Site Proposals for Rephidim and Mount Horeb (Mount Sinai)
08 October 2005 revisions through 19 June 2011
The Egyptian Hathor Temple at Serabit el Khadim was in use during the period of the Exodus, ca. 1446 BC, 1290 BC, 1175 BC, 1133 BC, depending on which scholar one wants to follow.
Could Rephidim, "the mountain of God" (cf. Ex 18:5) be Gebel Serabit el Khadim? Is the "rock at Horeb" Gebel Ghorabi (Ex 17:6)? Is Mount Sinai Gebel Saniya (Ex 19:2)? Alternately, could Rephidim preserved at the small mount called El Urfa (in yellow high lighter) east of Gebels Ghorabi and Saniya?
All three mounts are within view of the Egyptian Temple. Egyptian mining camps exist near Bir Nasib and Gebel Serabit el Khadim. I am unaware of any surveys for Ghorabi and Saniya. (cf. map titled Abu Zenima. Egypt. Southern Sinai. 1:100,000. Sheet 5. Survey of Egypt. 1936).
Scholars _demand_ that whatever mount is proposed for Sinai/Horeb that it possess evidence of Israel's presence which can be archaeologically dated to either the Late Bronze Age (1580-1200 BC) or Iron Age I (1200-1100 BC). At the Egyptian Hathor Temple near Serabit el Khadim exists pottery and cartouches from Pharaohs Ahmose I (circa 1580 BC) to Rameses VI (circa 1130 BC) which _does_ meet_ this archaeological demand, the Exodus being variously dated 1519 BC (some Catholics), 1446 BC (some Protestants) or 1300 BC (some Jews citing the Seder Olam Rabbah chronology). Stone tablets bearing an archaic Semitic Proto-Sinatic script (a precursor of ancient Hebrew) have been found littering the base of nearby mountains in broken pieces near mines- could they have been recast as Moses' smashed Ten Commandments on tables of stone from Mount Sinai?
Hathor the Cow-goddess was honored as the sky that gave birth every morning to the Sun as a "Golden Calf." At sunset the Sun as a great , virile Bull, mounted his mother, Hathor the Sky-Cow-goddess, impregnating her so that he might be born of her the next morning, as the Golden Calf. In the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts Pharoah declared he was "the Golden Calf born of the sky" and pleaded with Horus to let him ride the Solar bark that crossed the heavens each day carrying the Sun-god. Perhaps the bible's motifs of Israel encamped before Mount Sinai and worshipping the Golden Calf recalls events at Serabit el Khadim ? This map is a part of my article titled "The Route of the Exodus."
Please click here for an alternate proposal, Dophkah being Wadi Foqa, Alush being Wadi el-Esh, Rephidim being Wadi Rufaiyil, Mt. Sinai being Ras Safsafeh
