(mysterious music) - We're back with Joel Richardson and we're going to unpack
the myth of Helena's Sinai. Joel, good to have you with us again. - Good to be back. - This is a, this has been a treat. Take us the rest of the way,
the myth of Helena's Sinai. Where did this all begin? - Yeah, that's important
because you know, I think when you throw this sort of curve ball out to a lot of people, you go, wait a minute. You're saying Mount Sinai's
over here in Saudi Arabia and for all these years,
I mean 1000 plus years, we've believed, the church has believed, that this mountain down
here in the Sinai Peninsula, I mean, it's called the Sinai Peninsula. How did we get to this? And you know, it, sort
of with any tradition, the longer that it lasts, it just sorta has this air of reliability. And so I think it's important to sort of cut through the
history, cut through the myths. And so really, I mean the
story is, it's fairly mundane. It's in the fourth century,
so we're dealing now, say 300 years after Jesus, after Paul. A lot of these Egyptian monks,
they started withdrawing from the urban centers, the
corruption and all that. And they started
retreating to the deserts. This was sort of in imitation of Elijah and some of the old, you know, this sort of this aesthetic movement. You know Anthony is sort of
one of the legendary early, desert fathers they're called, but so these monks started
going out into the desert. And they're fasting and they're praying and they're to, again, imitate
these Old Testament prophets and there was just, I'll
just call it a tradition that developed among
them that they just said, this particular mountain
down here in Sinai is, well, we call it Mount Sinai today only because of this ancient tradition. I mean, it was never
called the Sinai Peninsula. But they find this
mountain and they started, for whatever reason, we
have no historical evidence to understand or reason to believe. But they started believing
this was Mount Sinai. Okay, so again, this
is the fourth century. - So they established
a community there then. - Yeah, and they, exactly,
and they would pray. They found some sort of grottoes or caves and they would tuck themselves in there, and they would not talk,
they would fast and pray. And then they would have,
what would happen is they're called the, sometimes
they're called in history, the Saracens, these are the Ishmaelites. These were sort of the, they were pagans, this was pre-Islam. They lived down there in the Sinai and they would come around and they would often kill the monks. The monks would get massacred. And so there was sort of a
need for some protection. This went on for some time. But the first evidence
that we have in history of anyone sort of validating the idea that this was Mount Sinai, is a woman, she was a pilgrim, her name was
Igaria, she came from Italy. And she went down there
and she wrote a diary. It was called, Peregrinatio,
it just means the pilgrimage. It was a very detailed diary and she tells about how these monks showed
her all these locations and so forth and said, this
is where the burning bush was, this is, you know, all they, they had these little
ideas of what they thought. Well, if you go online
today, you'll often see, they'll say that Constantine's mother, okay, so again, Emperor
Constantine converts to some form of Christianity of some form, we don't know exactly what it was. But his mother, also, converted with him. She went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to identify various relics and holy sites. And you'll see, the reason we know that is because the church historian
Eusebius writes about it, okay? - Mm hmm. - But here's the thing. A lot of people will
say, Helena is the one that put her stamp of
approval on this mountain. Eusebius never mentions it. Eusebius never mentions it. The earliest record that we
have that Helena went down to the Sinai is the 10th or 11th century. So even the idea that Helena validated it, that, even that's probably a myth. So obviously- - Right, so that's the fourth century, so the earliest record is,
is, you know, 600 years later. - Right, right, yeah. So and this was the
thing, with Jabal al-Lawz, we have traditions that go
back to the third century B.C. We're talking 250 years before Jesus. - Mm hmm. - With the traditional
site, we're skipping forward another 600 years before
anything even shows up that we can even look at as a tradition. So I mean, in terms of
these two positions, if we put them on the scale of evidence, the traditional site has nothing earlier than the Byzantine period. And again, their tradition
says that Helena designated it, but that doesn't work. So then we skip forward
to like the sixth century and these monks that
are living down there, again, they keep getting killed by the Saracens, by the Ishmaelites. And so this is when
Emperor Justinian says, we're gonna build Saint
Catherine's monastery. Okay, so, I've got some
neat pictures here. And if anybody's gone down there, it's definitely an impressive place and it still sits there to this day. I mean, this is, this is
now the sixth century. Sixth century, Emperor
Justinian builds this. And what's so neat about
