Modern scholars differ as to the exact geographical position of biblical Mount Sinai. but there are no later biblical references to it that suggest the location remained known;
Roman–Jewish historian
Flavius Josephus specifies that it was "between Egypt and Arabia", and within
Arabia Petraea, a
Roman province encompassing modern
Jordan,
southern Syria, the
Sinai Peninsula, and
northwestern Arabia, with its capital in
Petra. The
Pauline Epistles are even more vague, specifying only that it was in northern Arabia, which at the time referred to
Arabia Petraea. The Sinai Peninsula has traditionally been considered the location of biblical Mount Sinai by
Christians, although the peninsula gained its name from this tradition, and was not called that in Josephus' time or earlier. The traditional Mount Sinai, located in the Sinai Peninsula, is actually the name of a collection of peaks, sometimes referred to as the Holy Mountain peaks, which consist of Jabal Musa,
Mount Catherine, and
Ras Sufsafeh. In the 4th century, a Christian pilgrim woman named
Etheria wrote that "the whole mountain group looks as if it were a single peak, but, as you enter the group, [you see that] there are more than one." The highest mountain peak is Mount Catherine, rising above the sea and its sister peak, Jabal Musa (), is not much further behind in height, but is more conspicuous because of the open plain called
er Rachah ("the wide"). Mount Catherine and Jabal Musa are both much higher than any mountains in the Sinaitic desert, or in all of
Midian. The highest tops in the Tih desert to the north are not much over . Those in Midian, East of Elath, rise only to . Even Jabal Serbal, west of Sinai, is at its highest only above the sea. Some scholars Scholars have theorized that Sinai in part derived its name from the word for Moon which was "sin" (meaning "the moon" or "to shine").
Antoninus Martyr provides some support for the ancient sanctity of Jabal Musa by writing that Arabian heathens were still celebrating moon feasts there in the 6th century. She says the main center of Moon worship seems to have been concentrated in the southern Sinai peninsula which the Egyptians seized from the Semitic people who had built shrines and mining camps there. This oddity may suggest religious cleansing. Groups of
nawamis have been discovered in southern Sinai, creating a kind of ring around Jabal Musa. The
nawamis were used over and over throughout the centuries for various purposes.
Etheria, , noted that her guides, who were the local "holy men", pointed out these round or circular stone foundations of temporary huts, claiming the children of Israel used them during their stay there. The southern Sinai Peninsula contains archaeological discoveries but to place them with the exodus from Egypt is a daunting task inasmuch as the proposed dates of the Exodus vary widely. The Exodus has been dated from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age II. Egyptian pottery in the southern Sinai during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age I (Ramesside) periods has been discovered at the mining camps of Serabit el-Khadim and Timna. Objects which bore
Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, the same as those found in Canaan, were discovered at Serabit el Khadim in the Southern Sinai. Several of these were dated in the later Bronze Age. These encampments provide evidence of miners from southern Canaan. The remote site of Serabit el-Khadem was used for a few months at a time, every couple of years at best, more often once in a generation. The journey to the mines was long, difficult and dangerous. Expeditions headed by Professor Mazar examined the
tell of Feiran, the principal
oasis, of southern Sinai and discovered the site abounded not only in Nabatean
sherds but in wheel-burnished sherds typical of the Kingdom of Judah, belonging to Iron Age II. Edward Robinson insisted that the Plain of ar-Raaha adjacent to Jabal Musa could have accommodated the Israelites. Edward Hull stated that, "this traditional Sinai in every way meets the requirements of the narrative of the Exodus." Hull agreed with Robinson and stated he had no further doubts after studying the great amphitheater leading to the base of the granite cliff of Ras Sufsafeh, that here indeed was the location of the camp and the mount from which the laws of God was delivered to the encampment of Israelites below. "With regard to water-supply there is no other spot in the whole Peninsula which is nearly so well supplied as the neighborhood of Jabal Musa. ... There is also no other district in the Peninsula which affords such excellent pasturage." Hoffmeier wrote, "None of the encampments of the wilderness wanderings can be meaningful if the Israelites went directly to either Kadesh or Midian ... a journey of eleven days from Kadesh to Horeb can be properly understood only in relationship to the southern portion of the Sinai Peninsula." Egyptologist Julien Cooper has suggested that the name Sinai corresponds with a toponym
Ṯnht, attested in the itinerary of an Egyptian official of the
11th Dynasty (c. 2150–1990 BCE). He notes that this toponymn was located in the southern parts of the Sinai Peninsula, corresponding with the geographical location of Jabal Musa.
Bedouin tradition considered
Jabal Musa, which lies adjacent to Mount Catherine, to be the biblical mountain, Nevertheless, Josephus had stated that Mount Sinai was "the highest of all the mountains thereabout", which would imply that
Mount Catherine was actually the mountain in question, if Sinai was to be sited on the Sinai peninsula at all. A number of scholars and commentators have therefore looked towards the more central and northern parts of the Sinai peninsula for the mountain.
Mount Sin Bishar, in the west-central part of the peninsula, was proposed to be the biblical Mount Sinai by Menashe Har-El, a biblical
geographer at
Tel Aviv University.
Mount Helal, in the north of the peninsula has also been proposed. Another northern Sinai suggestion is
Hashem el-Tarif, some 30 km west of
Eilat,
Israel.
Edom/Nabatea 's
Treasury, at the foot of
Jebel al-Madhbah Since Moses is described by the Bible as encountering
Jethro, a Kenite who was a Midianite priest, shortly before encountering Sinai, this suggests that Sinai would be somewhere near their territory in Saudi Arabia; since then other scholars have also made the identification. The valley in which Petra resides is known as the
Wadi Musa, meaning
valley of Moses, and at the entrance to the
Siq is the Ain Musa, meaning
spring of Moses; the 13th century Arab
chronicler
Numari stated that Ain Musa was
the location where Moses had brought water from the ground, by striking it with his rod. The Jebel al-Madhbah was evidently considered particularly sacred, as the well known ritual building known as
The Treasury is carved into its base, the mountain top is covered with a number of different altars, and over 8 metres of the original peak were carved away to leave a flat surface with two
obelisks sticking out of it; these obelisks, which frame the end of the path leading up to them, and are now only 6 metres tall, have led to the mountain being
colloquially known as ''Zibb 'Atuf
, meaning penis of love
in Arabic. Archaeological artifacts discovered at the top of the mountain indicate that it was once covered by polished shiny blue slate, fitting with the biblical description of paved work of sapphire stone
; biblical references to sapphire
are considered by scholars to be unlikely to refer to the stone called sapphire in modern times, as sapphire'' had a different meaning, and wasn't even mined, before the Roman era. Unfortunately, the removal of the original peak has destroyed most other archaeological remains from the late Bronze Age (the standard dating of the Exodus) that might previously have been present.
Arabian Peninsula Some have suggested a site in Saudi Arabia, also noting the
Apostle Paul's assertion in the first century CE that Mount Sinai was in Arabia, although in Paul's time, the Roman administrative region of
Arabia Petraea would have included both the modern Sinai peninsula and northwestern Saudi Arabia.
A volcano A suggested possible naturalistic explanation of the biblical
devouring fire is that Sinai could have been an erupting
volcano; this has been suggested by
Charles Beke,
Sigmund Freud, and
Immanuel Velikovsky, among others. This possibility would exclude all the peaks on the Sinai peninsula and Seir, but would make a number of locations in north western
Saudi Arabia reasonable candidates. In 1873, C. Beke proposed
Jebel Baggir which he called the
Jabal al-Nour (meaning
mountain of light), a volcanic mountain at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, with Horeb being argued to be a different mountain – the nearby Jebel Ertowa. Beke's suggestion has not found as much scholarly support as the suggestion that Mount Sinai is the el Jaww basin volcano
Hala-'l Badr, as advocated by
Alois Musil in the early 20th century, J. Koenig, and
Colin Humphreys in 2003.
Jabal al-Lawz A possible candidate within the Arabia theory has been that of
Jabal al-Lawz (meaning 'mountain of almonds'). Advocates for Jabal al-Lawz include
L. Möller as well as
R. Wyatt,
R. Cornuke, and L. Williams. A. Kerkeslager believes that the archaeological evidence is too tenuous to draw conclusions, but has stated that "Jabal al Lawz may also be the most convincing option for identifying the Mt. Sinai of biblical tradition" and should be researched. A number of researchers support this hypothesis while others dispute it. One of the most recent developments has been the release of a documentary the film includes video and photographic evidence in the project. Jabal al-Lawz has been rejected by scholars such as
J. K. Hoffmeier who details what he calls
Cornuke's "monumental blunders" and others. G. Franz published a refutation of this hypothesis.
The Negev While equating Sinai with
Petra would indicate that the Israelites journeyed in roughly a straight line from Egypt via
Kadesh Barnea, and locating Sinai in Saudi Arabia would suggest Kadesh Barnea was skirted to the south, some scholars have wondered whether Sinai was much closer to the vicinity of Kadesh Barnea itself. Halfway between Kadesh Barnea and Petra, in the southwest
Negev desert in Israel, is
Har Karkom, which
Emmanuel Anati excavated, and discovered to have been a major
Paleolithic cult centre, with the surrounding plateau covered with shrines, altars, stone circles, stone pillars, and over 40,000 rock engravings; although the peak of religious activity at the site dates to 2350–2000 BCE, the exodus is dated 15 Nisan 2448 (
Hebrew calendar; 1313 BCE), and the mountain appears to have been abandoned between 1950 and 1000 BCE, Anati proposed that
Jabal Ideid was equatable with biblical Sinai. Other scholars have criticised this identification, as, in addition to being almost 1000 years too early, it also appears to require the wholesale relocation of the Midianites, Amalekites, and other ancient peoples, from the locations where the majority of scholars currently place them.
Mount Hermon According to contested research by
Israel Knohl (2012), Mount Hermon is actually the Mount Sinai mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, with the biblical story reminiscent of an ancient battle of the northern tribes with the Egyptians somewhere in the Jordan valley or Golan heights. ==In art==