For other places named Mount Sinai, see: Mount Sinai (disambiguation)

View from the summit of Mount Sinai

Sinai Peninsula, showing location of Jabal Musa

Mount Sinai (Arabic: طور سيناء , Hebrew: הר סיני), also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gebel Musa or Jabal Musa ("Moses' Mountain") by the Bedouin, is the name of a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula. Mount Sinai is a place name which may mean Mount Sinai, Egypt Biblical Mount Sinai, where according to the Bible God gave Moses the In topography a summit is a point on a surface which is higher in Elevation than all points immediately adjacent to The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai ( Coptic: sina; Egyptian Arabic: sina سينا Arabic, sina'a سيناء This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. The Bedouin, (from the Arabic (ar بدوي pl badū) are a desert-dwelling Arab Nomadic pastoralist, or previously The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai ( Coptic: sina; Egyptian Arabic: sina سينا Arabic, sina'a سيناء For information about the location of the Biblical Mount Sinai, see the corresponding article. The Biblical Mount Sinai is an ambiguously located mountain at which the Hebrew Bible states that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by

Geography

Mount Sinai is a 2285 m-high mountain in the Sinai Peninsula. It is next to Mount St. Catherine (at 2,629 m,^[1] the tallest peak on the Sinai peninsula)^[2]. Mount Catherine (جبل كاثرين also known as Gebel Katherîna is the highest mountain in Egypt, located in the southern Sinai Peninsula. A peninsula is a piece of land that is nearly surrounded by Water but connected to Mainland via an Isthmus. It is surrounded on all sides by higher peaks of the mountain range.

Geology

Mount Sinai rocks were formed in the late stage of the Arabian-Nubian Shield's (ANS) evolution. The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai ( Coptic: sina; Egyptian Arabic: sina سينا Arabic, sina'a سيناء The Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS is an exposure of Precambrian crystalline rocks on the flanks of the Red Sea. Mount Sinai displays a ring complex that consists of alkaline granites intruded into diverse rock types, including volcanics. Granite (ˈɡrænɪt is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, Felsic, igneous rock. The granites range in composition from syenogranite to alkali feldspar granite. Syenogranite is a fine to coarse grained Intrusive Igneous rock of the same general composition as Granite. The volcanic rocks are alkaline to peralkaline and they are represented by subaerial flows and eruptions and subvolcanic porphyry. Generally, the nature of the exposed rocks in Mount Sinai indicates that they originated from different depths. (M. G. Shahien, Geol. Dept. , Beni Suef, Egypt)

Monastery

The Monastery of St. Catherine is sited at the foot of the adjacent mountain - Mount Catherine - at an elevation of around 1200 m. Beni Suef, also spelled Bani Suwayf, Beni Sueif, Beni Swaif, Beni Sweif, Beni Suaif, and Beni Suef ( Coptic This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. Saint Catherine's Monastery ( Greek:) on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of an inaccessible gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt is one Mount Catherine (جبل كاثرين also known as Gebel Katherîna is the highest mountain in Egypt, located in the southern Sinai Peninsula.

Religious Significance

Main article: Biblical Mount Sinai

According to Bedouin tradition, this is the mountain where God gave laws to the Israelites. The Biblical Mount Sinai is an ambiguously located mountain at which the Hebrew Bible states that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by The Bedouin, (from the Arabic (ar بدوي pl badū) are a desert-dwelling Arab Nomadic pastoralist, or previously See also Yahweh Tetragrammaton (from the Greek, meaning ' of four letters' (tetra "four" + gramma (gen See also History of ancient Israel and Judah According to the Bible, the Israelites were the dominant group living in the Land of Israel. However, the earliest Christian traditions place this event at the nearby Mount Serbal, and a monastery was founded at its base in the 4th century; it was only in the 6th century that the monastery moved to the foot of Mount Catherine, following the guidance of Josephus's earlier claim that Sinai was the highest mountain in the area. Mount Serbal is a mountain located in southern Sinai, sometimes identified in texts as Gebel Serbal Mount Catherine (جبل كاثرين also known as Gebel Katherîna is the highest mountain in Egypt, located in the southern Sinai Peninsula. Josephus (AD 37 – c 100 also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu (Joseph son of Matthias and after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus Jebel Musa, which is adjacent to Mount Catherine, was only equated with Sinai, by Christians, after the 15th century. Also, for Muslims, there is a chapter named after this mountain in the Quran, entitled, Surah-Tin; surah/chapter 95. In which God promises by the fig, the olive, by the Mount Sinai and the city of Makkah.

