Muslims Preserved Mt. Sinai & Midian - Mt. Sinai in Arabia - Episode 4

hello everyone this is al-fadi and i'd like to welcome you back to another episode of this exciting series called mount sinai in arabia and in the last couple of episodes my guest joel richardson laid out enough information to lead us now into building evidence that will point to the alternate location of mount sinai as opposed to the traditional location which is found in the sinai peninsula and in the vicinity of the so-called sand catherine complex with that in mind let us see now the type of evidence that joel is going to begin to share with us and how these evidence are supported from a biblical standpoint joel welcome back and thank you so much for the amazing work that you have done in regard to this particular topic yeah so where are we going today okay so we've kind of laid a lot of um introduction and foundation but again we're bible believers and so we believe the biblical testimony and really the bible provides us with the best most reliable ancient witness okay so at the beginning of the exodus narrative we know the story moses kills the egyptian and he flees well what does it say it says in exodus 2 verse 15 it says moses fled from the presence of pharaoh and he settled in the land of midian so this is so important we have to determine where moses was where is the land of midian okay now this is really interesting because despite again the consensus of scholars really putting the mountain over there in the sinai peninsula scholarly consensus also says that the land of midian was over there in northwest saudi arabia on the eastern side of the gulf of aqaba okay but not only did moses live there for 40 years of course we know the story he goes over there and he chases these shepherds away from the well he meets his future wife-to-be and her father is jethro and uh her father is jethro he's the priest of midian so in exodus 3 verse 1 it says moses was pastoring the flock of jethro his father-in-law so later he marries zipporah of course his jethro's daughter and uh and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and he came to horeb the mountain of god now let me just interject here real quick so this translation i'm not even sure which translation i'm using here it says the far side of the wilderness some translations will say the western side of the wilderness and that's a bit misleading and here's why so in modern times all maps put north at the top of the map in the biblical times east would have been at the top of the map so when you look at the map that's in mataba in jordan it's a range so that north is to the left and south is to the right east is to the north and i'll tell you why because the war chamal you know it's always like this that which is your hand you know and that's how you'll be facing east and chamal is going that way because the sun sun rises in the east right so the idea is the sun goes down behind you it goes down in the west and so when it sometimes when it says west it literally means west but oftentimes what it means is behind you way on the other side that's kind of the idea right and so when it says it here it's not literally in the western direction it's just on the other side the far side of the desert and i think that's a much better translation correct many scholars go that route okay so but what we see here is that mount sinai horub is simply another name for sinai mount sinai or mount horeb is within a goat or sheep shepherding range within the land of midian it's not too far from the land of midian it's not so far away that you wouldn't you know carry your sheep to feed them okay now if it's the traditional site then you know moses is over there in saudi arabia he has to basically do a 500 mile round trip and that will be days and days to make it there multiple days because because he didn't put the goats and the sheep on a boat okay we know that he would have had to go on all the way up around the gulf not to mention protecting the sheep from any attacks of course yeah just to feed them it doesn't really make sense if on the other hand jebel oluz is the real mount sinai and midian is over there in northwest saudi then he probably went on maybe a 20 mile trip to the mountain and let's say a 40 mile round trip that's much more understandable that makes sense you know shepherds are tough guys they can go long distances 500 miles that just really doesn't work so again look at a a map of the region just to familiarize everyone again the the triangle the black triangle that's in the pizza shaped sinai peninsula that's the traditional site but over on the other side is jebel allahs now why do we believe that that's the land of midian apart from again let's just say scholarly consensus acknowledges this you buy any bible atlas it's going to put midian over there now there is this qualifier the midianites throughout the biblical narrative they pop up and they appear in a few different places so at different times throughout biblical history they did seem to migrate but in the days of moses they were down here in the ancient heartland uh of midian so here's the next interesting bit of evidence so you have this guy named claudius ptolemy claudius ptolemy is the father of geography he's an ancient first century okay a little bit after jesus first century roman geographer and it's really fascinating what he did in that he he didn't make maps but he made these lists of all these places throughout the earth and he assigned each of these mountains cities seas rivers you name it he assigned them coordinates and so what map makers have done is they've taken all of his coordinates and they've created these maps of the world according to ptolemy and it's amazingly accurate so in one of ptolemy's maps he has over there again you can in looking at this map you can see the little nub up there that would be the sinai peninsula again i mentioned that in ancient times they didn't quite understand how significant the sinai peninsula was they kind of had it much smaller but they have these two cities or he has these two cities over there in saudi arabia one is called mariama or maryam the a is just the latinization so maryam and modian modian and modium why is that significant because in the septuagint again the greek translation of the old testament whenever you come to the name midian there are two variances sometimes it's called modium sometimes it's called midian okay so essentially by the by the first century like even a hundred years or so before jesus when the septuagint was translated again it started being translated 250 years before jesus um but during this whole period let's say the second temple period there was this understanding that midian were two primary cities over there in saudi arabia now why is that significant so go to the next map i made this from google and you have when you go there because again you can just look at a google map and you think well moses could have lived anywhere until you go there and you realize that you have these two towns that's important by the way you go there and you went there so you're not using just google map and you've never been there right and what you see when you get there is first you have this one town called albid i don't know if i'm pronouncing that great but um the town of albert it's a small town and then about 20 miles to the west you have this coastal town called magna okay why