this, look at this, just because I'm fascinated, these walls, some of them are 50 feet high, okay? It was a fortress. - Yeah. - The whole thing was a
fortress to protect the monks from these marauding bands
of pagan Ishmaelites. And you know, in fairness
to the traditional location, what they did, there's all
sorts of rooms in there. They built a small Basilica, a church. In fairness to it, it's been
a place of tremendous history. They've preserved all kinds of ancient Christian icons
and Christian documents, and again, I know we're not into icons, but they do preserve important
bits of Christian history because these were essentially like the children's picture Bibles for the illiterate of the early days. And so there's information
there that we can glean from, but this is where we get Codex
Sinaiticus was discovered. And so it's got a rich history in terms of the preservation of
Biblical manuscripts, okay? So we need to acknowledge that. But, in terms of it being
the real Mount Sinai, there's no evidence, there's nothing more than this myth that just
crops up in the fourth century among some of these desert monks. And then, once Emperor Justinian
built Saint Catherine's, now it's got the full stamp of approval of the Holy Roman Empire, right? Now you've got all of the weight of the Roman Empire behind it, and so people just start going with that. And I'll tell you, Michael,
I actually believe, again, that in the providence
and the sovereignty of God, that He allowed this to happen. He allowed a distraction,
He allowed a diversion, because in all of this, He wanted to preserve the real mountain. He wanted to preserve the real one, specifically as a testimony
for the last days, as a testimony for the
generation that we're living in because it's before the return of Yeshua. It's before the day
that has been appointed whereby we will all stand
before the Judgment Seat of God, that He has determined. He is going to give the world the final, clear, crisp witness concerning the events that unfolded back on that Holy mountain. - Yeah, you think about it. Underwater robotic dive cameras
that were sent down in 2001, among the coral encrusted remains of Pharaoh's chariots and army strewn on the bottom of the Yam Suph. You know, this is the only generation that has developed that
technology to be able to do that. - [Joel] Right. - And now what's going to be happening, people are gonna have a real treat. You know, I can't give all the details now but there are going to be submarines that were going to be
going down on the bottom. And taking the submarines down there, so they're gonna see this thing. So, you know, preserving this for this day and time,
now, as you started out with the very first
episode talking about Neom. This is incredibly important. And rehearse again a little bit about what's going on in Saudi Arabia and why this is important to the Saudis and why the preservation of Mount Sinai, and then the news and
getting out to the world, why this may be one of the biggest things that ever happens for the Saudi
people and for that nation. - Yeah, I mean, again, Saudi
Arabia has been an economy that lives off of oil,
you know, they export oil. They've lived in incredible wealth. They're running out of
oil, they're aware of that. The new crown prince, bin
Salman, Mohammed bin Salman, he recognizes that if
Saudi, if the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is going to go on into the future, they need to diversify. And so he has all these
ambitious projects, one of which is building
this mega city-state up there in the Tabuk province, right there on the Red Sea. He wants to build a big
bridge across to Egypt. And, by the way, it's interesting- - Oh, I didn't know about that. A bridge across the Yam
Suph, over into Egypt. - Yeah, yeah. - Okay. - And, you know, there's
other interesting things, too, because this is playing into
the, the behind the scenes. We know behind the scenes, there's been friendly relationships
developing with Israel. Now again, the Saudis can't broadcast that because they have to
maintain good relationships with the rest of the Muslim majority world that they're surrounded by, but ultimately whenever you intertwine economies, that's kind of a marriage. You can't just get out of that. You can't start spewing off anti-Semitism. So in a lot of ways, what's been going on behind the scenes is the Israelis, they have been in the early stages of planning and building a massive port. So what they were initially
gonna do was build a five mile trench coming in from Eilat that would meet at a massive
high speed train station that would then shoot over
to south of Tel Aviv, but now what they're talking about
is using the train station that will go up through Jordan and then cut over and go out to Haifa. - [Michael] Hmm. - Okay, so essentially the
Gulf of Aqaba now begins to compete with the Gulf of Suez. So now we're dealing with a major shift in a regional transport,
we're dealing with big money. The Saudis want to get in on that. And so this massive city up there of Neom, they want to get in on this new, essentially this new gulf,
