Iconoclast,

Thanks for the info. I just came across a Bible verse that seems to suggest the same thing you just told me.

Galatians 4
25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.

This means the Jews clearly believed Mount Sinai was in Arabia and not Egypt. The Sinai Peninsula has always been Egyptian territory. It appears that the Catholic Church got the location wrong. The current location does not even correspond with what the Bible says.

So I guess this would put the real Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia. Correct?

Iconoclast

Well, the area the tribes in question lived in would include at least the Sinai Peninsula border at the Gulf of Aqaba so it is possible they ranged on the peninsula itself too.

So, if a real place at all, it would most likely be on the far eastern portion of the peninsula or in present day SW Jordan, southernmost Israel or NW Saudi Arabia.

Aaah, NW Saudi Arabia, east of the Gulf of Aqaba. I looked at the maps in the back of my Bible today and it had Midian in NW Saudi Arabia. My sister's Bible also shows the same thing.

It turns out that the location on the Sinai peninsula was picked by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. The Christians of the day didn't believe that to be the right location.

Well i'll be-. Just came across this info while doing research.

"Islamic sources ultimately became the primary avenue for the transmission of the tradition that identified Madyan with the home of Jethro and Moses…These traditions seem to have persisted with unbroken continuity into the early modern period. Associated with these traditions is a persistent Islamic tradition locating Mt. Sinai near Madyan. The Islamic traditions about Moses and Jethro continue to survive in local legends in the town of Al-Bad' (Mugha'ir Shu'ayb), which occupies the large oasis at the site of ancient Madyan. Not surprisingly, these local legends include a tradition of identifying "the mountain of Moses" with one of the mountains near Al-Bad'."

"Identifying the Mt. Sinai of early post-biblical Jewish tradition requires that the following considerations be taken into account:

1. The mountain must have enough similarities to the Mt. Sinai and Mt. Horeb described in the Bible to have attracted the attention of Jews in the early post-biblical period.

2. The mountain must be in northwestern Arabia (LXX/OG, Demetrius, Josephus, probably Philo; possibly Jubilees and Paul; among later sources, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, et al.).

3. The mountain must be near Al-Bad' (ancient Madyan; LXX/OG, Demetrius, Josephus, probably Philo; among later sources, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, et al.).

4. The mountain must be the highest mountain in the surrounding region (Philo) or, more precisely, the highest mountain near the city of Al-Bad' (ancient Madyan; Josephus).

The only possible option in this case is Jebel al-Lawz. At 2580m, Jebel al-Lawz is uncontested as the highest mountain in the region of ancient Madyan. Jebel al-Lawz also fulfills every other criterion stated above."

Two Americans were able to get into Saudi Arabia to go check out this mountain and they succeeded in smuggling photos out of the country. The photos taken by other tourists of this site were often seized by the Saudis. A journalist by the name of Howard Blum has documented their story in a book called The Gold of Exodus. Anybody know of this? It seems they have also made a video documentary of it and a movie about the story is currently in the works. Something worth checking out, I guess.


p.s. I wonder why the History Channel made no mention of this on their special on the Ten Commandments.

TrueThinker, you wrote:
"It seems they have also made a video documentary of it and a movie about the story is currently in the works."

Millionairre adventurer gets clue to location of sacred mountain from secret source (takes ex cop with him), hidden gold, caves with rock formations (No! Not in a mountain!),Saudi military installation on said mountain, Israeli secret service want someone to spy on said installation, bovine carvings....

Has Spielberg got the film rights?

Norm

I don't know. I think Jeffrey Katzenberg has seen the documentary, though.

Had you known of this before? Have you seen the video or read the book? Or did you just go look for the information after you read the message?

It doesn't even seem as if it is public knowledge. The whole thing seems almost far fetched but I think they're on to something.

True Thinker

I just did a search in Google on "Gold of Exodus" and up popped a heap of web sites selling or reviewing the tape and the book.

I looked at two or three of them - there does not appear to be anything particularly secret about the whole thing.

Norm

Norm

Iconoclast

I don't know why I care but:

If you are going to go by the Bible I must note that Exodus 18 has the Israelites camped at Mt. Sinai and the Midianite going from there back to his country. This seems to indicate Mt. Sinai is not in the land of the Midianites.

This idea is repeated in Numbers 10 when another Midianite says "I am going back to my own land and my own people" to Moses while at Sinai.

Also, what the ancients called "Arabia" includes more than what is within the borders of modern-day Saudi Arabia.




[This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited January 09, 2001).]

Yeah but country probably means the "place" or people he came from, not necessarily a country as we know it today. Sort of like his hometown. Notice the way it was written:

"I am going back to my own land and my own people". He is not from Sinai or the area the Israelites had settled.

Most Biblical maps I've seen place Midian specifically in norhtwestern Arabia. Others try to adjust it to fit where Mt. Sinai is on the Sinai peninsula. If it was in Egypt, they would have said Egypt, It if was in Ethiopia , it would say Cush. But it says Arabia and the map in my Bible places Midian in northwestern Saudi Arabia. It has a question mark at the site of Mt. Sinai.

What I meant to say was did YOU know about before I mentioned it? I just found out about it. And the book seems to have been published about 3 yeaars ago. Why was it oversighted on the History Channel's special on the Ten Commandments? It doesn't even seem as if anybody on this site knew about it.