Lecture 7: Where is Mt Sinai and Why it doesn’t matter (2)

[Music] i just concluded my treatment of mount sinai is in arabia and i think it has way too many problems both archaeologically geographically biblically and i think part of the problem also is that the some of the traditions about moses in arabia come from local traditions in arabia and so it does not necessarily come from uh biblical traditions so what i want to do now is start at the very far north and look at different mount sinai's and we move to the south so here you have one theory that the israelites came out across this very narrow piece of land uh lake barda wheel and then came down to gabal halal right here this uh view is problematic for two reasons number one geologists now show that this barrier island this narrow strip of land did not complete from here to the land until maybe two thousand 2000 hundred years ago uh this formation is actually made by the nile silt and uh only in greek times and roman times do we have records of people traveling on this area before that there's no traveling because it did not complete uh from one side to the other so it's impossible that in moses day one could even walk across this area so this is impossible the other problem of course is that the distance from here the sea to gobel halal is only 40 miles 60 kilometers and that should be uh over 300 so it's way too close it doesn't fit and then from halal to kadesh barnia 11 days journey is a little more than a one-day journey it's just off the map so you can see this is a does not work at all now i draw your attention to another map here is kedish barnia orin kudirat less than 10 kilometers to the south is another spring hein kadis and some people think because kadis and kadesh are one in the same word qaddis arabic kedish hebrew that this is the spring ain't qadis and so it's a possibility but so they're very close to each other either way but you can see gabal halal is right here very close only a little 45 kilometers something like that so very close impossible for it to be 11 day journey another mountain that has been proposed by an italian uh archaeologist named emmanuel anatti is a mountain that today is on the other side of the border and actually is in israel so it's the the name is carcom and here you can see this mountain um emmanuel anate has been working there for years and years and years he's an authority on this mountain and it definitely was a holy mountain many different people made offerings there are signs of religious practices but the dates of this are three thousand four hundred bc three thousand to two thousand nothing between two thousand and nine hundred he found nothing there but you have things before and things after 900. so it was a holy mountain based on there were statues images stone pillars things like this but nothing in the period from 2000 to 900 so wherever you wanna put moses there there was no religious activity at this location so some people wanna say well let's change the history of the bible and place moses before two thousand and i think again this creates more problems than it solves so it's an interesting mountain it clearly was a place of worship for people who lived in the desert but nothing that would tie it to moses and the hebrews another mountain is in bishop and this is the mountain that was proposed by an israeli geographer and his name is har-el and which is very interesting name for this geographer because abu nabolis knows har-el means mountain of god in hebrew mountain of god that's the name that's his name so his name is mountain of god and he's looking for the mountain of god it's very interesting according to this theory this is near wadi sudra here gabal sinbish and according to his theory the israelites crossed the bitter lake and came down here to gabas and bishop now this would then require the israelites to move on and up to kadish barnia and in a sense i think this is a possibility i would not discard this suggestion but in my for my theory rather than crossing down here at the bitter lakes if you crossed up here then you're getting closer to the distance needed for the eight days journey so i would say this suggestion is possible but like all the suggested mount sinai's we have no archaeological evidence no inscriptions from the time of moses so there's nothing to suggest at any of these locations that moses visited here nothing like this so this is a possibility now if we move to central uh central sinai locations um yesterday i had you go to see with me sir in south central sinai which is just below gobel sinbisher here this is a beautiful wadi to travel through wadi and i've traveled through it when i made a film with bbc many years ago called who was moses and we traveled through here and you can see when you travel through the wadis you have acacia trees and this is the most important kind of tree growing in sinai this kind of tree is what the uh god will instruct moses to use to build the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant but we'll talk about that later we also have beautiful bushes in this area and as we remember we have the bush that burnt and god spoke to moses through it um but in any event i took that picture because when we were in this uh making this film the the director wanted to burn one of these bushes with uh put benzene on it to burn it and to make the picture and uh so they actually uh uh we actually did do that and so that's a picture i took of the burning bush that we made for bbc okay there you go so sir till kadam uh i mentioned yesterday but it's uh there are a few people who suggest this could be mount sinai and um this was an important place for thousands of years where egyptians came to mine for turquoise and there was a temple you can see here the temple of hathor and this is the holy place where you have these pillars standing up with inscriptions on them and here you can see a pharaoh making an offering to the goddess hathor she is the lady for turquoise so you prayed to hator to hope that she would provide good luck when you are mining for turquoise and turquoise was very