this new Gulf of Suez. You know, the trench that,
you know, was built years ago. And so, the Saudis are
developing friendly relations with Israel, of course
friendly relations with Egypt, because they all have
this mutual enemy of Iran. So geopolitical, the landscape of the world right now
is playing into this. The Saudis are almost
forced, almost forced by the hand of God, to build
this city, and as a result, they're developing this whole
area around Mount Sinai. And again, I just see the hand
of Yehovah in all of this. He wants, He wants to
turn the world's attention back to this mountain. - Yeah, now I didn't want to
take you completely off track because we're dealing with the faux Sinai and the evidence there
that Christian traditions that go back all this time. We also have some Arabic traditions that feed into this, though, do we not? - Yeah, and so in, I guess at the end of the last program, last week, we were touching on this because, again, you begin, you know, as we just said, you have nothing earlier
than Byzantine traditions to establish the traditional site. With Jabal al-Lawz,
you go all the way back to third century B.C., the
Septuagint names this city over there in Saudi Arabia
and calls it Madyan. We know that's Midian,
it's a subtle variation. Then you have Philo as saying,
Sinai is the tallest mountain outside of that town,
Josephus says the same thing. We have every reason to believe that Paul would've
believed the same thing, we'll talk some more about that. But then after that, you had Demetrius, you had Origen, you had
Eusebius, and Jerome. Now these guys were writing
during the same period that Justinian is building
Saint Catherine's and so forth, but they didn't agree with that site. This is important. - [Michael] Oh, oh. - You have these early church, very well known writers, Jerome, Eusebius, and they were still validating Mount Sinai over here in Saudi Arabia. Now again, Eusebius was
not deceived by Ron Wyatt. Eusebius is not a time traveler. This is an ancient Jewish tradition that they were carrying on. Now you skip forward, okay,
Jerome is fifth century. Now you skip forward another 200 years, 100 plus years to the time of Mohammed and these early Arab Muslim historians, they say that there were all
these Christian monks living in the mountains around Jabal al-Lawz. They called them Ankharites,
they're like hermits. These were, again, aesthetics. So you had some monks that
believed the traditional site, but you had a whole
bunch of Christian monks that still knew where
the real Mount Sinai was. And so then the Quran
carries on this tradition and it refers to Jethro,
it uses the name Shuʿayb, it's a strange variation, but they refer to the land of Midian up there as the land of Moses,
as the land of Shuʿayb. They talk about the well of Moses, they talk about the caves of Jethro. And so all of these traditions
that are started out as Jewish traditions, they are carried on by the early Christians, they
were picked up by Muslims and today as a result, all of the locals in the area still believe
this is the real Mount Sinai. This is a tradition that
is over 2000 years old. - That said, that's incredible. Now let's get into this,
unpack this, concerning Paul and his position as stated. - Sure. And this is biggie, and you know, in fact, in the book that I'm working on on this, I take a whole chapter
just to deal with Paul. - Mm hmm. - Because obviously he is
a looming giant witness in all of this. - Mm hmm. - And so Paul, he makes two references. The only reference to
Arabia in the New Testament, both in Galatians, one is in chapter one, the other is in chapter four. So, in chapter one, Paul lays out the story of his conversion. You know, and again, you touched on it. He was exceedingly zealous for the traditions of
his fathers, and in a lot of ways Paul's life has
many similarities to Elijah. Elijah was the prophet of Zeal. You know, Phineas, the prophet of Zeal. And Paul defines himself as
exceedingly zealous to the point where he was going around
killing the early believers. Right? - [Michael] Mm hmm. - Killing the early Messianic Jews. I mean, you think about this. You know, if you just put this in context. You go, hey, did you hear the story about this young
Messianic Jewish believer. Glowing face, young guy, was
serving in his congregation. Did you hear the story? He was stoned to death by
some Orthodox Hasidic Jews in the streets of Jerusalem? You know, you go what
are you talking about? And he goes yeah, you know, and this one guy was standing
there holding the cloaks of all the guys that did it, he had papers from the authorities to let it happen. His name was Saul. You know what I mean, this was who he was. He was killing, he was behind
the killing of Stephen, one of the most holy,
Spirit-filled early believers. And so, you know, he had,
when he had this revelation of Yeshua, he had some repenting to do. - [Michael] Yeah, yeah. - It's interesting that
he has this conversion, and the thing of it is,
is Paul gets knocked off his horse, he didn't just become a 21st century evangelical
Christian overnight, right? (Michael chuckling) He had,
