Exodus Out of Egypt

8/14/2019 Exodus Out of Egypt

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Saudi_Arabia_map.png


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Exo 3:1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the

priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and

came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to

him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush


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A marching day over flat

terrain was typically about

10 miles. For example, the

Roman Legion typicallymarched about 10 miles per

day. Also, during the US

Civil War, Union and

Confederate troops typically

marched about 10 miles per

day on foot (assuming over

average terrain and not aforced march).


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Exo 14:28 The

waters returned and

covered the chariots

and the horsemen;

of all the host ofPharaoh that had

followed them into

the sea, not one of

them remained.


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The Split Rock

and the blackened peak,

the rocks appeared to

have been in a fire


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When it came to pass that Pharaoh had let Israel go "God led them not through

the way of the land of the Philistines"(Exodus 13:17). This was north, along the

coastal area of the Mediterranean Sea. Rather, "God led the people about,

through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea"(v. 18).


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Archeologically speaking, none of these

have been proven to be legitimate sites.


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Today, a highway traverses

this gorge, which is known as

Wadi Watir, which leads down

to Nuwaiba that is today

turned into a tourist attraction.THE Gulf of Aqaba is very

deep, in places over a mile

(1,600m) deep. Even with the

sea dried up, walking acrosswould be difficult due to the

steep grade down the sides.

But there is one spot where if

the water were removed, it

would be an easy descent for

people and animals. This is the

line between Nuweiba and the

opposite shore in Saudi Arabia.


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WHEN Ron Wyatt first visited Nuweiba in 1978, he found a Phoenician style column lying in the

water. Unfortunately the inscriptions had been eroded away, hence the column's importance was

not understood until 1984, when a second granite column was found on the Saudi coastline

opposite -- identical to the first, except on this one the inscription was still intact. In Phoenician

letters (Archaic Hebrew), it contained the words: Mizraim (Egypt); Solomon; Edom; death; Pharaoh;

Moses; and Yahweh, indicating that King Solomon had set up these columns as a memorial to the

miracle of the crossing of the sea. Saudi Arabia does not admit tourists, and perhaps fearing

unauthorized visitors, the Saudi Authorities have since removed this column, and replaced it with a

flag marker where it once stood.

Solomon's memorial

pillars


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The column is not from the time of Solomon but crafted in the time of

Jesus or later. Columns constructed in the time of Solomon were built

from square stone blocks and were rectangular columns, not round ones.


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From there "they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in

Etham, in the edge of the wilderness "(Exodus 13:20). This would

cover their journey from the border of Egypt across the "wilderness of

the Red Sea"to its edge in "Etham". But where is Etham? For certain it

is "in the edge of the wilderness".


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As they were encamped by the edge of the wilderness in Etham, "the LORD

spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn

and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against

Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea"(Exodus 14:1-2).


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Exodus 13:21, "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead hem the way; and by night in

a pillar of fire, to give them light; to travel by day and night".

Exodus 19:4, God said, "You've seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and

brought you (swiftly) to Myself"(II Samuel 1:23).


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"TURN"(Heb. Shuwb), which means to "return" or "turn back". If we look on a

modern map (left) and see how the modern highway system goes about the

wadis in that region, we will see that there is an abrupt turnaround at "Ra's an-

Naqb", which then proceeds south on the western side of the Gulf of Aqaba

down to a resort village called Nuwaiba.


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we can see how the children of Israel would have no place to escape

from Pharaohs army. Pharaoh said, "They are entangled in the land,

the wilderness hath shut them in"(Exodus 14:3).


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This point brings us to one of the most spectacular of miracles of the Old

Testament when God parted the waters of the Red Sea, "and the waters were a

wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left"(v. 22) that the children of

Israel might cross on dry ground. The Bible tells us that the Egyptians pursued

Israel into the midst of the sea, but the Lord confounded them and "took off

their chariot wheels"(v. 25) and the Lord caused the waters to return "and

covered the chariots, and the horsemen,

and all the host of Pharaoh that came into

the sea after them; there remained not so

much as one of them"(v. 28).


