Sinai

For other places named Mount Sinai, see: Mount Sinai (disambiguation)

View from the summit of Mount Sinai

Sinai Peninsula, showing location of Jabal Musa

Mount Sinai (Arabic: طور سيناء , Hebrew: הר סיני), also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gebel Musa or Jabal Musa ("Moses' Mountain") by the Bedouin, is the name of a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula. For information about the location of the Biblical Mount Sinai, see the corresponding article.

Geography

Mount Sinai is a 2,285 meters high mountain in the Sinai Peninsula. It is next to Mount St. Catherine(the tallest peak in the Sinai),^[1], at 2,637 meters high the highest in the Sinai peninsula. It is surrounded on all sides by higher peaks of the mountain range.

Monastery

The Monastery of St. Catherine is sited at the foot of the adjacent mountain - Mount Catherine - at an elevation of around 1200 m.

Religious Significance

Main article: Biblical Mount Sinai

According to Bedouin tradition, this is the mountain where God gave laws to the Israelites. However, the earliest Christian traditions place this event at the nearby Mount Serbal, and a monastery was founded at its base in the 4th century; it was only in the 6th century that the monastery moved to the foot of Mount Catherine, following the guidance of Josephus's earlier claim that Sinai was the highest mountain in the area. Jebel Musa, which is adjacent to Mount Catherine, was only equated with Sinai, by Christians, after the 15th century.

Many modern biblical scholars now believe that the Israelites would have crossed the Sinai peninsula in a straight line, rather than detouring to the southern tip (assuming that they did not cross the eastern branch of the Red Sea/Reed Sea in boats or on a sandbar), and therefore look for Mount Sinai elsewhere.

The Song of Deborah, which textual scholars consider to be one of the oldest parts of the bible, suggests that Yahweh dwelt at Mount Seir, so many scholars favour a location in Nabatea (modern Arabia). Alternatively, the biblical descriptions of Sinai can be interpreted as describing a volcano, and so a number of scholars have considered equating Sinai with locations in north western Saudi Arabia; there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula; though the biblical description could only be referring to God's arrival on the mountain, to give Moses the Ten Commandments, as well[1].

Ascent

View down to the Monastery of St. Catherine from the trail to the summit.

There are two principal routes to the summit. By the longer and less steep track known as Siket El Bashait, is possible to ascend either on foot or by camel hired from the Bedouin along the way - approximate time on foot two and a half hours. The steep, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) ascends the 3,750 "steps of penitence" directly up the ravine behind the monastery.^[2]

Summit

View from the summit of Mount Sinai

Another view from the summit of Mount Sinai

A Greek Orthodox Chapel at the top of Mount Sinai

The summit of the mountain has a mosque and a Greek Orthodox chapel (which was constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th century church) neither of which are open to the public. The chapel supposedly encloses the rock from which God made the Tablets of the Law. ^[3] At the summit also is "Moses' cave" where Moses is supposed to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments.

Notes

1. ^ Sinai Geology. AllSinai.info.
2. ^ Mount Sinai. AllSinai.info.
3. ^ Mount Sinai, Egypt. Places of Peace and Power.

See also

• Archaeology
• Mount Gerizim
• Jebel Musa, Morocco, a similarly-named mountain in Morocco
• Biblical Mount Sinai

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Sinai

• Wikitravel: Mount Sinai
• Information about the town of St. Katherine and the Sinai mountains
• Photo album from Mount Sinai and St Catherine's
• Contains many photos of both claimed sites, and some research.
• Online Video: Sinai the 'Big Bang' of the Alphabet

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