shame would be in
Speaker 1: refusing to look up and reorient once you realize the
Speaker 1: terrain does not match the description. We have traveled a
Speaker 1: long way together, from the candlelit chambers of Saint Catharine's
Speaker 1: Monastery to the fenced off rocks of northwest South Arabia,
Speaker 1: from the Greek of Paul's letters to the Hebrew of
Speaker 1: Moses account, from academic journals to desert caves. But I
Speaker 1: want to step back from the evidence for a moment
Speaker 1: and talk about something that documentaries about Mount Sinai almost
Speaker 1: never address, and it might be the most important part
Speaker 1: of this entire story. Why does it matter, not just historically,
Speaker 1: not just archaeologically, Why does the location of this mountain
Speaker 1: matter to you right now today? The answer is buried
Speaker 1: in a Hebrew word that we have not examined yet.
Speaker 1: The word is Midbar. We talked about it earlier as wilderness,
Speaker 1: but we only scratched the surface. Because Midbar is one
Speaker 1: of the most theologically loaded words in the entire Hebrew Bible,
Speaker 1: and understanding it changes everything about why this mountain matters
Speaker 1: in the Biblical narrative. The mid Bar is not just
Speaker 1: a geographical location. It is a spiritual category. It is
Speaker 1: the place between Egypt and the Promised Land, between slavery
Speaker 1: and freedom, between who you were and who you are becoming.
Speaker 1: The Israelites did not go to the wilderness by accident.
Speaker 1: God led them there deliberately. The shortest route from Egypt
Speaker 1: to Canaan was along the Mediterranean coast, a journey of
Speaker 1: about two weeks. God specifically avoided that route. Exodus, chapter thirteen,
Speaker 1: verse seventeen says God did not lead them by way
Speaker 1: of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. Instead,
Speaker 1: God led them into the wilderness, into the Midbar, the
Speaker 1: long way around. Why because the mid Bar is where
Speaker 1: transformation happens. It is where you strip away everything that
Speaker 1: is not essential. It is where you discover what you
Speaker 1: actually believe when the comforts of civilization are gone. It
Speaker 1: is where you find out if your faith is real,
Speaker 1: or if it is just a habit you inherited from
Speaker 1: your culture. And it is in the mid bar that
Speaker 1: God speaks. Look at the pattern. Abraham encountered God in
Speaker 1: the wilderness. Moses found the burning bush in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Elijah heard the still small voice in the wilderness. John
Speaker 1: the Baptist preached in the wilderness. Jesus went into the
Speaker 1: wilderness for forty days before beginning his ministry. The wilderness
Speaker 1: is not a detour. It is the destination, and Mount Sinai,
Speaker 1: wherever it is, stands at the center of the wilderness experience.
Speaker 1: It is the place where a nation of former slaves
Speaker 1: received a new identity, where they stopped being defined by
Speaker 1: where they came from and started being defined by where
Speaker 1: they were going, where the God, who had been a rumor,
Speaker 1: a family legend, a story their grandparents told them in Egypt,
Speaker 1: became real, became present, became terrifyingly, beautifully, overwhelmingly close. The
Speaker 1: Hebrew word for the moment God descended on the mountain
Speaker 1: is yarad. It means to come down, to descend. The
Speaker 1: same word is used in Genesis for the flood. The
Speaker 1: same word is used for going down to Egypt. It
Speaker 1: implies movement from a higher place to a lower one,
Speaker 1: not just physically, but in terms of vulnerability. When God
Speaker 1: descends to Sinai, it is an act of divine condescension,
Speaker 1: the infinite making itself accessible to the finite, the Creator
Speaker 1: entering the created world in a way that shakes the ground.
Speaker 1: And the people's response, the text says they trembled. The
Speaker 1: Hebrew is charad. It does not just mean shaking with fear.
Speaker 1: It means a deep, involuntary physical response to the presence
Speaker 1: of something overwhelming. It is the trembling you feel when
Speaker 1: something is so real, so undeniable, so beyond anything you
Speaker 1: have ever experienced, that your body responds before your mind
Speaker 1: can catch up. Have you ever had a moment like that,
Speaker 1: a moment where something was so true, so raw, so
Speaker 1: unmistakably real, that you felt it in your bones before
Speaker 1: you could put it into words. That is what happened
Speaker 1: at Sinai, whatever mountain it was, Consider what that experience
Speaker 1: actually produced. The Ten Commandments are not just a religious document.
Speaker 1: They are the foundation of every legal system in the
Speaker 1: Western world. The idea that there are universal moral laws
Speaker 1: that apply equally to kings and peasants, that murder is
Speaker 1: wrong regardless of who commits it. That bearing false witness
Speaker 1: corrupts justice, that coveting your neighbour's life leads to destruction.
Speaker 1: These ideas did not exist in the ancient world before Sinai.
