Mt. Sinai

[Kevin H]

Interesting article about two possible locations of Mt. Sinai. If Mt. Karkom is Mt. Sinai, then it could have well also have been the mountain where Abraham brought Isaac to sacrifice him. I wish they had the whole article posted here instead of just a teaser for the March April issue of Biblical Archaeological Review. http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/searching-for-biblical-mt-sinai/

[Aliensanctuary]

Recall, Moses went into the mountain and built an altar underneath it. Mt. Sinai, then, was not a mountain made of stone and earth, but a pyramid-shaped craft from space.

[Unchained]

Interesting find!

Yup, I agree that it's annoying when interesting articles are hidden behind paywalls. I hadn't heard about Har Karkom before, so I must admit that this made me curious. So, apparently this mountain was a paleolithic cult centre, “covered with shrines, altars, stone circles, stone pillars, and over 40,000 rock engravings”. (Wikipedia.) The theory is intriguing, but I must admit that I'm somewhat sceptical... To give the Exodus a 2300 BC date doesn't sound too plausible, or what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Har_Karkom

About Mt. Sinai and Saudi Arabia… While it's not likely that Sinai was the mountain that today is known as Jebel Musa, the so called “Midianite Hypothesis” is also very problematic: The identification of Sinai with Jebel al-Lawz in Saudi Arabia doesn't fit with the Biblical evidence. I recommend the following article for a refutation of this theory: http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/06/10/Is-Mount-Sinai-in-Saudi-Arabia.aspx

 

[phkrause]

That was interesting reading Unchained, the comments were actually more interesting. LOL

[Kevin H]

Unchained: I am aware of some more information than in this article. I first learned about it back in 1983. This article has been an update and I'd like to know more about these updates and discoveries since 1983.

However a couple of the things that relate to what  you brought up: There have been other mountains found with similar markings, however a big distinction between Karkom and the others is that where there would normally be an image of the god, at Karkom it is either blank spots or only a line. Indicating that the God worshiped there was one where the worshipers were not allowed to make an image of.

While the heyday of worship at Karkom would have been about 2300 BC, that does not mean that fewer people could have continued to come and worship there over the centuries. It is just that they would have been small enough and stayed for a short time using only the rocks that were there and biodegradable items that we are not able to find and date.  So even with our dating of the exodus, if they used the stones that were already there (and yes there were many people who camped there using those stones) and had biodegradable items and moved on we could not date when they were there.

Now it is located in a place that agrees with the distance given n a couple of locations of scripture, such as the time that Elijah ran. It has a big cleft in the rock that fits with the story of Moses and also Elijah.  Also it fits into the time frame for travel for Abraham's taking Isaac to Mt. Moriah.

Now I will say one other thing... I once saw a TV show. The guy who made the show was a journalist who has not studied archaeology, but he called himself "the Naked Archaeologist." He is about as credible as the National Enquire. So I do not take what he says very seriously unless I can also find it confirmed by more reputable sources. So with caution I'll point this out: He talked about different locations of possible Mt. Sinai. He talked about Mt. Karkom and what he had to say was not too bad. Anyway he was using 3 different distances to locate Mt. Sinai and said that Mt. Karkom only fits two of his 3 areas. He said that there was another mountain that has similar rock cuttings as Mt. Karkom and has similar evidence as Mt. Karkom except that it fit within the circles of all 3 directions that he was using. I did not catch the name of that mountain and know nothing else about it than what he said about it.

[Unchained]

However a couple of the things that relate to what  you brought up: There have been other mountains found with similar markings, however a big distinction between Karkom and the others is that where there would normally be an image of the god, at Karkom it is either blank spots or only a line. Indicating that the God worshiped there was one where the worshipers were not allowed to make an image of.

​That's of course interesting... Still I'd say that it's difficult to draw any conclusions based on the rock art in the area... After all there's more than a dozen "serious" candidates out there. But hey, I'm not ruling out anything here, my point is that it's unlikely that we'll find hard evidence that makes it possible to make a definite identification of Sinai without any reservations. At this point I think all we can do is to make educated guesses. At least we can say that Har Karkom isn't the worst candidate out there, that's for sure!

[Kevin H]

Indeed!!! We are in full agreement with this.