he had some, you know it says, he was pharisee of pharisees. He was a lifelong,
zealously observed Torah. And so all of a sudden, you
know, he has a revelation. Okay, who are you Lord? I'm the one that You're persecuting. Okay, wait, Yeshua, and
everything's upside-down, but what he's says is this. He makes an important statement. He goes, listen, when
this happened, he goes, I didn't go to Jerusalem,
I didn't go consult with the other Apostles, and
he reiterates a few points. - [Michael] Mm hmm. - He says, I didn't consult any flesh. I didn't consult the Apostles. I didn't consult any other human. And then he says,
instead I went to Arabia. I went to Arabia. And so there's a very
clear inference here. The inference when he is contrasting, I didn't consult flesh, the
inference is I consulted God. Where? - [Michael] In the mountain. - In Arabia. And so commentators, again
Christian commentators, they have three options. They say, well Paul went
to Arabia to evangelize. And I go, he probably, he's Paul, he probably did do some evan- He probably preached a bit, he was always stirring up trouble. I go, okay, I allow for that. And there's some evidence of it because in II Corinthians it says that when Paul was in
Damascus, later, years later, that Aretas, who was the
king of the Nabataean Arabs, he actually sent someone
up there to get him. I go, okay, so Paul
probably caused some trouble when he was down there,
but the other option is that he just vaguely went to Arabia, no reason at all, just to seek solitude. I go, he specified Arabia for a reason. And the third option is
that he went to Arabia which is to Mount Sinai,
he went to the place where Torah was given, he went
to the place where the God that he had so zealously served his whole life had come
down, and in imitation of Moses, in imitation of Elijah, he went to the mountain
to hear the voice of God. And he goes on, Paul says, and that's where I received my Gospel. I received it by revelation. It's the most reasonable ... He doesn't come right out and say it, so we can't say with absolute confidence, but it is absolutely the
most reasonable option that we have is that Paul the
apostle received his Gospel on Mount Sinai. - With all the evidence with,
you know, knowing human nature the way we do after having lived, and having had things to repent
for, certainly not murder- - Right. - In our cases, but this only makes sense. You play out the movie with the evidence that's in the scripture and there's only one
thing that makes sense. You go down to Mount
Sinai and this is a time of bitter repentance for him. - [Joel] Yeah. - You know, he's just got
through killing people, and now he's going down there and not to consult with
flesh and blood, you know? - [Joel] Right. - He went down there to
consult with the Almighty and that's when Yeshua, by
His Holy Spirit, puts things in him that turns his
life completely around. Because, you know, you,
we have to understand that Saul, Paul, he wasn't with Yeshua, he wasn't traveling with Him. He doesn't have the wealth of information of traveling with Him
during the several months, basically about nine months,
of what the fisherman did. And so he's gotta get
this Gospel of the Kingdom that Yeshua's preaching
where Yeshua is deliberately and vehemently violating the rules and regulations of the
pharisees at every turn. Everything that he says,
everything he does, he is putting the knife blade down between the traditions
and commandments of men which a phariseeism is made of. - [Joel] Yeah. - And what does Moses say? So he went back to the mountain of Moses, it's the only thing that makes sense in that because he has
got to have that clarity. - [Joel] Mm hmm. - And the clarity that he
is then going to be able to express this to Gentiles who
are not raised in the Torah. - [Joel] Right. - It's going to take a master of the Torah to be able to make this
known to the Gentiles, and then they're gonna,
they're gonna twist his words and mess it all up eventually
like we have today. - Yeah, and yeah, that's the thing. I mean, Paul is so well known
for articulating, admittedly at times, fairly complex, very nuanced, you know, teachings
concerning the relation of Torah and grace, and in order to understand what he's saying, we need to get into his
world, into his mind. - Right. - Again, as a first century
pharisee of pharisees. And it may even have been, this is kind of an interesting curve ball, it may even have been there at
Sinai that the Lord revealed to him that Sinai is no
longer the mountain of glory, if you will, it's that it's
Zion that He will rule from. And so then later, in chapter
four, when Paul kind of says, well, Mount Sinai represents
Hagar, and she's in bondage, it's almost like, you
know, that this thing that Paul may have almost
idolized previously in his life, the Lord said, now here's a little more
nuanced understanding because here's what I'm going to do, that the glory, if you
will, will rest on Zion, that that's where it's all gone. And so there's this sort of picture in the prophets of God coming from Sinai, and he's going up to Zion. - Yeah, yeah the place where