Speaker 1: In Egypt, the pharaoh was the law. In Mesopotamia, the
Speaker 1: gods were capricious and their commands were arbitrary. The concept
Speaker 1: of a moral law that binds everyone, including the deity
Speaker 1: who gives it, was revolutionary. It still is, and that
Speaker 1: revolution happened at a specific mountain on a specific day
Speaker 1: to a specific group of people who were terrified out
Speaker 1: of their minds. They did not receive these commandments in
Speaker 1: a library. They received them in a thunderstorm, with the
Speaker 1: ground shaking beneath their feet, with a voice so overwhelming
Speaker 1: they begged Moses is to make it stop. That matters.
Speaker 1: The location matters, because the physical reality of the event
Speaker 1: grounds it in history, not mythology. The thing about that
Speaker 1: experience is that it does not depend on getting the
Speaker 1: geography right. The people who climbed jabel Musa at four
Speaker 1: in the morning and weep at the sunrise, their experience
Speaker 1: is real. Their encounter with the sacred is real, even
Speaker 1: if they are on the wrong mountain, because the point
Speaker 1: of Sinai was never the mountain. The point was the encounter.
Speaker 1: The point was that God descended. The point was that
Speaker 1: a group of people who had been defined by their
Speaker 1: slavery heard a voice that said, I am the Lord,
Speaker 1: your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
Speaker 1: out of the house of bondage. The voice did not
Speaker 1: say I am the God of this particular mountain, said
Speaker 1: I brought you out. The emphasis is on the relationship,
Speaker 1: not the real estate. But the search for the right
Speaker 1: mountain still matters, and the reason goes deeper than archaeology.
Speaker 1: When we misidentify the location, we unconsciously give ourselves permission
Speaker 1: to treat the whole story as myth. If the traditional
Speaker 1: site has no archaeological support, skeptics can point to that
Speaker 1: absence and say, see, the Exodus never happened. There is
Speaker 1: no evidence, and for decades that is exactly what many
Speaker 1: secular scholars have done. The lack of evidence in the
Speaker 1: Sinai Peninsula has been used as an argument against the
Speaker 1: historicity of the exodus itself. But what if the evidence exists,
Speaker 1: What if it has been sitting on the other side
Speaker 1: of the Gulf of Akaba in a country that restricts access,
Speaker 1: guarded by fences and police, unexcavated, and unstudied because the
Speaker 1: academic world has been looking in the wrong place. That
Speaker 1: would not prove that God descended in fire. Science cannot
Speaker 1: measure the divine, But it would prove that a massive
Speaker 1: group of people camped at the base of a mountain
Speaker 1: in Arabia, performed sacrifices, created altars, and left traces that
Speaker 1: match the biblical description with remarkable specificity. It would move
Speaker 1: the exodus from no evidence to significant evidence, and that
Speaker 1: shift matters not because faith requires evidence, but because faith
Speaker 1: should not be undermined by evidence that was simply never
Speaker 1: found because nobody bothered to look in the right place.
Speaker 1: There is a concept in Hebrew called emunah. It is
Speaker 1: usually translated as faith, but that translation is misleading. The
Speaker 1: Hebrew word comes from the route ahman, which means to
Speaker 1: be firm, to be steady, to be reliable. Emuna is
Speaker 1: not blind belief. It is not closing your eyes and hoping.
Speaker 1: It is the steadfast reliability that comes from having encountered
Speaker 1: something real. The Israelites at Sinai did not believe in
Speaker 1: God because someone told them to. They believed because the
Speaker 1: mountain shook, because the voice spoke, because the experience was
Speaker 1: so overwhelming that their bodies trembled. Real faith is not
Speaker 1: threatened by evidence. Real faith goes looking for it. And
Speaker 1: that is why the question of Mount Sinai's location matters,
Speaker 1: not because God needs a GPS coordinate, but because we
Speaker 1: need to know that the story happened somewhere, that it
Speaker 1: was not just a metaphor that real people stood at
Speaker 1: the base of a real mountain and heard some thing
Speaker 1: that changed the course of human civilization, whether that mountain
Speaker 1: is in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. The voice that spoke
Speaker 1: from it said something that still echoes through every legal system,
Speaker 1: every moral code, every human rights document on the planet.
Speaker 1: You shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall
Speaker 1: not bear false witness. You shall have no other gods
Speaker 1: before me. Those words came from somewhere, and the search
Speaker 1: for that somewhere is not just an academic exercise. It
Speaker 1: is a pilgrimage, an act of taking the text seriously
Speaker 1: enough to follow where it leads, even when it leads
Speaker 1: away from comfortable tradition. And maybe, just maybe that is
Speaker 1: the real lesson of the midbar The wilderness is where
Speaker 1: you go when you are willing to leave behind what
Speaker 1: is familiar in order to find what is true. We
Speaker 1: started this journey with a question where is Mount Sinai?
