Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia?

[mazel schlimazel]

Fascinating stuff:

 



 

 

[mazel schlimazel]

It all makes sense:

 

[voted4reagan]

Check out this explanation Mazel.... quite Fascinating as well...

Do you agree??

http://www.crivoice.org/yamsuph.html

[mazel schlimazel]

Check out this explanation Mazel.... quite Fascinating as well...

Do you agree??

http://www.crivoice.org/yamsuph.html

 

I personally think the Parting of the Sea occurred in the Gulf of Aqaba, as shown in the map above. Chariot wheels and incomplete skeletons have been found on the seabed there, pointing to the possible remains of Pharoah's expeditionary forces. The distance from the Egyptian to the Saudi side of the Gulf would also have been sufficient for 1 Million people to cross within several hours or a whole day... (or maybe within a few days) Whereas the actual Red Sea itself is far too wide..

 

Skeptics will be quick to dismiss the theory that Jabal Al Lawz in Saudi Arabia is the real Mt. Sinai, but why would an Egyptian petroglyph of a cow/calf have been found on a large pile of huge rocks, and why would the Saudi Government feel prompted to cordon off the whole perimeter around the mountain? Thought-provoking and mysterious.

[voted4reagan]

From the Article I posted... and all will have to agree...

" But the fact remains that the biblical text reads "Sea of Reeds." Whatever else is debated, this fact remains and must be taken seriously. That is not speculation or conjecture or trying to do away with the Bible. It is simply a fact of the Hebrew language. And it is a fact of the biblical text in dozens of references. However the debate is discussed, the biblical text cannot be rationalized away from either direction. It cannot be dismissed as fiction, but then neither can it be used to support tradition or doctrine or even ideas about Scripture apart from what the text actually says. We must simply conclude that we do not know the point of exit of the Israelites from the land, nor do we know the route they took."

[mazel schlimazel]

From the Article I posted... and all will have to agree...

" But the fact remains that the biblical text reads "Sea of Reeds." Whatever else is debated, this fact remains and must be taken seriously. That is not speculation or conjecture or trying to do away with the Bible. It is simply a fact of the Hebrew language. And it is a fact of the biblical text in dozens of references. However the debate is discussed, the biblical text cannot be rationalized away from either direction. It cannot be dismissed as fiction, but then neither can it be used to support tradition or doctrine or even ideas about Scripture apart from what the text actually says. We must simply conclude that we do not know the point of exit of the Israelites from the land, nor do we know the route they took."

 

 

I disagree, Jewish scholarly authorities don't seem to read "Yam Suf" as "Sea of Reeds", but as the Red Sea..  The Gulf of Aqaba still counts an extension of the Red Sea though.

 

 

 

Misconception:Upon leaving Egypt, the Jews crossed the Yam Suf, which is translated as the Red Sea. This translation, however, is an error. Red Sea is a corruption of the correct Old English (OE) translation, Reed (Rede) Sea. (Rede is a legitimate spelling of reed in OE.)


 

 


Fact: The notion that the Yam Suf is the modern-day Red Sea predates any English translation of the Bible by well over a thousand years. In fact, it seems that until the late eighteenth century no one questioned the translation and identification of Yam Suf with the Red Sea.[1]

Red Sea is the ancient and preferred translation of Yam Suf. While some believe that suf refers to reed-like plants growing in or near the sea and that literal translations of proper nouns in the Bible are preferable, Reed Sea remains a questionable translation at best. Unfortunately, the notion that Yam Suf should be translated as “Reed Sea� and not “Red Sea� seems to be gaining in popularity.[2]

Background: Determining the “correct� translation of Yam Suf is not simply a matter of ascertaining the meaning of the words. Rather, several issues need to be addressed: Is the body of water that is today called the Red Sea the one that was split for the Israelites to pass through? Irrespective of the location, is Reed Sea an accurate translation of Yam Suf? Assuming Reed Sea is the literal translation of Yam Suf, does that make it the correct translation? Every one of these separate but inter-dependent questions needs to be looked at, although not every question has a complete and satisfactory answer.

