Where Is Mount Sinai? - The BAS Library
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Where Is Mount Sinai?

The holy mountain is shrouded in mystery, its location seemingly unknowable. Perhaps that is what makes it holy.

By Ronald S. Hendel

The Case for Arabia The Song of Deborah “O Yahweh, when you set out from Seir,When you marched from the valley of Edom,The earth trembled, the heavens shook,The clouds poured water, the mountains shuddered,Before Yahweh, the One of Sinai,Before Yahweh, God of Israel.” Judges 5:4–5 The Blessing of Moses “Yahweh came from Sinai,And dawned from Seir upon us,And shone from Mt. Paran.” Deuteronomy 33:2 The location of Mount Sinai has been receiving a lot of press lately. The Pope just made a visit to the famous mountain in the Sinai peninsula, prompting some journalists to ask if he […]

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Endnotes

1.

See Ronald S. Hendel’s review of Harold Blum, The Gold of Exodus, in ReViews, BAR 25:04.

2.

See Allen Kerkeslager, “Mt. Sinai—In Arabia?” BR 16:02.

3.

See “Frank Moore Cross, An Interview, Part I: Israelite Origins,” BR 08:04.

4.

According to the documentary hypothesis, these various sources were woven together to create the Pentateuch.

5.

See “Frank Moore Cross, An Interview, Part I: Israelite Origins,” BR 08:04.

6.

On the geographical indications in these prose texts, see Graham I. Davies, The Way of the Wilderness: A Geographical Study of the Wilderness Itineraries in the Old Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979), pp. 63–69.