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Exo 14:22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry

ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.


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To cross the Gulf of Aqaba, they would have

had to climb down an underwater mountain

and back up again the same night: the depth

reaches about 5,000 ft. in the center of the

gulf. There is no hint to such a grave difficultyin the Bible, nor any clue how Pharaoh's army

could have driven chariots down such a steep

slope and then up the other side.


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Succoth was a military base

on the eastern border of

Egypt large enough for this

great number of people andflocks to assemble in ranks

to depart from Egypt in an

orderly fashion by the way of

the wilderness toward the

Red Sea (Exodus 13:18).

Succoth was called variously

"Tharu", T'aru", and "Takut."


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Great Bitter Lake

The trip across the sea took less than

ten hours (Ex. 14:2127).

Great Bitter Lake is about forty kilometers long, north-to-

south, and about ten kilometers wide at the widest place.


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problems

1) Exodus 15:22 says that when they came out of the sea, Mosesled them through the wilderness of Shur. The wilderness of Shur iswell known from Egyptian records to have been along the flank ofEgypt proper in Western Sinai, not in Saudi Arabia.

2) The Bible, in the original Hebrew, never calls the sea theycrossed the "Red Sea." This is a traditional and incorrect translation.

The Hebrew says "yam suf" which means "sea of reeds." The "Seaof Reeds" is something quite different from "Red Sea." Neither theRed Sea nor the Gulf of Suez or the Gulf of Aqaba has extensivecoverage of salt grass ("reeds").

There are at least two lines of

argument that completely

invalidate the possibility of a seacrossing in the Gulf of Aqaba:


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The wilderness of Shur is east of the Red Sea and in the western area of the Sinai. This location is

also attested in Egyptian sources. To cross the Red Sea and be in the wilderness of Shur one could

only be crossing the western most arm of the Red Sea and not the Gulf of Aqaba.

Shur, meaning an enclosure, or a wall,was located in the northern Sinai

Peninsula, on the north-eastern border

of Egypt (see map below). As the

name implies, the Wilderness of Shur

was named after Shur, which was part

of the fortified Egyptian defensive lineto protect Egypt


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By the way: fringing coral reefs are common on the edges of marine water bodies in the

area, and steep-sided "ridge reefs" occur in slightly deeper water. Pedestrians cannot

"walk" over extensive exposed coral reefs; they would have to climb, without the benefit

of suitable hand holds, and the climbing would be difficult and dangerous.

If th fl i I lit h d l b d th d l f


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If the fleeing Israelites had clambered over the rugged coral reefs

along the margins of the Red Sea or the Gulf of Suez, it would

have caused many injuries


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An extensive Juncuscover (although notnecessarily 100%)

requires salt water, butJuncus ordinarily thrivesin salinities lessthannormal marine, or inareas where seawaterreaches the plants only

briefly at high tide. Waters along the coastsof the Red Sea and theGulf of Suez are typicallysaltier than averageseawater, because of the

very high evaporationrate in the area (abouttwo meters per year).

Cargo ship on the Great Bitter Lake


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Exo 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the

LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the

sea dry land, and the waters were divided.

Super-elevation, caused by the windblowing steadily and strongly for hours,can drive much of the water out of a veryshallow basin. However, it is not areasonable mechanism for water onehundred meters deep, or one thousandmeters deep, and, therefore, is not

applicable to either the Gulf of Suez, orto the Red Sea. And since the historicaltext is very clear about what happened,the reader is not entitled to use a"miraculous augmentation."

Thus, the reader should be careful todistinguish between (1) a supernaturalmechanism (which requires no rationalphysical limitations or causes, andtherefore cannot even be discussed inany detail within a rational framework),and (2) a supernatural cause for thetimingof a natural mechanism. Thewriter of Exodus clearly chose the latter.

