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MOSES IN THE YEMEN

Anatomy of a Discovery.

"And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the
way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go
by day and night." Exodus 13:21

In recent years there has been much discussion as to whether Mt. Sinai
was actually located in the Sinai peninsula or in Midian which is in
modern day Saudi Arabia.

The idea is not a new one; Beke^1 first published (posthumously) the
possibility in 1878 more importantly Lucas of "Ancient Egyptian
Materials and Industry" fame in a wonderful book published in 1938^2
made a compelling argument for the thesis.

Along comes Ron Wyatt who takes the thesis and goes on an adventure to
Jebel Al-Lauz in the Tobuk area of North Western Saudi Arabia and
finds a mountain with a black top and a few artifacts which is enough
for him to claim that he has found Mt. Sinai. He was followed by two
other adventurers, Larry Williams and Bob Cornuke who without citing
Wyatt (plagerism???? Its difficult to tell as none of the books
published have an index) go to the same site and come to the same
conclusion. They have found Mt. Sinai^3.

A number of critiques have been published on the thesis but only one
criticism resonated with me and that was the suggestion that it was
more than 11 days away from Kadesh Barnea according to the Biblical
account. That of course presupposes that we knew where Kadesh Barnea
is and that the present identification in the Negev at Ain el
Qudeirat^4 is the correct one.

I had already decided to do a television special on "The Exodus"
including the Wyatt thesis and I knew a little of the Exodus and
therefore whilst I was sympathetic to the notion that Mt. Sinai was in
Saudi Arabia, I believed that it must have been a volcano and Jebel Al
Lawz whilst it had a black top, was not one. It also seemed likely
from the quote that starts this piece, that there was at least one and
probably a string of volcanoes on the route of the Exodus. How else to
explain the phenomenon described?

I therefore started to search for two things.
1. A high mountain in Arabia that was a volcano and that fit the
specifications of Mt. Sinai.
2. Another location for Kadesh Barnea

How did we work before the internet. Within a few minutes.............
Bingo, I had found this map which seemed to be a promising start.
There was an almost straight tectonic line from Yemen to "Canaan".

Now to find Mt. Sinai or Mt. Horeb as it is also known in the Bible^5.

Those who understand linguistics know that both Hebrew and Arabic
words are based on three letter roots (without vowels), thus hrb for
Horeb and that there is a process known as metathesis where
occasionally translations from one language to another involve
changing the order of the letters say to rbh, or brh etc.

17 volcanic sites are listed in Arabia only two with an elevation
above 3,000.
a. Harras (the Arabic word for Volcano) of Dhamar at 3,500
b. Harra of Arhab at 3,100.

Not for the first time in my career of investigating was I speechless.
"RHB" "HRB". The same. A tall volcano that fit the physical
requirements of Mt. Horeb perfectly but where was it.......... IN
YEMEN.

My skepticism was increased by the fact that I knew of no way the
Israelites could have arrived there and eleven days journey to Kadesh
Barnea seemed utterly impossible.

I then remembered a book by Professor Kamal Salibi^6 which I had read
when it first came out and dismissed as being totally unrealistic. I
had been in touch with Kamal over the years and I unearthed the book
from my library to see if there were other identifications between the
Hebrew and the Arabic along the tectonic plate. On page 41 is a map of
the area in which Professor Salibi believes the whole Biblical story
of the children of Israel originates. The area of Asir (Seir) is in
Western Saudi Arabia. Two things immediately stood out.
1. There was a place "Rofiydan" in the South near the Yemeni border
on the route north running parallel to the tectonic line. That
immediately brought to mind the Hebrew "Rephidim" one of the
camping stops along the route of the Exodus.

Much further north, again on the tectonic line was a place called
"Bani Amr" (the tribe of Amr). This in Asir (Seir). That immediately
brought to mind the attack by the Ammorite in the vicinity of Mt. Seir
an event that also took place during the Exodus.

Now we were getting somewhere, albeit with the aid of a book that has
been totally discounted by the academic community.

It gets even stranger.

I needed to find another location for Kadesh Barnea.

Whilst Kadesh is a common Hebrew word meaning "holy" the word Barnea
is totally unknown. Salibi suggests that it could be referring to a
god "rn" so the site could be one dedicated to that god. Hebrew
scholars have no thoughts on the subject.

Back to "Google". Another shock. I get referred to a site containing
papers from my old friend Velikovsky who I have spent 30 years
criticising. I suppose Salibi could have been the Velikovsky of the
80s. Here I was relying on the scholarship of two men who have been
more reviled than any two others in the modern age J

Where does Velikovsky place Kadesh Barnea, in the most unlikely place
of all for a Jewish biblical scholar? MECCA!!! For him (and perhaps
for me) it made perfect sense. What was the holiest site in Western
Arabia, Mecca?