the ark was built at Sinai, but that the ark is a throne of the king, which he will rule from Jerusalem, from that throne in Jerusalem. It, it's just, it's incredible, yeah. - Yeah, I love it, there's so many, there's so many awesome parallels. Back at Sinai the glory
cloud, God speaks from heaven and He says, this angel of the Lord, He says listen to him
because my name is in him. - Mm hmm. - And then later Yeshua comes,
and a voice from heaven says, this is my beloved Son, listen to Him. You know, Deuteronomy 18,
the prophet like Moses, you're gonna listen to him. - Mm hmm. - And so it's, it's yay,
he's the prophet like Moses, yay he is the angel of
God, my name is in him, he is Yehovah in the flesh. - We are back with Shaul and Yoel, Paul and Joel in the book of Galatians and unpacking his revelation
concerning Jerusalem. - Jerusalem and- - And Mount Sinai. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, as we touched on in the last segment is in chapter one, Paul makes this statement, you know, he goes, hey, you know,
after my conversion I went to Arabia and as I said, this is, there's only two
places in the New Testament where the word Arabia is used, they're both right here in Galatians. - Mm hmm. - And the other one, and this
is huge, is in chapter four. And so I'm actually gonna read most of the passage because it's so important. And you know, again, this is
a passage typical of Paul. You can't just read it and get, you know? You need to kind of read it and chew on it and you know, there's
a lot of meat in here. And you need a bit of a background but- - Mm hmm. - He says, it is written
that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman,
one by the free woman. But the son by the
bondwoman was born according to the flesh, the son by the free woman, through the promise. Skipping forward a little bit, he says, and you, brethren, like Isaac,
are children of promise. But as at that time he was born according to the flesh, persecuted
him, and was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman
shall never be an heir with the son of the free woman. Now, right in the middle of that, I actually skipped over it,
but right in the middle of that in verse 25, Paul goes, for
Mount Sinai is in Arabia. Okay, now as you can
imagine, this is a point of great consternation
for the traditionalists because they go, well wait a minute, we're trying to say that
Mount Sinai is not in Arabia. And you guys are saying it is
over there in Saudi Arabia. So basically here is the
argument that has come up. The traditionalists say in Paul's day the Sinai Peninsula would
have clearly been recognized as part of Arabia. Now I want you to follow this bad logic, because I agree with them. I agree that the Sinai Peninsula, much of it, probably would
have been viewed as Arabia. But they go, therefore,
Paul clearly was referring to the Sinai, okay? That second statement does not
logically follow the first. You go, among all of the various ways that Paul could have
understood the term Arabia, they go, Sinai would have
been included in that. It would have been one of the ways. And they go, therefore that's
what he must have believed. You go, hold on, you haven't
given a single reason why he would have believed
that of all the options. And so, you know, very simply, and again, this is, this
is simple common sense. But again, scholars have a way, not all of them, but I'll
call it intellectual bullying. You know, if they just
throw out an insult, like, anyone who doesn't
believe this is ridiculous. And you go, oh, I don't
want to be ridiculous. You know, and all of a sudden you, your logical thought
just goes out the door. Paul would have been, his understanding of Arabia would have been influenced first by the Bible, okay? Because that was everything
that defined who he was. Second by the very common
well-known Jewish traditions of his day because he
would have been first and foremost informed by his identity as a pharisee of pharisees,
as a Jew, a first century Jew. - [Michael] Mm hmm. - And so, where does the
Bible place Mount Sinai? It places it, we've
already talked about it, east of the Yam Suph,
east of the Gulf of Aqaba. Paul would have understood that. Okay, so that's easy enough. Second, he would have been influenced by the Jewish traditions of his day, we've already discussed these. The Septuagint, Philo, Josephus, they all place Mount Sinai over there in Saudi Arabia, east
of the Gulf of Aqaba, and we have no reason in the world, no reason, and these traditionalists
never give us a reason to suggest that Paul disagreed with them. We have no evidence, we have no reason. Now, then the third factor that could have influenced
Paul would have been the very common Greco-Roman
designations of his day. And so that's what they focus on. They'll focus all on Herodotus and Strabo, and Pliny the Elder and so
forth, and Claudius Ptolemy and all these Greco-Roman
geographers and historians, but they don't talk about
what the Bible says. And so I go, okay, you want to go there, you want to talk about
Herodotus and all that. You want to talk about the various ways in which Paul could've
understood the term Arabia. Let's talk about it. So the first way that Paul