Such a shallow basin is precisely what isneeded to have a "Sea of Reeds."


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We have to get the Israelites across, even if the Egyptians are mired. And when

you look at these ancient chariots, and see how thin their wheels were, you can

understand why they would cut through almost any wet surface and get mired.

Especially with three men in each chariot, because we are told each one had a

captain. That means a driver, an archer, and a captain in each, unless a scribe

or copyist added the captain in later for greater effect.


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Excavation of the

canal was begun on

April 25, 1859, and

the canal was

opened to

navigation on

November 17, 1869


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Mt. Sinai-in-Arabia Started as a

Muslim Polemic The general idea goes back to

about 1225 AD, when Muslimgeographers began toarbitrarily shift Biblical placenames largely because theyhad been identified by

Christians Among modern scholars

Charles Beke was the pioneerarguing for Sinai-in-Arabia,starting in 1834 (withoutpinpointing a specific peak) andculminating in his book, MountSinai a Volcano, published in1873. (shortly retracted beforedeath)

The mountain peak scorched bySupernatural heat?


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Traditional Southern Sinai Site is

Ancient

An Eastern Orthodox icon depicts

Saint Helena standing next to herson, the Emperor Constantine.

According to the Williams-Cornuke

book an unnamed "psychic or

seer" is said to be responsible for

choosing the traditional Sinai site

for Emperor Constantine. But

elsewhere their book says this"myth" has arisen only within the

last "almost 250 years" as a long-

running "tourist scam," and "prior

to that time [about 1740],

numerous other mountains were

claimed" to be Mt. Sinai though noexample is given (pp. 17, 50) and

the claim is patently false.


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Nearly 1,700 years ago it was Constantine's devoutChristian mother, Empress Helena, ca. 330 A.D., who

chose the site for a church, to build the church to

protect monks from murderous raids by nomads.

According to the tradition, the church was built at the

place where the local monks pointed out what they

believed was the Burning Bush. (17) Hence the sitewas already well known as Mt. Sinai by that time.

About 550 A.D., Emperor Justinian built a fortified

monastery to replace this church, likewise also

dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which still stands today.

Much later, the monastery took on the name of St.

Catherine, the earliest mentions perhaps about 1244.

False Assumption #1: The Sinai


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False Assumption #1: The Sinai

Peninsula was considered the

Land of Egypt

The Land of Goshen was the eastern limits ofthe Land of Egypt. Apparently the fortresseson the Eastern Frontier Canal was the borderbetween Egypt and the Sinai (Hoffmeier 1997:164-175).

Sir Flinders Petrie, the Father of PalestinianArchaeology, states that the copper andturquoise mines in Sinai were in the desertoutside the territorial border of Egypt, whichpassed to the east of the delta

In summary, Egypt exploited the naturalresources of Sinai and controlled certainroads in the northern part of the peninsula,but it was not within the borders of the Landof Egypt.


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False Assumption #2:

Mt. Sinai is in the Land

of Midian

This incident was repeated about a year hence on a later visit to Mt.Sinai by Moses' Midianite father-in-law or nephew Hobab (Numbers

10:29-31). Moses asked him to stay and guide the Israelites to thePromised Land, but he declined, saying he would return to "my ownland"(Midian) and "my own people"(Midianites) from Mt. Sinai.He did not want to go on a long journey to Moses' land with Moses'people. Hobab's land (in what is modern Saudi Arabia) was clearlynot the same land where they were at (Mt. Sinai)

Exodus 18:27 states that, while the Israelites were camped near Mt.Sinai,3 Moses sent his Midianite (Saudi Arabian) father-in-lawJethro back to"his own country"of Midian. Clearly, Mt. Sinai andnorthwestern Saudi Arabia (Midian) were in two differentlocations. The making of the statement signals the importance ofthe action, it was not a trivial event or insignificant journey for Jethroto go back to Midian from Mt. Sinai.


