Experts May Have Found The Site Where God Gave Moses The 10 Commandments

For thousands of years, people have followed the teachings and messages of the Bible. Right up to the present day, the book’s a central part of the lives of Jewish and Christian people all around the world. This means any discovery that backs up its most important passages is something to take very seriously indeed.

The Ten Commandments are up there with the most influential parts of the Bible. After all, they represent the rules for life that God wants us all to abide by. These principles, the Bible tells us, were revealed to the prophet Moses on top of Mount Sinai, where they were delivered to him on slabs of stone.

The tale of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments is a very important one for believers. Because of it, in fact, people consider Mount Sinai itself to be sacred. But there’s a problem with that: we don’t know where exactly in the world Mount Sinai is. Actually, we can’t even be certain that it’s a real place.

Even so, there are experts out there making it their mission to locate Mount Sinai. And among all the uncertainty surrounding this fabled mountain, it seems that these researchers may have come up with some solid results. Archaeologists think they might have located the site — and it isn’t where many of us would’ve expected.

All of this is particularly important because of the place that Moses holds in the major religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Followers of all three belief systems revere him as a significant prophet. He’s even widely credited as the author of the initial five books that make up the Old Testament.

Moses was a leader of the Jewish people when they were enslaved in the land of Egypt. He’s said to have guided his people away from Egypt toward freedom in the Holy Land, which was pledged to them by God. Followers of Judaism today mark the moment when Jews fled Egypt during the holiday of Passover.

During their trek away from Egypt, Moses and his people are said to have encountered the Red Sea. With Egyptian forces in pursuit behind them, they urgently needed to cross. Moses prayed to God, who parted the seas to allow the Jews to pass through. And when they got to the other side, the water fell back into place and wiped out the Egyptians.

For believers, this event represents a divine miracle. But in recent years, some experts have been wondering whether or not this story is actually scientifically possible. Software engineer Carl Drews considers himself both a Christian and a man of science. And with that perspective, he set out to find out if the parting of the Red Sea could actually have taken place.

Speaking to The Washington Post in 2014, Drews laid out his point of view. He explained, “I’m arguing that the historical event happened in 1250 B.C., and the memories of it have been recorded in [the Book of] Exodus. The people of the time gloried in God and gave God credit.”

On the surface, this notion sounds pretty wild — and plenty of people think just that. But let’s hear Drews out. He did this work for his master’s dissertation at the University of Colorado, after all, so he isn’t exactly working from the fringes of academia. Plus, his study’s been peer-reviewed and published in the journal PLOS One.

Greg Holland’s an academic who focuses on hurricanes, and he’s taken a look at his colleague Drews’ paper. And for what it’s worth, Holland thinks the science adds up. Speaking to The Washington Post, he mused, “Did the parting of the sea really happen? We will never know. But Carl Drews has used impeccable science to show both where and how it may have happened.”

At the heart of Drews’ thinking is that the Red Sea mentioned in the Bible isn’t where we might think. On maps nowadays, the Red Sea’s a long strip of water that sits between Sudan and Egypt on one side and Saudi Arabia and Yemen on the other. But Drews doesn’t believe this is the body of water that was parted in the Bible.

When it’s mentioned in the Old Testament in the Hebrew language, the Red Sea’s denoted by a term that actually translates to “Sea of Reeds.” A lot of debate surrounds this phrase, and nobody’s certain of which body of water it refers to. But Drews thinks it was located to the north of the contemporary Red Sea, on the eastern side of the Nile Delta.

In the Bible, a lot of related locations are mentioned. According to the text, the Red Sea’s parting took place when Moses and his people were camping next to the coastline “in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon.” That’s pretty specific, but experts have still struggled to find places today that match these biblical sites.

Drews has tried to use archaeological evidence to match these biblical places with real-life sites. And in doing so, he’s pinpointed somewhere that might represent the fabled Sea of Reeds. This is Lake Manzala in Egypt, which was once known as the Lake of Tanis. Drews explained to The Washington Post that this lake “was a shallow brackish lagoon, and that was the ideal place for these papyrus reeds to grow... So if you want to find a sea of reeds, even today, that’s it.”

Of course, all of this rests on a pretty big assumption. Namely, that the Book of Exodus can be trusted as an accurate historical record of events that really happened thousands of years ago. We can’t be sure of that from a scientific perspective, but it’s certainly not impossible. As such, then, Drews’ ideas can’t be ruled out.

But let’s say that the places mentioned in the Book of Exodus were, in fact, real. That still doesn’t confirm that the Red Sea was actually parted. Describing this event, the Bible reads: “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.” Is there any scientific basis for saying that such a thing could’ve happened?

This is where Drews’ expertise comes in. According to him, a specific type of atmospheric event in the area of Lake of Tanis may have led to something like the biblical parting of the sea occurring. Theoretically, he believes, dry land could have been exposed and allowed people to cross.

Drews’ idea’s based on a phenomenon known as “wind setdown.” This term describes a situation in which intense winds of around 60 miles per hour push against water along a coast. This leads the water to rise dramatically in one section, and to be cleared away in another. In other words, a parting’s created. And events like this have actually been recorded in the past.

Drews also claims that wind setdown isn’t as unusual as many of us might be inclined to think. According to him, “Wind setdown happens just as often as storm surge, but hardly ever hurts people, it just blows a harbor completely dry. So this water sloshes from one side of the body to the other and leaves a dry place.”