valuable for the egyptians you find it in jewelry here you see jewelry from tutankhamun and it's very difficult to tell because sometimes the jewelry uses turquoise and sometimes because turquoise is very expensive they would make glass to look like turquoise and so what you're seeing here is actually glass that looks like turquoise so into these caves is where they would mine for the turquoise and yesterday i pointed out the very old alphabetic inscriptions that were found here suggesting that along with egyptians who mined for turquoise were canaanites or desert people who worked alongside with them now again from the standpoint of geography and location uh cerebellum is certainly possible it fits the the general parameters of travel the main problem with it is that because the egyptians almost every year were working there they would bring with them a fairly large army so it doesn't seem too likely the hebrews would want to be at a location like this and have to deal with egyptian soldiers so that's one problem but anyway then we go down to some of the more traditional locations uh wadi firan a very important area today and near wadi faran gabal cerbal is the largest oasis in all of sinai so you have two large oasis one at ain kudirat and so it's it's not surprising that god would take the israelites to the two places in sinai where there's the most water because in most of the stories in the wilderness water is the problem either water that's very bad to drink or no water these two places of course there is water as you can see by all the trees and uh there's a long tradition uh in in um in the orthodox tradition that uh there are old churches and monasteries and so on in the area here um in uh wadi firan there still is today a monastery for nuns or a nunnery and so on just outside of the wadi you can see the high peaks of gabal sir bal and here you see a google earth image of that impressive mountain this mountain was clearly believed to be by many pilgrims to be mount sinai there are hundreds of inscriptions around this mountain most of them in armenian so you had armenian christians in the 6th century 500 600 who came from armenia and and believed this was mount sinai and early explorers also believed early scientific exploration thought that this was mount sinai but like the other locations no archaeological evidence here either so once we pass through wadi firan go by gabal sir bell of course the next is gabal musa mount moses and i'm sure many of you have gone to visit gabal musa and here you can see gabal musa today with a google earth image katharine saint catherine's monastery here the front of the mountain is called gabal safsafa and in the back is gabal musa but it's one mountain with two peaks okay and in the area here i'll take you in a moment um here you see gobble safsaffa from the ground and you can imagine if you turned around and looked the other way this very large plane this is a painting from 1842 by uh david roberts who traveled all over egypt and jordan and made paintings of antiquities and landscapes and so on so this is his picture so it's nice to see what this area looked like before there were hotels before there were buildings you have a very large plane and of course the tradition would be that this is where the israelites camp this is where the tabernacle was set up and of course according to tradition going back to the time of constantine that the monastery was built around the church of the burning bush so in the back is gabal musa and this is the mountain if some of you have climbed it that's where you went up in the top i have done it four times and every time i've climbed it i said this is the last time and i've definitely climbed it the last time between the two peaks gabal gabal musa in the middle is this low area and the belief is that if this is mount sinai this is where moses and the elders would have met with god in exodus chapter 24. this is also believed to be where elijah came when he visited mount horeb in the book of first kings there's a small chapel of elijah there so again these are very early traditions but like the other locations we have no inscriptions from the days of moses no pottery no archaeological uh evidence here's a small chapel at the very top of gabon musa and of course the deer the monastery at the bottom a very beautiful church and this is the back of the church where you have what is believed to be the bush from the burning bush and um uh some years ago i was with a group and my friend steve reached up to touch the branch and it's like he got fired from heaven came down i we took the picture we only saw this after we took the picture so i said maybe god was telling me something i don't know but in any event so what we've done is looked at different mount sinai possibilities and what i've done with this chart is to look at them uh one by one gobble allows uh no uh it doesn't work because it's only 64 to 80 kilometers from the sea to the mountain which should be between 290 and 354 kilometers and the distance from there to kadesh barnea is okay that works but not this one so you have to try the which mountains fit all the criteria or best fit all the criteria gabo halal seems to be okay distance from the from the crossing if you move the location up to where i propose not down where uh har-l proposed uh sorry halal does not work i'm sorry too close here sorry i got mixed up um yeah too close to katish barnia harcombe is 240 kilometers from the crossing of the sea but which sea uh the italian archaeologist does not propose which sea location but the main problem is it's so close to katish barnia 48 kilometers gabal sinbisher possibly works it's okay on distance to kadish barnea it's okay if you move the location of the crossing of the sea further north you get close to the distance double cerbal is possible although the distance is getting a little far for 11 days journey to kadesh barnia but again i would say not impossible and likewise gobble musa fits within the parameters of these two sets of data so if you look at the okays this certainly is okay these three are all possible