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Midian was placed at least partly in theSinai by later authors (Antoninus of

Placentia, Italy, ca. 570 A.D., Arab

historian Makrizi, d. 1441). (53) So

have some of the leading Bible

archaeologists and scholars of moderntimes-William F. Albright, H. H. Rowley,

G. Ernest Wright, Roland de Vaux,

Avraham Negev, and others-who

overlap Midian part way into the

Sinai.

William F. Albright


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One careful scholar of the geography of the Exodus route, Graham Davies of

Cambridge, has argued that in the late Tannaitic period (about 100-200 A.D.), forexample, rabbinical literature described the distance between Pharan and Mt. Sinai as

36 Roman miles, almost exactly matching Egeria's later figure of 35 Roman milesPharan-to-Jebel Musa. In other words, Mt. Sinai = Jebel Musa. To Davies this showsthat Jebel Musa (the later St. Catherine's) had already been identified as Mt. Sinai byJewish pilgrims around 100 A.D. (Davies, Wilderness (1979) pp. 14-28, esp. 23-24.)


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Mt. Sinai in

Arabia?Gal 4:25

JOSEPHUS: "Moses went up to a mountain that lay between EgyptandArabia, which was called Sinai...." Josephus, Against Apion 2:2[2:25].

In the first century AD, based on the prior use by Herodotus, Pliny andStrabo, Arabia extended from the Persian Gulf to the Nile Delta, thusincluding the Sinai Peninsula in Arabia. Paul would be perfectly correctin placing Mt. Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula because the Sinai Peninsulawas part of Arabia of his day.

Moreover, in the mid-third century BC, 72 Jewish scholars translated theHebrew Bible into Greek (known as the Septuagint) and followed thecontemporary use of the word Arabia when they referred to Goshen asGoshen of Arabia (Gen. 45:10; 46:34). While Goshen is clearly part ofEgypt (Gen. 37:6, 27; Ex. 9:26), the translator imposed the third century

BC geographical reality on their translation.

Rembrandt


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In Apostle Paul's time, "Arabia"

covered a wide area that

"included the Sinai Peninsula"

as well as what we now call

Saudi Arabia, according to

Cambridge scholar GrahamDavies.

Even in modern times, Wilhelm

Gesenius listed both MT. SINAI

and the Sinai Peninsula as PART

OF "ARABIA," in his famous

1834 Hebrew Lexicon.

Rembrandt


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Like his Midianite hosts, Moses

could have wandered far outside of

Midian in reaching Mt. Sinai. In

fact, the Bible seems to say just

that: In Exodus 3:1, where Mosesis said to have "led" Jethro's flock

to Horeb (Mt. Sinai), the Hebrew

verb "nahag" actually means to

"forcibly or exhaustingly drive," not

gently lead, suggesting Moses

traveled a great distance.

The Harper's Bible Dictionary and Smith's BibleDictionary, both saying the Midianites were nomads.

The Bible reports Midianites traveling long distances

into Egypt for trade (Gen. 37:28, 36) and into Western

and Northern Israel for war (Judges 6-8).


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Petrie's student and scholar, Lina

Eckenstein, in her History of Sinai, has alsodescribed the "reckless

deforestation...which has gone on

unchecked for thousands of years," turning

a Sinai of "great fruitfulness" into a vast

wasteland. Forests once covered the Sinai

valleys. Gone are the Sinai's "extensive

tamarish groves," the "enormous

plantations" of palms and dates, such asthe grove of 10,000 date-palms reported in

1335, the "numerous fruit and vegetable

gardens," and the numerous "herds of

gazelles," all of which were still in existence

as late as the Middle Ages, according to

Eckenstein. "pasture lands which formerly

fed sheep and goats" were turned intospreading desert by the introduction of the

camel, "a most destructive animal, " she

states, "like a huge goat." (36)


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The book contends that God's presence on top of Mt. Sinai supernaturally burned it

(Exodus 24:17; Deut. 5:23) -- though the Burning Bush was not burned up (Exodus 3:2-

3). (p. 98). Plants may have been supernaturally melted right into solid rock, it is said.