do we say these are the two cities that represented midian because these are the only two significant oasises in the whole region okay this this is harsh desert you don't just live anywhere and second not only is al bad a significant oasis but it's on the ancient arab caravan route it's on the highway yeah by the way uh if if i'm hearing you say albed that that's uh you know arab from an arabic standpoint it could also mean the beginning the starting point of something okay yeah but now get this this is really fascinating because you know again today um christians will say well there's no evidence that this is the real mount sinai go really that's not the case at all because the other name for al-bid in arabic is muga al-shwaib which yeah so which is the cave of elijah i believe no i mean uh uh jethro i'm sorry yeah so schweib is essentially the quranic name for it for jeopardy exactly um so you know the caves of jethro basically the other name and there's signs when you go there there's an archaeological park right in the center of town called jethro's house for all intents and purposes these are the caves where jethro lived which means they're also where moses lived for 40 years it makes sense of course yeah so it's not like this is not just some weird christian evangelical theory you go there and the locals say you're in jethro's house this is jethro's hometown and by the way many saudi students or saudis in general muslims in particular they point out to media and say hey it's in arabia of course they have another motive for that because they want to justify muhammad's prophethood of course but sure but for all intended purposes they will point to media and be in at the northwestern part of arabia yeah and you know even more than this when we were there there's actually a scholar from riyadh who her phd was in the midianite presence throughout this whole region and so hopefully in the future we'll be able to talk with her a bit more but this is the point is that in truth this reality it's valid it validates the reality i mean the truthfulness the reliability of the bible but it's important it's not in conflict with muslim tradition so this is not something this particular issue is not going to cause any religious tension you know people of christian jewish muslim faith are all going to look at this and say yes this validates our belief so yeah i mean you've got that now here's the kicker here's the kicker philo is a jew okay he lived in alexandria so he's from egypt and he he essentially intermingled greek philosophy with biblical commentary let's just put it that way he was a hellenized jew he was he was he had been influenced by greek philosophy and so forth but in his account he specifically says that mount sinai is the tallest and most holy or sacred mountain in the district of midian okay we already know where midian is philo says mount sinai is the tallest mountain in the land of midian beyond philo josephus so here's a second jewish witness from the first century they're both from the roughly the same time period but josephus is now living in jerusalem so probably from a different jewish tradition so to speak he also says this he says now moses when he had obtained the favor of jethro he stayed there in midian and he fed his flock sometime afterward taking his station at the mountain called sinai he drove his flocks there to feed them this is the highest of all the mountains they're about so you have these two nearly identical statements that mount sinai is in the region of midian and it's the tallest mountain in the region well again we know where midian is we know that roman geography placed midian over there in saudi arabia and we know that the tallest mountain in that region is jebel oluse so here you have this this ancient jewish tradition that pla there is no other mountain of all the candidates there is no other mountain that has an ancient jewish tradition going back all the way to the first century arguably if you include the testimony of the septuagint going back to hundreds of years before jesus there's not a single other mountain that has any ancient jewish testimony connected to it well as a result of this jewish testimony the christians maintained it and so all the way up until the fourth century despite justinian building saint catherine's you have eusebius the great church historian as well as jerome the latin translator they both also identify mount sinai as over there in saudi arabia so you have this jewish tradition that was carried on by the christians right up until the fourth century then it starts disappearing again because of what justinian did but here's what's fascinating is that who preserved this tradition the muslims and so in the seventh century you know a few hundred years later muhammad comes along and then his successors and what did they find but muslim historians uh talk about finding these christian monks up there in the mountains praying up in the region of jebel laws and so while christianity is largely forgotten about it while judaism is largely forgotten about this tradition and it's just sitting right there um the the the local muslims are very familiar with this so it's a that's a powerful testimony interesting and also uh you know the names they use uh really coincide with biblical names as well like choi for instance for jethro jabal musa mount of moses you know uh jabalillos it's kind of interesting because it does look like an almond or or pistachio if you wish you know so all of that is really interesting yeah and there's a lot more we're just so we've kind of laid out i'll say the the um geographic reasons and the traditional reasons we've got this ancient tradition but there is an abundance of other powerful evidence we're going to look at some pictures in some of the upcoming episodes so what uh what are the audience uh you know what should they expect i should say uh in the next couple of episodes so now we're going to start jumping into the actual the petroglyphs some of the rock formations some of the archaeology around the mountain and when it all adds up it's a really compelling and i mean it's a it's stunning it's stunning let's just put it this way and to see the pictures itself is impressive exactly to go there and see it in real life is is life-changing it's it's it's that powerful absolutely thank you brother and thank you everyone for joining us uh in another episode of mount sinai in arabia this new video series and hopefully you're enjoying uh these episodes that we have already released continue to interact with us send us your comments and your questions until we meet again have a blessed day thank you so much for taking the time to watch this video we can't make these quality videos without the help of partners like you so please consider becoming a patreon supporter today at patreon.com forward slash sierra international i want to make sure you always get notified when we release a new video so please click the bell to be notified and of course make sure to subscribe to this channel if this video was helpful to you please click the thumbs up thank you

Channel: CIRA International

Views: 27,634

Keywords: al fadi, quran, mohammad, scripture, holy quaran, islamic theology, arabic, Quran, Qira'at, CIRA International, Muslims, holy quran, muhammad, midian, mount sinai in arabia, saudi arabia

Id: pD3B73weAlk

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 30 2021