Speaker 1: And I want to be honest with you about where
Speaker 1: I think the evidence leads while acknowledging what we do
Speaker 1: not and cannot know. The traditional site in the southern
Speaker 1: Sinai Peninsula was chosen based on monastic tradition, not on
Speaker 1: historical evidence. No Exodous era archaeological remains have been found there.
Speaker 1: The geography does not align well with the Biblical text.
Speaker 1: The distance calculations do not work. The site was identified
Speaker 1: roughly seventeen hundred years after the events It claims to
Speaker 1: commemorate the Saudi Arabia site at Jabal Makla and Jabal
Speaker 1: a Laws. Sits in the ancient land of Midian, where
Speaker 1: the Bible explicitly places Moses and the Burning Bush. It
Speaker 1: is in Arabia where Paul explicitly places Mount Sinai. It
Speaker 1: has a blackened peak, a split rock with water erosion,
Speaker 1: bull worship, petroglyphs, a twelve pillar altar structure, a cave
Speaker 1: matching Elijah's description, a stream bed descending from the mountain,
Speaker 1: an ancient graveyard outside the camp area, and a plane
Speaker 1: large enough to accommodate a massive encampment. Every one of
Speaker 1: these features has an alternative natural explanation, but no other
Speaker 1: site in the Middle East has all of them converging
Speaker 1: in the same place. The honest conclusion, we do not
Speaker 1: have certainty. What we have is a very strong, circumstantial
Speaker 1: case that has never been properly investigated because the Saudi
Speaker 1: government restricts access and the academic establishment has been slow
Speaker 1: to take it seriously. What needs to happen is straightforward
Speaker 1: controlled archaeological excavation at Jabal Makla, professional stratigraphic analysis of
Speaker 1: the altar site, peer reviewed dating of the petroglyphs using
Speaker 1: modern techniques, in dependent geological survey of the blackened rock,
Speaker 1: open academic access to a site that has been treated
Speaker 1: as a political sensitivity rather than a historical treasure. Until
Speaker 1: that happens, we are left with a mystery. And mysteries
Speaker 1: in the Biblical tradition are not problems to be solved,
Speaker 1: They are invitations to go deeper. Remember the word we
Speaker 1: discussed earlier mid bar the wilderness, the place where God speaks,
Speaker 1: the place of transformation. The search for Mount Sinai is
Speaker 1: itself a kind of mid bar experience. You start with
Speaker 1: what you think you know, You lose your certainty in
Speaker 1: the desert of evidence and counter evidence, you struggle with
Speaker 1: competing claims, and somewhere in that struggle, if you are
Speaker 1: paying attention, you hear something. Not the roar of a volcano,
Speaker 1: not the crack of thunder on a desert peak, something quieter,
Speaker 1: something that the prophet Elijah, standing in that cave on
Speaker 1: the Mountain of God, heard, after the wind and the
Speaker 1: earthquake and the fire had passed, A still, small voice
Speaker 1: the Hebrew one more time, call Demama daka, a sound
Speaker 1: of thin silence, a voice of gentle stillness. It is
Speaker 1: the voice that says the mountain was never the point.
Speaker 1: The voice was the point. The encounter was the point.
Speaker 1: The commandments were the point. The relationship between the Creator
Speaker 1: and the created offered not in a palace or a temple,
Speaker 1: but in the middle of nowhere, in the wilderness, at
Speaker 1: the edge of human civilization, to a group of former
Speaker 1: slaves who had nothing to offer except their willingness to listen.
Speaker 1: That is what Mount Sinai means wherever it stands. And
Speaker 1: that is what this search has been about, not proving
Speaker 1: a theory, not winning an argument, but taking the text
Speaker 1: seriously enough to follow where it leads, and trusting that
Speaker 1: the same voice that spoke from that mountain, whatever mountain
Speaker 1: it was, is still speaking to day, to you right now,
Speaker 1: in whatever wilderness you find yourself in. The tradition says
Speaker 1: the mountain is in Egypt, the text says it is
Speaker 1: in Arabia. The evidence is incomplete, the debate is ongoing,
Speaker 1: the excavation has not happened yet, But the voice, the voice,
Speaker 1: has never stopped. If you are the kind of person
Speaker 1: who does not settle for second hand answers, if you
Speaker 1: actually want to dig into the Hebrew and Greek texts
Speaker 1: behind these mysteries, if you want to see the evidence
Speaker 1: for yourself rather than taking any one's word for it,
Speaker 1: this channel is where that happens every week. Subscribe because
Speaker 1: the next video goes even deeper into a question that
Speaker 1: nobody has thought to ask. And if this video made
Speaker 1: you think, if it challenged an assumption or opened a
Speaker 1: door you did not know was there, share it with
Speaker 1: one person who would care not because I need the views,
Speaker 1: but because this conversation matters. It has been seventeen hundred
Speaker 1: years overdue. The mountain is still out there, and the
Speaker 1: voice is still speaking. The only question is whether we
Speaker 1: are willing to go to the wilderness to hear it.