(39)Geologist Dr. John Morris tells us, the Jebel al-Lawz rock he examined is normal

metamorphic rock typical for the volcanic area it came from, there was nothing strangeabout it nor any sign of plants melted into the rock. (40) The book does not mention that

Jebel al-Lawz is in a volcanic region.

Researchers are interested in seeing the

lab analyses, but they have been

unavailable for the last 13 years.

Judgment on this evidence should be

withheld until the rocks have been

scientifically analyzed and properlypublished.


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Any geologist looking at the pictures of Jabal al Lawz readily recognizes that the

dark-colored rocks shown in the pictures of Jabal al Lawz shown at Bob Cornuke's

web page are quite clearly roof pendants of darker-colored rocks intruded by younger,

light-colored rocks. A roof pendant is: "A body of country rock surrounded by intrusive

rock. If the rocks on the summit of

Jabal al Lawz look "melted" it is

because they consist of

metamorphosed lava and

other extrusive igneous

rocks called "greenstone",

South Bishop roof

pendant, CA. (J.Shelton)
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/EPIC/Geologic/Igneous/pages/03.EP_0087_JS_II_03.htm


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One Saudi archaeologist who did his doctoral thesis on Saudi Arabian rockart dates the patched bovine to the Neolithic period (Khan 1991: 115; plate1). The Neolithic period is considerably earlier than the Late Bronze Ageand the date of the Exodus from Egypt. Thus, it has nothing to do with thelivestock the Israelites brought out of Egypt (Ex. 12: 38; 17:3; Num. 20:19;32:1; Deut. 3:19).

Lets assume for a minute that this was the site of the golden calf (However,

I do not believe it is). Moses destroyed the golden calf because it was anidol. He would also have erased the petroglyphs of the bovine because theywere graven images.

Bovine petroglyphs were found in the Midian area as well as other parts ofthe country (Livingstone et. al. 1985: 132-134; Plates 126, 127, 133;Nayeem 1990: 91, 92, 95).

Refering to the golden calf

incident?

Are these drawings the Hathor

and Apis bull from Egypt?


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Large stone circles probably connected with burials are typical to thenorthwest Saudi Arabian area. The date and function of the cairns are

unknown (Ingraham et. al. 1981: 69-71). Similar structures have been

found elsewhere in the Levant.

The Altar of Moses and the 12Pillars?

The Bible says that Moses got

up early one morning and built

an altar at the base of the Mt.

Sinai and set up twelve stonepillars representing the twelve

tribes of Israel (Ex. 24: 4).


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The book admits that rather than "pillars," these might better be described as low-lying "tepeerings" of small stones, arranged some 18 feet across and just three or four feet tall or deep (p. 90),

possibly only one to two feet deep (p. 210). These sound suspiciously like Early Bronze II-MiddleBronze I rings, which are usually made of small uncut field stones arranged in circles from 6 to 20feet in diameter and about 2-1/2 feet high. Since only one or two of the "rings" were barely visiblefrom under the dirt and rock, and none of this debris was cleared, it is difficult to see how one can

know if any other such "pillars" existed or that there are exactly 12 of them.

Then Moses and the people of


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Israel sang this song to the

LORD, saying, "I will sing to

the LORD, for he has

triumphed gloriously; the

horse and his rider he hasthrown into the sea.

The LORD is my strength and

my song, and he has become

my salvation; this is my God,

and I will praise him, myfather's God, and I will exalt

him.

The LORD is a man of war;

the LORD is his name.

"Pharaoh's chariots and hishost he cast into the sea, and

his chosen officers were sunk

in the Red Sea.

The floods covered them; they

went down into the depths like

a stone.


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Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues,


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which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw what appeared to bea sea of glass mingled with fire--and also those who had conquered the beast and its image

and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in theirhands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,

saying, "Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your

ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you aloneare holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."

Documents

Exodus Out of Egypt