but as i said none of them have archaeological evidence for israel so all we can say at this point is these fit the geographical description and we cannot go beyond that so that's where we are so what do i think it is i don't know for sure because we're gonna go now to the next part and that is to say why it doesn't matter it would be very nice to know which mount sinai is to go have a weekend and sleep there and read the bible and and be inspired but in the end it doesn't matter why is that sinai mount sinai we're told is the place where god's glory was revealed and god gave the law to moses in exodus 24 16 we read that the glory of god settled on mount sinai the hebrew word khan is the same as the arabic word sackin so the god the the glory of god settled or dwelt lived came down on mount sinai so we read in exodus 24 and verse 17 now the appearance of the glory of the lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of israel so this is exodus 24 exodus 25 what follows immediately is that we have the instructions from god to make the tabernacle in exodus 25 and verse 8 god says let them make a sanctuary that i may dwell in their midst the word dwell the english word is again the word shah khan so god wants to dwell your second live with his people the idea is that what israel is going to build the tabernacle the the english word tabernacle or a kind of tent comes from the hebrew word mishkan so mish khan is a dwelling place so it's the place where god is going to dwell with his people so god came and dwelt on the mountain that was wonderful but now god's glory wants to dwell with his people and in the midst of his people at the end of the book of exodus the tent the tabernacle has been built all the beautiful gold furnishings of the temple tabernacle built and we read and the glory of the lord filled the tabernacle so god now will dwell live with his people the glory of god would be in the tent and would appear to moses and to the people of israel now what's important to realize and here is a model of the tabernacle it's not very impressive but there it is the the idea is that the glory of god that was on the mountain now lives in the tent and from this point on moses never again climbs mount sinai if you read from this point the book of leviticus the book of numbers moses never goes to see the glory of god because the glory of god is in the tent of meeting or the tabernacle so there's the point once the tabernacle became israel's sanctuary moses never goes again to mount sinai now for the next hundreds of years the tabernacle is israel's temple it's a mobile temple not a permanent temple solomon of course will build a permanent temple and remember david got the idea to build god a temple and he spoke to nathan the prophet and said i want to build a temple because here i've made a big palace for myself and out there is the ark of the covenant and it's sitting in a tent and david was embarrassed he's made for himself a big palace and the glory of god is living in a small tent okay maybe you know the kind of person who buys a lexus on saturday and feels very guilty on sunday and gives the priest 10 pounds offering because i i bought money for myself david felt guilty he built a big palace for himself now he wants to do something for god and god's answer is beautiful i have not lived in a house since the day i brought the people out of egypt to this day i've been moving about in a tent for my dwelling in all places where i have moved with all the people of israel did i speak a word to any of the judges of israel whom i commanded to shepherd my people israel saying why have you not built me a house of cedar it's interesting god says i don't need that in fact i like being able to move about and be close to people my people now what gets very interesting is that when solomon builds the temple it is to replace the tabernacle when the temple is finished around 960 bc so we're talking about several hundred years after the exodus the tabernacle was replaced but the old tent was somehow incorporated into the new temple we don't know how but you can see very clearly here in 1st kings chapter 8 all the elders of israel came and the priests took up the ark and they brought the ark of the lord the tent of meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the tent and the glory of the lord filled the house of the lord so notice the new temple is built but the old tabernacle the old tent is taken into the new temple what did they do with it we don't know did they just pack it up and leave it in the special room we don't know but notice that the glory of god then came there so the glory of god as it were is transferred from the tabernacle into the temple so here is uh one of the models of of solomon's temple that uh anyway i'm going to move on okay so the glory of god that it first appeared on the mountain came to dwell in the tabernacle and then was transferred when the temple was built by king solomon but then we read in the prophet ezekiel that just before the temple was destroyed by nebuchadnezzar that the glory of god departed ezekiel 10 18 and 19 ezekiel 11 22 through 25 so the glory of god departed but then of course when we come to the new testament we see that the glory of god is now revealed in jesus christ we read in john 1 and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory glory as the only son of the father full of grace and truth so mount sinai really is not that important what's important was that god revealed his glory but god's glory moved from mount sinai to the tabernacle god's glory moved from the tabernacle to the temple god's glory then moved into the incarnation into jesus christ and so the most important thing is of course that we know jesus christ and in him we see the glory of god and so where is mount sinai who cares if you know jesus you know the glory of god as an archaeologist i'd love to know mount sinai but far more important to know that the glory of god has revealed to us in jesus christ [Music] you

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Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 15 2020