The story gets even stranger. As usual for Velikovsky, his writings
are always meticulously (if not always accurately) footnoted. Kadesh
Barnea in the Biblical account^7 is located in the desert of Pharan
(Paran)....... (note the "rn" again). Velikovsky states that
"according to the old Arabian sources" Pharan is in the mountainous
area of the Hijaz. There is a reference to a footnote 17. The problem
is in his paper, footnote 17 is missing. What to do?

I remembered meeting Velikovsky's research assistant when I visited
the old man many years ago at his house in Princeton. I tried to
contact him, Jan Sammer, now living in Czechoslovakia. What he sent me
back was even more remarkable than Velikovsky's original suggestion.
The medieval Arab geographer actually identifies Pharan with Mecca
itself.^8

Where is Mecca on our grand scheme of things, again very near the
fault line on the way from Yemen to Canaan?

I contacted Salibi again. He dismissed my ideas about Mt. Horeb in
Yemen and Kadesh Barnea as Mecca (on the grounds that it was too arid,
but in fact there are fresh springs in the area and 2,500 years ago,
the area could well have been lush) but did identify the 12 camping
spots mentioned in Numbers 33 as being the exact equivalents of sites
in Asir.

Had I stumbled on the real route of the Exodus? What did the route
that I had mapped out look like? Bigger mysteries remain. How did the
Israelites get to Yemen and how did the idea that it took 11 days from
Mt. Sinai to Kadesh Barnea get sorted out.

With the help of our wonderful cartographer Linda, we will show you in
the next few weeks.

Michael S. Sanders
California
Monday, July 29, 2002

p.s. The ultimate irony?

Al Quds (qds in both Arabic and Hebrew means Holy) is Jerusalem in
Arabic:

Now Mecca (Islam's Holiest City) may very well turn out to be the long
lost city of Kadesh (qds) Barnea. A major Jewish holy City, lost for
3,500 years.

Footnotes:
^

1.    Beke, Charles Tilstone, The late Dr. Charles Beke's discoveries
of Sinai in Arabia and of Midian : with portrait, geological,
botanical, and conchological reports,. plans, map, and thirteen wood
engravings : Trubner & Co., 1878

2.    A. Lucas: The Route of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt,
Edward Arnold & Co. 1938

3.    Larry Williams: The Mount Sinai Myth formerly The Mountain of
Moses" Wynwood Press 1990, Robert Cornuke and David Halbrook: In
Search of The Mountain of God, Broadman and Holman, 2000

Howard Blum: "The Gold of Exodus. The Discovery of the True Mount
Sinai" Simon & Schuster 1998

4.    Anchor Bible Dictionary
^

5.    Exodus 3:1 "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his
father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back
of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God." ^

6.    Kamal Salibi "The Bible Came from Arabia, Jonathan Cape 1985

7.    Numbers 13:3
^

8.    Medieval Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1229). Volume III
on p. 834 of the edition published in Leipzig in the 1860s contains
the following entry (transl.):
Faaraan: After the alif there is a raa' and it ends in a nun. An
Arabicized Hebrew word. It is one of the names for Mekkah mentioned in
the Torah. It has been said that it is a name for the mountains of
Mekkah. Ibn Makulan Abu Bakr Nasr Ibn al-Qaasim Ibn Qudaa`ah
al-Qudaa`i al-Faaraani al-Iskandari said "I have heard it is a
reference to the mountains of Faaraan, that is to say, the mountains
of the Hijaaz. In the Torah God came from Sinaa' [Sinai] and dawned
from Saa`iir [Seir] and became known [or brought to light, revealed]
from Faaraan"; they are the mountains of Filastiin [Palestine], and it
is His sending down of the Injiil upon Isa, peace be upon him, and His
revealing from Mount Faaraan the fact of His sending down the Qur'an
upon Muhammad, peace be upon him. It is said Faaraan is the mountain
of Mekkah; Faaraan is also a village in the region of Sughd, one of
the provinces of Samarqand, to whom Abu Mansuur Muhammad Ibn Bakr Ibn
Isma`iil al-Samarqandi al-Faaraani traces his origins. This was
transmitted from Muhammad Ibn al-Fadl al-Larmaani and Nasr Ibn Ahmad
al-Kindi the Qur'anic scholar from whom Abu al-Hasan Muhammad Ibn Abd
Allah Ibn Muhammad al-Kaaghidhi al-Samarqandi transmitted. Abu Abd
Allah al-Qudaa`i said, "Faaraan and al-Tur [literally, the mountain]
are two districts in southern Egypt."

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