I didn’t need a college degree in Bible to discover that Mt. Sinai was not in the Sinai Peninsula. I’ve read through the Bible several times, and one of those times I resolved to work a little harder at connecting the dots. I kept up with names and places and used the maps for deeper understanding.
In comparing Exodus 3:1-6 to the Bible maps, I noticed a serious error in the maps in the back of my Bible as well as those in my Bible atlas. Moses met God while tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Jethro, his father-in law, was the priest of Midian. So Moses was surely in Midian when he saw the burning bush on the Mountain of God. This mountain was also known as Mt. Horeb and Mt. Sinai. Midian is clearly identified on all Bible maps as located in current Saudi Arabia. Moses would have had to travel over 400 miles and cross a swampy body of water on the north end of the Red Sea to graze those sheep on the traditional site for Mt. Sinai located on the Sinai Peninsula. We can also read that God told Moses from the burning bush that he and the Israelites would return to worship God “on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:12)
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