Paran, and Teman are located in the territory of Edom which is presumably on the eastern side of the Aravah, the arid territory that stretches between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.
Yet, a careful examination of the Scriptures places the territory of Edom on both the east as well as the west side of the Aravah Numbers 3 and Joshua This area is considered the Central Negev Highlands today, and if this were the case, then the locations of Seir, Mt.
Since some scholars associate Mt. The teams excavating and researching this mountain discovered evidence of rich religious activities all across the large surrounding plateaus including shrines, altars, stone circles, stone pillars, and over 40, rock engravings! To compensate for that time lag, the Israeli researchers placed the Exodus from Egypt earlier, between — BC, citing other archaeological evidence to support their hypothesis.
Wherever the actual site of Mount Sinai is, it seems the Lord has not provided indisputable archeological proofs as is the case of other biblical sites whose location is positive such as the City of David, Temple Mount, Nazareth, or Capernaum. The reason for the archeological uncertainty and scholarly vagueness surrounding the location of the biblical Mount Sinai may be found in the New Testament tradition which points the eyes of the believer away from Mount Sinai resembling the Old Covenant and toward Mount Zion symbolizing the New Covenant.
As you plan your next visit to Israel, let our Sar-El team of experts suggest how you may include a fascinating visit to any of those possible sites of Mount Sinai to re-discover and re-live those timeless events. Such visits will, without a doubt, add spiritual depth and biblical value to your experience in the Holy Land. Serving churches and Christian ministries from around the world with the finest travel agents.
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Quick Links Home. Contact Us Email: sarel sareltours. Follow Us:. But there is no inscribed potsherd or stone that can indicate that this is indeed Mt. Today it appears to be near the southern route; but the Rev. Arthur Stanley, who visited the area in , claimed it to be the favored location for the mountain on the central route, being the highest and most prominent in the range of mountains along that passage traveled by the Israelites.
As for the northern route, there is a strong contender in Har Karkom, a plateau-topped mountain in the Negev, some 35 km. It has been extensively excavated by an Italian team under the direction of Emmanuel Anati, who has found a vast number of cultic structures and rock carvings around the mountain. They would certainly support the theory that the mountain was surrounded by encampments of thousands of nomads, like the Children of Israel. However, the evidence can only be dated to the late third millennium, the years between and BCE, the period of the earliest Patriarchs, perhaps 1, years before the preferred date for the Exodus.
So the meticulous evidence unearthed by Anati is generally rejected as a location for Mt. That leaves us with Jebel Musa, whose location rests solely on a Christian tradition going back to the fourth century CE.
Should we accept that for the most important and most sacred mountain in our history? Unfortunately there is no evidence of any early Jewish visitors to the site. Benjamin Metudela traveled through Egypt and Israel in the late 12th century, but crossed between them by sea. Three hundred years later, Rabbi Ovadiah from Bartenura traveled from Italy to Palestine and extensively throughout Israel, but he did not visit the Sinai. Two famous archeologists, Leonard Woolley and T.
Lawrence, were commissioned to explore the Negev-Sinai for the Palestine Exploration Fund in , and although their remit was "to follow the route of the Israelites in the Wilderness of Zin," they failed to find any trace of the wanderings of the Children of Israel.
They found nothing that could be dated to that early period and, as Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia later wrote to a friend, "not a sign or a smell of Israelites wandering about here We are transforming a hillfort of the Amorites into a Byzantine monastery, sounds almost impious doesn't it?
But it does seem that both the route of the Exodus and the site of Mt. Sinai are elusive. So, for the moment, we have to conclude that Mt. Sinai remains more in the mind than on the ground, and will do so until such time as excavations can prove it to be at Jebel Musa, one way or another.
Only if something positive came out of that could we say with confidence to our sages: This is the site of Mt. Sinai and the giving of the Torah, which you insist is central to the festival of Shavuot. Until such time as archeologists can say that, Mt. Sinai must remain in the mind, rather than on the ground. The writer is a fellow of the W. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem. Subscribe for our daily newsletter. Hot Opinion.
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