Jacob

There are those who affirm that, in 1984, a team of archeologists, headed by American Ron Wyatt, discovered the site of the real Mt. Sinai in the Arabian desert. The possibility that Mt. Sinai may be located in Arabia is stated in Galatians 4:25.

In Arabia, the team discovered, among other findings, large altars situated in the vicinity of a mountain with a scorched peak; and in the Gulf of Aqaba, which adjoins the Red Sea, they discovered coral-encrusted chariot wheels strewn about a partially destroyed land-bridge situated approximately 30 ft. below sea level. The scorched peak at the top of the mountain was not caused by volcanic lava flow as only the rock's exterior surface is burnt; and concerning the chariot wheels in the sea, Exodus 14:25 mentions that the Egyptian army removed their chariot wheels to avoid getting stuck while they were pursuing the Israelites across the sea. Photos of these discoveries can be viewed on various websites.

It is written in Exodus 3:1 that Moses, the Hebrew prophet and lawgiver from the tribe of Levi, encountered the "Mountain of God" well before the infamous plagues that may have befallen the Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs. It wasn't until after the plagues, when the Israelites were escaping Egyptian rule, that (as mentioned in Exodus 13:21) the Lord led the Israelites in a pillar of a cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night; and not until the third day of their arrival at Mt. Sinai that (as mentioned in Exodus 19:18) God was revealed to them as fire atop the mountain. There was considerable time, perhaps up to forty years, for Moses and the Levites to plot the elaborate staging of these events and establish for themselves power over the Israelites as priests. The description of the fire atop Mt. Sinai, as "darkness clouds and thick darkness" in Deuteronomy 4:11, seems consistent to that of a fire which has been set with oil.

According to Exodus 32:28, the sons of Levi killed about three thousand men in one day. This slaughter was carried out to punish people for supposedly worshipping the "Golden Calf". Perhaps the real reason for the massacre was to prevent Israelites from questioning the presence of God atop Mt. Sinai. Most survivors certainly would have held their tongue.

According to 1 Kings 12, the northern kingdom of Israel (Israelites) had desired to free themselves from the yoke of religious duty and high taxes imposed on them by the southern kingdom of Israel (Judah); yet it is prophesied in Ezekiel 37:21-28 that, in the future, all Israelite tribes will be reunited and that God's sanctuary will be in their midst. This seems to advocate the creation of a new world order headed by the state of Israel; a dangerous concept if the supposed true God of the Bible was originally a Levite invention merely intended to control Israelites.

Jacob