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22 Is Mt. Sinai the Mountain of YEHOVAH?

Moritz records (p.13) the account of such phenomena by the Arabic historians, occurring
near Medina in the time of the Caliph Omar, again in 1256, and in the same century similar
outbursts near Aden and on the margin of North Syria; and he would illustrate from
Is.34:9-10, in the judgment upon Edom, whose southern bounds ran into the
LAVA-REGION OF MIDIAN: 'The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the
dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.' These
VOLCANIC PHENOMENA have indeed induced some scholars to place the FIERY
AND SMOKING SINAI of biblical legend IN THE HARRAS OF MIDIAN" (Arabia
and the Bible, pp. 84-85).

Alois Musil, in his Topographical Itineraries, certainly believed this. He found conclusive
evidence that Mt. Sinai is located in the volcanic harra of MIDIAN, east of the Red Sea.

John M. Allegro, of Dead sea Scroll fame, was also convinced of a volcanic Mt. Sinai:

When, at Horeb/Sinai, Jehovah appeared before his people to reveal to them the Law
through Moses, he showed Himself in VOLCANIC FIRE:

And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain
BURNED WITH FIRE to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and
gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of THE MIDST OF THE FIRE; you heard
the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. (Dt. 4: 11-12).

Some scholars have identified the Mountain of God with the volcano Hala El-Bedr, which
rises on the eastern slope of a range called Tadras in Northwest Arabia; others argue for the
plateau of Petra in Mt. Seir, for Serbal, and even for Serabit el-Khadim" (The Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Christian Myth. Westbridge Books, Devon, England. 1979. P. 170).

Peake's Commentary on the Bible notes that the reason for these choices lies in the paucity
of evidence for the traditional site in the Sinai peninsula. "The chief reasons for discounting the tra-
ditional identification are (a) that the description of the mountain in Exodus 19 is widely thought to
point to a VOLCANO, but there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula; (b) that the Sinai Peninsula
lay within the jurisdiction of the Pharaoh, and that therefore the fugitive Israelites would AVOID it;
(c) that Jethro’s clan of the Midianites LIVED EAST OF THE GULF OF AQABA, and NOT in the
south of the Sinai peninsula" (Pp. 211-212).

The Sacred Mountain of Midian

Traditions abound of a SACRED MOUNTAIN in the land of Midian. These traditions --
stretching back into dim antiquity -- all converge on the same theme. Charles Doughty relates one
such tradition he heard during his travels in Arabia:

Aad [ancient tribe of Arabia] defeated Thamud (ancient peoples in el-Yemen or Arabia
Felix). Thamud emigrated northwards alighted upon the plain of EL-HEJR [area where
Midian was located] under Mount Ethlib. In later generations God's warning is come to
these sinners, which of a vain confidence had hewed them dwellings in the rocks, by the

The Berean Voice September-October 2002