According to Drews’ calculations, the dry area created by this particular wind setdown phenomenon would’ve been around two miles in length and three miles in width. He also believes that Moses and his people would’ve required in the region of four hours to make it through this remarkable passageway.

The workings of Drews’ model might well check out, but we still run into the issue of taking the Book of Exodus as an accurate historical record. And there are plenty of experts out there who refuse to do that. Among them are the archaeologists Neil Ascher Silberman and Israel Finkelstein, who in The Bible Unearthed stated, “[The Bible] was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination.”

Plenty of people have their objections to Drews’ claims, for one reason or another. But as for the man himself, he’s perfectly comfortable with his work both as a scientist and as a believer. As he puts it, “Faith and science can be compatible if you are willing to consider other interpretations of the text, other ideas of how this could have happened.”

So Drews has potentially helped to explain the parting of the Red Sea by scientific means, but what else can science tell us of Moses’ story? Well, let’s return to the biblical text. Months after the Red Sea’s parting, the prophet and his people ended up at the foot of Mount Sinai, which was on fire. Moses then made his way to the top, where he spoke to God.

On Mount Sinai, God informed Moses of the laws that he wanted his people to live by. These were in the form of the Ten Commandments, which were etched into a pair of stone slabs. And those same rules remain central tenets of believers’ lives today, many thousands of years after they were first recorded.

Thanks to this story, Mount Sinai’s considered sacred by members of all three of the major Abrahamic religions. But even though it’s an incredibly important tale, not everyone believes that it necessarily took place as it was laid out in the Bible. Can science help to make things any clearer?

One thing that might help us to get to grips with this story would be to find out where Mount Sinai actually is. After all, this is a matter of great debate. For a long time, a place in Egypt was believed by many to be the real deal. Now, though, archaeologists from the Doubting Thomas Research Foundation have offered an alternative view.

Ryan Mauro, the president of this organization, has spoken to The U.S. Sun news website to lay out this novel perspective. “One of the main reasons certain scholars claim that the Exodus is a myth is because little to no evidence for what the Bible records has been found at the traditional Mount Sinai in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula,” he said. “But what if these scholars have actually been looking in the wrong spot? Move over into the Arabian peninsula and you find incredibly compelling evidence matching the biblical account.”

Mauro claims that the actual Mount Sinai isn’t in Egypt, as previously thought, but in Saudi Arabia. To be more precise, he points towards a mountain called Jabal Maqla. This landform even has black patches, which could match the description of Mount Sinai as being on fire when Moses was there.

The Doubting Thomas Research Foundation also has a theory as to where Moses and his people passed through a parting in the sea. This stands in contrast to Carl Drews’ ideas on this question, but that’s hardly a surprise given the ambiguities at play here. In any case, the foundation thinks it might’ve been at a place that today we call Nuweiba Beach.

The organization’s reached this conclusion based on what appear to be ancient pathways under the waters of Nuweiba Beach. These paths, the foundation argues, seem to show signs of an army that once trudged over them. Plus, there are also indications that chariots may have passed across this surface.

The foundation has also pointed towards other archaeological discoveries that suggest the region around Jabal Maqla is biblically significant. The Book of Exodus, for instance, mentions a campsite called Elim, which hosted 70 palm trees and 12 water wells. Mauro and his team think they’ve seen evidence indicating that the campsite was situated in this particular area.

Mauro also spoke to about a big rock that stands on the approach towards Jabal Maqla. This boulder’s split, seemingly the result of water erosion. But this area tends to be dry, so such an explanation’s quite unlikely. Mauro concluded, “We believe this distinct landmark could be the rock that God commanded Moses to strike, which water then gushed forth from, miraculously providing for the Israelite population.”

Elsewhere, there appears to be an altar made of granite on Jabal Maqla. A set of marble pillars have been found situated beside this structure. These discoveries seemingly match biblical text, in which Moses creates an altar at Mount Sinai and lines up a set of 12 pillars. To date, archaeologists in the area have uncovered nine pillars that apparently align with this description.

The Book of Exodus also lays out the golden calf story, which tells of when some of Moses’ people fashioned a calf out of gold while the prophet was at the top of Mount Sinai. The golden calf represented an Egyptian god, meaning that these people were breaking God’s commandment not to worship any other deity. As a result, they were killed.

Mauro believes that archaeologists may have found the site where this incident supposedly took place. “Close to the mountain, we have this site covered with depictions of people worshiping bulls and cows,” he claimed. “And what’s really significant is that these petroglyphs are isolated to this area. It’s not like they’re carved all over the mountain.”

Now, all of these claims laid out by Mauro and his foundation are most certainly interesting. But the real question is: can they be trusted? Well, they certainly have their detractors. In fact, plenty of believers have offered their objections to the organization’s findings for a variety of different reasons.

In the end, whether you take a biblical approach or a scientific one, it’s pretty difficult to conclusively say where the biblical Mount Sinai’s truly located. The evidence pointing towards one place or another, after all, tends to be shaky at best. At its worst, the claims can be downright dubious.

In truth, it seems likely that debates of this nature will rage on forever. While fresh archaeological discoveries may enlighten us at some point down the line, it’s likely that we’ll never have all the answers we need to reach a conclusion one way or another. But the fact that we continue to ask such questions points towards just how important these biblical stories continue to be.