could have understood it, it's actually used in the book
of Acts, incredibly broad. It's at Pentecost and we have the list. He goes, there were Jews
and proselytes there, so there's both Jews
and Gentile proselytes. And he goes, they were
from, there were Elamites, they were from Mesopotamia,
there was Persians, and so they're all over
here from the area of Iraq and Kurdistan and Iran, and then he goes, and then there's, you know, there's those from Asia Minor, he lists the
Cappadocians and all these. And there's all these
different Westerners. He's talking about the Jews of the Dispersion, of the Diaspora. - [Michael] Yeah. - And then he summarizes the whole thing. He says, both Arabs and Cretins. The point behind this is
that he uses the word Arab to encompass everyone
of the eastern Diaspora. He uses the term Cretin to refer to everyone of the western Diaspora. So, here's an example from the Bible. In the first century, Arab could just mean those from the East. It could be used very broadly. We go, that's one way
it could've been used. Then you have the ways that the Greco-Roman
geographers could have used it and this was any area outside
of Israel where Arabs lived. And that could've been
the Sinai Peninsula, it could have been Arabia proper, that's the Arabian
Peninsula, it could have been all the way up there to Damascus. Okay, so we acknowledge that, we go, it could have been used very broadly. But, and here's the point, there also, in the midst of this, always
was an original Arabia proper. And so I just use this analogy. I go guys, let's just say, let's say, I use the phrase make America great again. God bless America. Everyone in our context,
in our day, they know that I'm talking about the
United States of America. - [Michael] Not South America. - Not Canada, not North America, not Costa Rica, not Brazil, not Argentina. - Mm hmm. - However, a scholar 2000 years from now, he could say, well in Joel's day, when he said make America great again, technically Argentina was part of America, therefore that's clearly
what he was referring to. No, it's not. - Great example, yeah. - Yeah, and that's exactly
how Arabia was used. There was an Arabia proper. If you look at a map of Herodotus, the world according to Herodotus, it was the Arabian
Peninsula that was Arabia. You look at Strabo, he referred
to that as Arabia Felix, and then he had Arabia
Deserta, which was up there in southern Jordan going
down into Saudi Arabia. But the original heart of Arabia. Okay, so all of those things, you go, Paul would have been
referring to Arabia proper. If he doesn't specify,
then we would probably go to Arabia proper, plus
the Bible puts us there, Jewish tradition puts us
there, and then finally, we look at the context
of Paul's statements. What's he talking about? He's not just making
some dry, Greco-Roman, geographic designation,
he's making a very nuanced, very spiritual, you could
even say Rabbinic argument. - [Michael] Mm hmm. - He's talking about
cast out the bondwoman, and the slave woman,
and Hagar and Ishmael. He's talking about the
descendants of Hagar and Ishmael, and where they came
geographically to settle. So where did Ishmael's
children come to settle? Nebaioth, he settled down
there in Saudi Arabia. And in southern Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Nebaioth, this was Ishmael's
first son, he was the father of the modern day
Nabataeans, Nabataean Arabs, that's where they lived,
from Petra all the way down to Medain Saleh, 400
miles into Saudi Arabia. That's where the children
of Ishmael came to settle. Kedar, Dumah, they all
settled in Saudi Arabia, okay? So, the point is that Paul was making a very Biblical argument,
and if we look at the context of what Paul was saying,
where did the children of Ishmael come to settle,
it's down there in Arabia. It's not primarily over
there in the Sinai Peninsula. Did some of them eventually
end up over there? I'm sure they did, but
again, we have to look at the context of Paul's statement, the context of Paul's worldview,
and all of the options. So even if you want to go there, and go into those arguments
with the traditionalists, all of the weight of evidence
points to Saudi Arabia, it doesn't point to the Sinai Peninsula. And so they have a very weak argument, all evidence points to the fact that Paul agreed with
Josephus, agreed with Philo, agreed with the Septuagint,
and of course agreed with the Scriptures, and that
Paul would have recognized Jabal al-Lawz to be Mount Sinai, and that's most likely the place that Paul went after Yeshua
knocked him off his horse. - Yeah, and then we have
Mount Sinai and Jerusalem, which is on the same longitudinal plane, directly north, and so too,
or is on the same plane as Mount Sinai and you can
draw a line right straight from Mount Moriah in Jerusalem,
right down to Mount Sinai. - Yeah, it's bizarre and this is, Jim and Penny Caldwell did this, they took Google World or
Maps or whatever it's called and they did a direct north point, actually from the Split Rock
and they shot up directly north and they land right on the temple mount. I mean, you know, that's
pretty darn specific. - [Michael] Yes. - That's like within feet