The name Yam Suf appears in Tanach a total of twenty-three times. [3] However, most people associate Yam Suf with the body of water the Israelites crossed while fleeing Egypt. Many of the sources that translate Yam Suf as Red Sea indicate that literally it means “Sea of Reeds or Rushes� (see, for example, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible [4] [1962, vol. 4, pp. 19-21]). In Exodus 13:18, when describing the Jews fleeing Egypt, the Torah states: “God took the people in a roundabout path . . . to the Yam Suf.� ArtScroll’s Stone Edition Chumash translates Yam Suf as Sea of Reeds and includes a note stating that what is today known as the Red Sea is situated too far south for the Jews to have crossed it upon fleeing Egypt. The Jewish Publication Society Tanakh simply calls it the Sea of Reeds, and the Koren Chumash calls it the Sea of Suf with no attempt at translation or identification.

In order to determine which body of water Yam Suf is referring to, it is important to look for parallels in Tanach. The Hebrew word spelled samach-vav-peh can be read either as suf or as sof, i.e., the Sea of Suf or the Sea of Sof, [5] depending upon whether the vav is vocalized as a shuruk (suf) or a cholam (sof). Ibn Ezra (Exodus 13:18) states that some read the word as sof and explain that it is called Yam Sof because it lies at the end of the world; [6] however, he claims, that this is a “big error� because “the Yam Sof is not at the end [of the world]; the Atlantic Ocean is at the end.� The correct reading, he asserts, is suf. Rashi (Exodus 13:18) explains that suf in Yam Suf is similar to “agam,� which means a pond, in that it has reeds (kanim) growing in it. Expounding on Rashi, Siftei Chachamim explains that lest one think it is read as sof and means “end of the sea,� Rashi is clarifying that it means a sea full of reeds. Despite the controversy among the commentators, it is clear that according to the Masoretic tradition, the word is read as suf. Any ba’al koreh will confirm this.

How was Yam Suf[7] understood in antiquity? [8] The Septuagint (second to third century BCE) translated Yam Suf into Greek as Erythra Thalassa or Red Sea–that is, neither “end� nor “reed!�[9] Thus, 2,200 years ago, long before the Bible was translated into Old English, the Septuagint identified the Yam Suf the Israelites crossed as the Red Sea. Josephus (Antiquities 2:15:3) identifies the Yam Suf as the Red Sea as well. This translation was carried over into the Latin when the fourth-century Latin Vulgate translated Yam Suf in Exodus 13:18 as Mare Rubrum, and in other places it translates Yam Suf as Mare Erythrae, both of which mean Red Sea.

Early English translations of the Bible, such as the 1611 King James Version, continued to translate Yam Suf as the Red Sea. Evidently, the theory that Red Sea is a corruption of the correct Old English (OE) translation, Reed (Rede) Sea, is unfounded.

Another important authoritative work maintains the tradition of identifying Yam Suf as Red Sea. In his commentary on the Bible, known as Tafsir, Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon (d. 942 CE), who lived in Egypt and Israel as well as in Baghdad, translated Yam Suf as Bahr al Qulzum, the Arabic name used for the Red Sea till this very day. Thus, it is clear that Jews at the time of the Geonim took it for granted that the Yam Suf in the Bible refers to the modern-day Red Sea. [10]

Another fascinating piece of evidence comes from a tribe in India that claims to be descended from the Lost Tribe of Menashe. Author Hillel Halkin[11] cites evidence in support of this claim, such as a “Red Sea Song.� The song contains many Biblical details regarding the Exodus: cloud by day, fire by night, water split in two, miraculous water from a rock, Divine delivery of quail, et cetera. It also calls the sea that was parted the Red Sea. While the exact age of the song is unknown, it is purported to be ancient.

The Hebrew word suf does not mean red literally. So where did the name “Red Sea� come from? There are various suggestions. Let’s first look at the other places where Yam Suf is mentioned in the Bible and is translated as “Red Sea.� In I Kings (9:26) it states that King Solomon based his navy on the Yam Suf near Eilat. (See map.) This Yam Suf was probably not the one crossed by the Israelites[12] and may have been termed “red� after the inhabitants of the surrounding mountains, the people of Edom (see Genesis 25:30), which means red. Or the Sea might have been named so due to the reddish coral in the vicinity. (This is also probably why the country Eritrea is called so; Eritrea, whose name is a rendition of the ancient Greek name Erythraía, or the “Red Land,� is located on the southwestern shore of the Red Sea.) Or it may be that the mineral-rich red mountain ranges and desert sands surrounding the sea inspired mariners of antiquity to name the sea Mare Rostrum, Red Sea. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (The Living Torah, Exodus 2:3, p. 260) suggests that the name Red Sea is based on the fact that in the language spoken in Ethiopia, supho denotes a red-topped kind of plant. Alternate possibilities (The Living Torah, Exodus 10:19, p. 304-5) include that its name derived from the ancient nation Erythria, so named because its inhabitants painted their faces red; or that it’s based on the seasonal blooms of the red-colored Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water’s surface. The author of the column “Philologos,� in the Forward (April 14, 2000, p. 12) suggests that the Gulf of Aqaba, which flows past ancient Edom and into Eilat, was once known as Yam Edom, which can mean the Sea of Edom or the Red Sea. He suggests that this name was eventually transferred, erroneously, to the other side of the Sinai, where it stuck.



