Dylan

I was debating with a friend on another forum, and he stated:


Any good investigations of this claim available?

Skeptical

Ask your friend to provide a source from a respected archeologist to backup his claim. That will be difficult for him to do since the exact location of Mt. Sinai is still in <a href="http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?action=Lookup&word=sinai" target="_blank">dispute</a>.

He's probably been listening to someone like Hovind who is a blatant liar. Tell your friend to pick up a copy of a book written by someone who actually does real scholarly research. "The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstein is a decent choice.

butswana

Sound like Ron Wyatt. That description matches his "eye witness" account. He had rolls of film of his finds, but the local authorities confiscated them.

WRW Mattfeld

As has been noted, there are approximately 13 proposed locations for Mt. Sinai. None of the proposals have garnered the consensus approval of mainstream scholars. The problem ? The Exodus is dated either ca. 1540 BCE or 1446 BCE by the Biblical texts. The former date, near 600 years elapsing between the Exodus and Solomon's 4th year (1 Kings 6:1) is derived from the reigns of the Judges and Joshua to the days of Solomon. The latter date is the statement made in 1 Kings 6:1 of 480 years elapsing from the Exodus to Solomon's 4th year, when he began to build the Temple in Jerusalem. Mainstream scholars prefer, on the basis of the archaeological evidence, to date the Exodus even later than the Bible's two dates of 1540 and 1446 BCE. They prefer ca. 1260 BCE.

Despite whichever date one wants to posit for the Exodus, 1540, 1446, 1260 BCE, NONE of the mountains proposed has the necessary archaeological debris which would place the event in the Late Bronze Age, which is dated ca, 1570-1200 BCE. Without "hard" physical evidence, the location of Mt. Sinai remains unnown.

My own personal research has established that the Exodus, as presented in the Bible is fiction, it is, nevertheless, based on real historical events, that have been collapsed, fused, and embellished, from ca. the Early Bronze Age II (3rd millenium BCE) to ca. 587 BCE (Late Iron II).

From my research, I have concluded that the Exodus story was written ca. 562 BCE in the Exile. Most of the cities and towns mentioned in the narratives, did not come into existance, and were not contemporary with each other until ca. 640-587 BCE according to prominent archaeologists like Israel Finkelstein who has explored in Israel and Burton MacDonald who has explored in Transjordan.

In a nutshell, I understand that events in the mountains near Serabit el Khadim and vicinity, in the Southern Sinai (ca. 1540-1400 1200 BCE) and events at Har Timna, in the Arabah (ca. 1300-1140 BCE) have been fused together to create the Mt. Sinai/Mt. Horeb story.

Viewers who may have an interest in all of this can access my various articles under the OT Menu and Geography Menu, at my Website, which is devoted to exploring the pre-biblical origins of the bible's stories and its points of view based on archaeological findings and the world-views of the nations that influenced Israel (Egypt, Canaan, Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia). Cf. the following url which is the index page to my website

<a href="http://www.bibleorigins.net" target="_blank">http://www.bibleorigins.net</a>

All the best, Walter