Posted on 09/18/2015 10:55:56 PM PDT by amorphous
Thank you for the update and the additional links.
:’)
Looks interesting! Thanks!
I majored in History in college and one of the things I have against the profession and the PhD’s who sit atop it is their inflexibility. Once they publish and a particular structure is generally accepted (such as the Egyptian chronology and the almost baseless identification of Exodus with the reign of Rameses II) they won’t even look at any new evidence coming out of the ground. And of course, the only fully extant historical records in our hands, the Torah and the New Testament, must be whole cloth mythology. It has more than a whiff of latent anti-Semitism and anti-Christian bias. If the Bible was unknown and newly discovered tomorrow on a set of clay tablets they would fall over each other trying to relate the contents to the archaeology.
“...the rabbi with the hat and beard.”
I haven’t seen the movie yet - but I like that guy too!
No joke! Satan's army never sleeps and is infinitely flexible. But God's Word endures.
Without reading any of this let me set out my theories. I have been researching volcanoes and Egypt for a few years. Pillar of Fire by night, pillar of smoke by day. Sounds like a volcano to me. Too major volcanic events—Thera/Santorini, perhaps 1625; Mt. Etna around 1500 give or take 50 years. Possible ash falls in northern Africa, or further south over the Nile river. Red tide from pfisteria, frogs killed, flies in droves, people have skin infections, and are killed by much dead matter in their drinking water, etc. etc. There are volcanic influences and lava flows in western Saudi Arabia. That is the scientific part. The religious human part is another story for another time. Got to go to bed now.
Without reading any of this let me set out my theories. I have been researching volcanoes and Egypt for a few years.That doesn't take a few years -- there aren't any, or any during historical times, or even anywhere close to it. Same goes for the Sinai and western Arabia. There's no trace of a Theran supereruption in the 2nd m BC sediments, ice cores, etc (or anytime else), either in Egypt or even the Aegean. A large piece of pumice that had been used as a floating serving tray for some New Kingdom pharaoh, originally attributed to Thera, turned out to be from Kos' volcano, and its eruption 100,000 years ago.
I think that it was at my fortieth birthday (1935) that my father gave me as a present the Hebrew book by Bar-Droma, Negeb ("The South"). Busy as I was with medical practice, I did not read the book, and only opened it at a few places and chanced to read that according to somebody's view, Mt. Sinai was a volcano... I read the [1873] pamphlet of Charles Beke (the author of the idea referred to by Bar Droma), who maintained that Mount Sinai was a volcano...Immanuel Velikovsky, How I Arrived at My Concepts
There most certainly is volcanism in western Saudi Arabia. However, it has not been much studied as SA has only ONE volcanologist. Also much of the geologist energy has gone into oil exploration. See the article below, and look at the site for IMAGES which has many detailed maps.
https://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200602/volcanic.arabia.htm
It appears that aside from mountain type volcanic activity there is also fissure type activity like the infamous Laki Fissure event in 1783 in Iceland which may have caused crop shortages in Europe which influenced the start of the French Revolution. Moses might have been led by smoke and fire from fissures, but in his wanderings gone to Mt. Sinai.
http://dqhall.com/sinai_volcano/
There has been no volcanism in historical times in Sinai or Arabia. In the 19th century, a volcano seemed like it would fit the bill, even though it would have to have been the longest-lasting large eruption ever, to guide by day and night from such a large distance. No one has ever found any such volcano.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0926/Ancient-volcanic-field-reawakens-in-Saudi-Arabia
> The researchers discovered a roughly 2-mile-long (3-km-long) rupture had opened up in the area and widened to 5 miles (8 km) long during the most powerful quake... Still, now that magma has risen to shallow levels roughly a mile (2 kilometers) below the surface of the Earth, eruptions remain possible, and the authorities have to remain vigilant, the researchers said.
[a quake opened a fissure, no lava came out, quake was believed due to a movement of magma, but it’s two miles down, and the most recent volcanism was 30 million to 5 million years ago — based on gradualist models; Velikovsky points out that the Dead Sea formed since the time of the Patriarchs, and even attributes a date in historical times for the formation of the Great Rift.]
The Age of the Dead Sea
http://www.varchive.org/itb/deadsea.htm
The Great Rift and the Jordan
http://www.varchive.org/itb/rift.htm
Mount Sneffels, Colorado
“...Here is Jenkins’ report on the expedition. The findings of the two Davids include the first known photos taken inside lava tubes on the slopes of Jebel Qidr. It is supposed that Qidr erupted around 300 years ago, making its lava caves the youngest on the Arabian Peninsula.
http://www.saudicaves.com/djen01/index.html
Here is another piece of possible biblical sites for Mt. Sinai and Moses:
http://www.bibleplus.org/discoveries/mtsinai.htm and more
http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route-mt-sinai.htm
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/searching-for-biblical-mt-sinai/
bookmark
Mt Zin ( same as Mt Hor )
http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/MountZin.html
http://www.biblewalks.com/Photos87/MountZin2.jpg
Mt. Horeb - Most likely synonymous with Sinai
http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/mountains.html
22 stops from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh Barnea
http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route-sinai-kadesh-barnea.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