that it is perfectly right on that because it says that
Jerusalem above corresponds to Mount Sinai, and you
know, where you kinda go, what does that mean
exactly, but it actually, in the original language, can be used to say it's directly north of. And so that's another just
sort of fascinating ... When they laid that
out and all of a sudden it lands right there,
you go, whoa, that's- - Yeah, and so either Paul is mistaken or he is a man who is
inspired by the Holy Spirit and he's writing as he is
inspired, and he has a detail which now can be found on Google Maps with absolute precision- - Yeah. - And I don't think he had
any access to Google Maps, back then- - I don't think so. - To be able to make that statement. - I think he had something
much better than Google Maps. (Michael laughing) He had something much better. No, I mean, this is where
we are is, you know, when it's all laid out, when
all the evidence is laid out, I think it's settled, I think
it's absolutely settled. Mount Sinai, I haven't discovered it, it's been sitting there all along. - Mm hmm. - But you know Ron Wyatt is the first guy in modern history to have
begun bringing attention back to it, but all along the
Muslims knew where it was, the early Christians knew where it was, the ancient Jews knew where it was. But the Lord has purposefully
hidden it and now in our day, now in our day we can say with confidence the debate is over, the conflict is over. We know where Mount Sinai is
and it's about to be opened up to the world, and this is the hand of God. - Yeah, I think that one of the things that happened with Wyatt
which is very instructive on this, is that when Wyatt went in there, he crossed the desert in
Jordan, middle of the night, and hired taxis to get
him down to this location that Jim Irwin could see by satellite, because of the NASA satellites, could see that this, this fits the location. And all the Biblical records,
everything fit, and so he made his way in and then he
got captured on the way back. And Ron was careful to tell me this. He said, why he was
captured on the way back is he told two people, one of
them was an archeologist, the other one was Jim Irwin,
he said, we are going in. And this is how we're
going to approach it, and then we're gonna go out this way. And so he said that that archeologist, he was the one that alerted
the Saudis and had him arrested and said that there were two Israeli spies that were in the country and this is where they're
gonna be able to catch them. And so this archeologist,
not Jim Irwin again, Jim Irwin was an honorable,
he was a Christian man, he was one of the moon astronauts. He was the one that was
entrusted with the information, the other one thought, you know, I surmised it if he could
get Ron Wyatt killed then he would get the- - [Joel] Credit. - Yeah, he'd get the
credit for this thing. And so, how this really came
to national attention is that when he was captured, and he was held in Arabian prison, this
is when the United States, the State Department went in, and they were trying to get him freed. - [Joel] Mm hmm. - 76 days he spent in prison over there and it made national news in America. Without that national news, Ron Wyatt, in this foray into Mount Sinai and into Arabia wouldn't
have had any traction at all. But because it made national news, that's why it came into the forefront. And so, they got those that want to say, oh he did it illegally,
it's like, oh you moral, you know, you know, you're
getting on your moral high horse. He did it illegally because
he couldn't get a visa into the country after years of trying, and now you're gonna say that, oh, we live on such a high plane that anyone who enters illegally, we have to disprove, or discredit
everything that he does. - [Joel] Right. - Now that is so dishonest. And just like the archeologist
that got him captured and told 'em where they would find him. And so you know, I don't name the person but it is instructive, this
is the world of archeology, this is the world of science,
it's whatever you have to do to get ahead, watch the
money, watch the notoriety, and that's where you're
gonna find the deceit. - Yeah, it's amazing, you
know, people always ask me, they say, Joel, with all you do, you know, don't you have radical
Muslims want to kill you? And I go, you know,
I'll be honest with you. My biggest dangers that
I face are betrayals by fellow brothers and sisters who disagree with me on some strange point of eschatology and then
they want to go after me and attack me and it's just
really strange, you know. Again, as I mentioned
earlier, you know I reach out to these Christian scholars,
these Christian archeologists in my book and I say,
look, let's treat this with dignity, let's not
go down this dirty road of attacking, ad hominem attacks. Let's give this thing
the inspection, you know? Let's examine this in
the way that it deserves because the stakes are too high. The potential of what this
is, from their perspective, I believe it with all my heart, but even if it's potentially the mountain, they should treat it- I mean, when the Israelites approached it, they approached it in fear and reverence, and we've, in modern
times have approached it, modern scholarship has
approached it just the opposite. They've treated it very lightly and that's a fearful, fearful thing. - Yeah, well let's look at this thing. You were there at the Split Rock, right? We've got the photographs,
you've been there. Moses was told there
at Sinai, before Sinai, at Rephidim, to strike the rock. - Yeah. - That's what he was told the first time. Years later, before going
into the Promised Land, he was told to declare the rock, not speak unto the rock
but declare the rock. And Shaul, Paul, details this,
he says what this is about. He said, that rock is the Messiah. - Yeah. - That rock is the Messiah, who is to be smitten once
but afterward be declared and because Moses did
not declare the rock, did not declare the
Messiah, he was not allowed to go in the Promised Land
after a lifetime of service. - [Joel] Yeah. - He was, he and Aaron were both rejected. They were not allowed to
go in the Promised Land. And this is how seriously
I treat this, that the Feasts of the Lord are
these prophetic shadow pictures. - [Joel] Yeah. - The rock is a prophetic shadow picture. And if you destroy that
prophetic shadow picture because of your own anger, you trying to protect your denomination or anything, it's like Moses, you're not
going into the Promised Land. This is a violation against
what the Almighty is doing in revealing these things
to this day and time, and everyone needs to get
on the board, onboard, with Jim and Penny and earnestly pray- - [Joel] Yes, yeah. - That this is protected, earnestly pray that this is revealed to the entire world. They have been praying and
fasting on this for decades. - [Joel] Yeah. - We've been working on
this, I've been trying to get the message out for decades now and it's like, this is our opportunity. And to just take these,
the DVDs and chuff 'em away instead of spreading it all
of, to friends and neighbors, and telling people about
it, instead of hiding this, this is our opportunity
to declare the Rock. - [Joel] Amen. - This is it. - [Joel] Amen. - Joel, we, we- (exhales loudly) I know that you had a near
death experience out there. You know, we just don't have
time to do it right now. My goodness, ladies and gentlemen, this has been such a treat,
I wanna have Joel back. You know, he was with us for Passover. One of our favorite
teachings at Passover was what we have renamed
Yeshua's Threshing Tour, that's not what Joel named it. But to go with Joel as he really walks us through Yeshua's return
in delivering the captives and finally going from Sinai
all the way to Jerusalem where he will be enthroned
on the Ark of the Covenant, which is the throne of the future king, as Yeshua reigns as
(speaking foreign language) from his throne in Jerusalem. He took us on that trip, you've
gotta get back into that. Spread this Good News out to the world, ladies and gentlemen, this is the hour that is the most important hour that we will ever live
through in our lives. We weren't there at Mount Sinai, we weren't there with
Yeshua, but we are here when Almighty God is making
known the greatest treasures, the rocks are literally crying out because His people have not cried out. It's our turn to get in league with the most High and teach and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom
that Yeshua preached, and we're gonna get it
out to the entire world. We'd like to close in prayer. Abba Father, we thank You for this time that we've had together. We thank you for preserving Joel's life. We thank you for preserving his testimony, for all the things that he has been able to come out of Arabia with
to share with the world. We thank you for blessing
Jim and Penny Caldwell for the years of work
that they've put into it. We thank you for blessing
Ron Wyatt's children who have remained in the background for all these years, but they
too have seen these things and they've seen their father maligned with the most vehement and
vicious lies being told about him by those who call themselves
Christians and Believers, anything to keep and preserve the fallacy of Constantine's mother
finding the real Mount Sinai. All this that has been done,
we ask that you bless them and that everything
that has been taken away from them will be restored to them, that you will bless them in the blessings that they need from heaven. And I speak this blessing over them, over Joel, over the Caldwells, and putting Your name upon Your people because You said You will hear from heaven and that You will bless, and we don't know what blessings they need but You know what they
need in their lives. And so I'm speaking this blessing not under the authority
of the Aaronic Priesthood but under a higher authority, under the authority of
the High Priest Forever after the Order of the Melchizedek, Yeshua, the High Priest Forever Who has made us priests and kings. (speaking foreign language) Thank you for being with us, Joel. Thank you for being with us all of you who have keyed in on
this special treat here. And we'll see you next
time on Shabbat Night Live. Good night. (contemplative music) (lens shutter snapping)
