The location of Mt. Sinai, the mountain of God, has never been identified with certainty. Many candidates for Mt. Sinai, however, have been proposed by earlier Christian-era pilgrims and monks, as well as nineteenth-century explorers and biblical scholars. More recent suggestions have proposed locating this mountain in north-central, central, and southern Sinai, as well as in Edom and Arabia. None, however, has any convincing archaeological evidence to support the identification. This is surprising, given the importance of this mountain to the origins of Israel’s religion as presented in the Torah. One would think that with the details offered on the route to Mt. Sinai from Egypt in the Numbers 33 itinerary and the details provided in Exodus 15:22–19:2, following the trail to Mt. Sinai should be relatively easy. The fact that all scholars who have tried to locate Mt. Sinai over the past 1,500 years have used the Bible as the primary source for their investigation shows that such an endeavor is no simple exercise, or there would be a consensus on the identity of the mountain. For some recent writers in the minimalist mold, the lack of certainty about the location and archaeological support means that the Bible is not speaking of real events that occurred in a specific area. The phenomenological approach to religion insists that the scores of references in the Bible to the revelation at Sinai must be considered as evidence that something occurred to give rise to the tradition.

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IV. Proposed Locations for Mt. Sinai

As some of the various candidates for the mountain of God are considered here, the following biblically based criteria will guide our investigation.

(1) Despite the inability of generations of scholars to locate a Mt. Sinai around which a consensus has occurred, the Torah offers sufficient details to allow an approximate region to be determined in which that mountain might be found. In other words, the information provided by the Exodus and Numbers itineraries gives the impression that Mt. Sinai has a definite location that could be traced if some of the key toponyms could be located.

(2) Our analysis of the wilderness itineraries in Exodus and Numbers in the previous section suggests that a distance of approximately 240 to 320 kilometers (150–200 miles) should separate yam sup from Mt. Sinai.

(3) Deuteronomy 1:2 records an eleven-day journey between Mt. Sinai and Kadesh-Barnea. This distance should be around 265 to 350 kilometers (165–220 miles). Assuming that Kadesh-Barnea is in the ‘Ain Qudeirat-‘Ain Qadis region, an important coordinate is established from which to measure the distance provided by the ‘‘eleven-day journey.’’