Those who translate Yam Suf as Sea of Reeds do so because they prefer to translate it literally. But literal translations do not work all the time. This is especially true in this case since the precise definition of suf is unclear. Rashi (Exodus 2:3) identifies it as “rosel� in Old French (possibly “roseau� in modern French), which means a kind of flexible rhizome found along the edges of shallow, usually stagnant ponds. Like reeds, this is freshwater vegetation, which is not found at the edge of a salt sea such as the Red Sea. Rashi, based on Sotah 12b, finds a parallel in Isaiah 19:6, kaneh vesuf ka’mailu–the reeds and suf will dry up. From this verse it is clear that suf may be a plant that is similar to, but not synonymous with, kaneh, reed. Thus, Reed Sea is not even an accurate literal translation! Rashi elsewhere (Sotah 12b) identifies suf as a thin aravah, willow. Rabbi Kaplan suggests (The Living Torah, Exodus 2:3, p. 260) that suf is from thuf, the ancient Egyptian word for uncut papyrus. (Indeed the Latin translation of the Bible translates suf in Exodus 2:5 as papyrus.) He compares it to other places in Tanach (Exodus 2:3, 5) where suf seems to mean a type of reed (Isaiah 19:6; Jonah 2:6). Professor Yehuda Feliks (Chai Vetzome’ach B’Torah, 5744, p. 215) identifies the suf as the cattail or bulrush (genus Typha). This is not the same as kaneh, reed, which he identifies (Hatzome’ach VeHa’Chai B’Mishnah, 5743, p. 146) as being from the Gramineae (Poaceae, grasses) family and one of two species: Arundo donax (giant cane or giant reed) and Phragmites communis (Phragmites australis, the common reed).



 

 

 

http://www.ou.org/torah/article/tzarich_iyun_the_translation_of_yam_suf

[mazel schlimazel]

And the last two paragraphs:

 

 

In summary, Yam Suf in the Bible refers to multiple places, many of which were translated by the ancients as Red Sea. Similarly, specific bodies of water were referred to by multiple names, such as the Mediterranean Sea, which seems to have at least three names: Yam Plishtim (Exodus 23:32), Yam Hagadol (Numbers 34:6, 7) and Yam Ha’acharon (Deuteronomy 34:2). This leaves a translator in a serious quandary. But it is important to remember that translations are not always meant to be literal but rather to inform the reader of the target language what was intended in the source language. Thus, in general, Yam Hagadol is translated in English as Mediterranean Sea and not as Great Sea; Moshe is called Moses and not “drawn forth,� Yam Hamelach is referred to as Dead Sea and not as Salt Sea, [16] and Sha’ar Ha’ashpot is translated as Dung Gate and not Refuse Gate.



Thus, it is possible that the name Yam Suf has nothing to do with suf and was simply the name of the body of water. [17] The name need not have any meaning beyond that, similar to other names of locations (there are not and have never been buffalo in Buffalo, New York, and Beit Lechem, a hilly region, is not known for either its bread or its wheat).

 

 

http://www.ou.org/torah/article/tzarich_iyun_the_translation_of_yam_suf

[lightoftruth]

What I find more mysterious is the multiple translations of the language. Barely an article goes by where scholars are not disagreeing on the correct interpretation of the wording in the old testament. I can understand the problem in the new testament because it went back and forth between so many different languages, interpretations of interpretations.

As to the topic, I do not believe that is Mt Sinai. I found a much better candidate in the area on google earth. It was a mountain standing alone with a blackened top, unfortunately I pulled the pin.When I find it again I will upload it .............:cool: