Mount Sinai

What is known

• The precise location of the biblical Mount Sinai/Horeb is genuinely disputed among scholars, and no candidate has decisive evidence. The traditional identification with Jebel Musa in the southern Sinai Peninsula is already in place by AD 381-384, when the pilgrim Egeria climbed the mountain she was shown and found a small church, a resident priest and monks — but that is a tradition being received rather than evidence for it, and the story that Constantine's mother Helena founded a chapel here around AD 330 comes from a tenth-century writer, not a fourth-century one. Other proposals include Har Karkom in the Negev, identified by E. Anati, whose cultic material is overwhelmingly of the third millennium BC — a difficulty he meets by arguing the exodus should be redated; and Jebel al-Lawz and Jabal Maqla in north-west Saudi Arabia. Evangelical scholars themselves take at least three different positions on this. The app's article The Search for Mount Sinai gives each candidate its case
• At Horeb, Moses encountered God in the burning bush while tending Jethro's flock (Exodus 3:1-6)
• Israel camped at Sinai for roughly a year, where Moses received the Ten Commandments and the covenant law, and the tabernacle plans were given (Exodus 19-31)
• It was here that Aaron built the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain, provoking Moses to shatter the first set of stone tablets (Exodus 32)
• Elijah later fled to Horeb and encountered God in 'a still small voice' at the same mountain (1 Kings 19:8-13)
• Saint Catherine's Monastery, built at the foot of Jebel Musa under Emperor Justinian I (c. 548-565 AD), is one of the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monasteries in the world and preserves the traditional site of the burning bush

History

Population

Uninhabited peak; the adjacent Saint Catherine's Monastery has housed a small community of monks continuously since the 6th century AD

Industry

Pilgrimage site since at least the 4th century AD

Coordinates

28.5400° N, 33.9758° E

Archaeology

Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of the traditional Jebel Musa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built c. 548-565 AD under Justinian I. It holds one of the world's oldest continuously operating libraries and the traditional site of the burning bush, though it postdates the Exodus events by well over a millennium and marks a tradition rather than a confirmed biblical location.

Scripture references

• Exodus 3:1-12
• Exodus 19:1-25
• Exodus 20:1-21
• Exodus 24:12-18
• Exodus 31:18
• Exodus 32:1-20
• Exodus 34:1-35
• 1 Kings 19:8-13
• Deuteronomy 5:2

On a modern map

Mount Sinai today

Further reading

• Mount Sinai - Wikipedia
• Saint Catherine's Monastery - Wikipedia

Reflect

Israel waited at the foot of Sinai while Moses met God in the cloud — how do you handle seasons when God feels hidden?