Many modern biblical scholars now believe that the Israelites would have crossed the Sinai peninsula in a straight line, rather than detouring to the southern tip (assuming that they did not cross the eastern branch of the Red Sea/Reed Sea in boats or on a sandbar), and therefore look for Mount Sinai elsewhere.

The Song of Deborah, which textual scholars consider to be one of the oldest parts of the bible, suggests that Yahweh dwelt at Mount Seir, so many scholars favour a location in Nabatea (modern Arabia). See also Biblical judges Book of Judges List of women warriors in folklore literature and popular culture Textual criticism (or lower criticism) is a branch of Literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of Transcription errors in Mount Seir ( Hebrew: הַר-שֵׂעִיר Har Se'ir formed the south-east border of Edom and Judah, it may also echo the older historical border of Egypt The Nabataeans ( Arabic: الأنباط, Al-Anbāṭ) were an ancient Semitic people Arabs of southern Jordan, Canaan Alternatively, the biblical descriptions of Sinai can be interpreted as describing a volcano, and so a number of scholars have considered equating Sinai with locations in north western Saudi Arabia; there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula; though the biblical description could only be referring to God's arrival on the mountain, to give Moses the Ten Commandments, as well[1]. Plate tectonics and hotspots Divergent plate boundaries At the The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA ( المملكة العربية السعودية, al-Mamlaka al-ʻArabiyya as-Suʻūdiyya) or Suudi

Ascent

View down to the Monastery of St. Catherine from the trail to the summit. Saint Catherine's Monastery ( Greek:) on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of an inaccessible gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt is one

There are two principal routes to the summit. By the longer and less steep track known as Siket El Bashait, is possible to ascend either on foot or by camel hired from the Bedouin along the way - approximate time on foot two and a half hours. Camels are Even-toed ungulates within the Genus Camelus. The Dromedary, one-humped or Arabian camel has a single hump and the The Bedouin, (from the Arabic (ar بدوي pl badū) are a desert-dwelling Arab Nomadic pastoralist, or previously The steep, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) ascends the 3,750 "steps of penitence" directly up the ravine behind the monastery. ^[3]

Summit

View from the summit of Mount Sinai

Another view from the summit of Mount Sinai

A Greek Orthodox Chapel at the top of Mount Sinai

The summit of the mountain has a mosque and a Greek Orthodox chapel (which was constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th century church) neither of which are open to the public. A "mosque" in English refers to all types of buildings dedicated for Islamic worship although there is a distinction in Arabic between the smaller privately owned mosque and the larger The Greek Orthodox Church ( Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία Hellēnorthódoxē Ekklēsía) is formed by several autocephalous churches The chapel supposedly encloses the rock from which God made the Tablets of the Law. Tablets of Stone, Stone Tablets, Tablets of Law, or Tablets of Testimony (in Hebrew: Luchot HaBrit - "the tablets the covenant" ^[4] At the summit also is "Moses' cave" where Moses is supposed to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that according to Judeo-Christian tradition were authored by God and given

Notes

1. ^ "Mount Catherine" at Answers.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-14. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1489 - The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice.
2. ^ Sinai Geology. AllSinai. info.
3. ^ Mount Sinai. AllSinai. info.
4. ^ Mount Sinai, Egypt. Places of Peace and Power.

See also

• Archaeology
• Mount Gerizim
• Jebel Musa, Morocco, a similarly-named mountain in Morocco
• Biblical Mount Sinai
• Jabal al-Lawz

External links

• Wikitravel: Mount Sinai
• Information about the town of St. Katherine and the Sinai mountains
• Photo album from Mount Sinai and St Catherine's
• Contains many photos of both claimed sites, and some research.