THE SINAI PROBLEM OBERHUMMER. 671 



height (2,060 ineters = 6,780 feet) from the oasis of Firan,^ near the 

 west border of the mountain range. Eminent investigators, such as 

 the Eg^'ptologists Richard Lcpsius - and George Ebers,^ followed hmi 

 in this view and attempted to prove that the earUest Christian 

 tradition assigned the event to Jebel Serbal and that it was only 

 because of the founding of the monastery by Justinian that the 

 tradition was changed to Jebel Musa. The majority of investigators 

 held to the tradition which had prevailed through the centiu'ies and 

 sharply t)pposed the new hypothesis. Karl Ritter * in his w\)rk sums 

 up all the knowledge and investigations on this subject down to 1848; 

 it is the most comprehensive description of the Sinaitic Peninsula and 

 is not yet superseded by any similar work, and especially Konstantin 

 Tischendorf.^ But the war cry, "Here Serbal, here Jebel Miisa," is 

 not yet silenced. 



All these investigators started from the seemingly self-assumed 

 presmnption that the route of the Israelites fi'om the "Red Sea," 

 that is, from the north end of the Gulf of Suez, led through the 

 mountain range to which modern geography, in agreement with tra- 

 dition, gave the name of Sinai; the native population designates it 

 simply et-Tur ("The mountain," compare Taurus). But opposed 

 to this assumption there has been of late asserting itself, with con- 

 stantly increasing force, the view that the stage of events described 

 in the Book of Exodus was not at all on the Sinaitic Peninsula, but is 

 to be sought east of the valley called al Araba, which connects the 

 Akaba-brake with the Jordan depression. With this view another 

 assumption gains in importance, namely, that the Sinai of the Bible 

 nmst have been a volcano. In contrast to the old explanations which 

 compared the phenomena described in the Book of Exodus, with a 

 heavy thunderstorm, such as do indeed sometimes occur in the water- 

 less Sinaitic Peninsula, the unmistakable similarity of those descrip- 

 tions with a volcanic eruption was now pointed out. The fu"st to 

 present this new view was the English geographer Charles Beke, who 

 had rendered nmch service in the exploration of Africa." In a special 

 monograph'' and in a communication to the "Athenaeum"^ he gave 

 expression to the view that the occurrences related in the Bible must 

 have been of a volcanic nature, and at the same time called attention 

 to the volcanic regions of northwestern Arabia, especially to the 



' Reisen in Syrien (Weimar, 1824), pp. 964f. 

 « Briefe aus Agj-pten (Berlin, 1852), pp. 340fi, 417fl. 



' Durch Goson zum Sinai (Leipzig, 1872), p. 381f. Paliistina ia Wort unci Bild, 1883, vol. 11. 

 < Die Erdkunde, part 14 (1848). 

 ' Aus dein heiligen Lande (Leipzig, 1862), p. 91fl. 



'Compare l'etermann'.s Mitteilungen (1875), p. 48f; F. Emba*-lier, I>ex. d. Reisen (1882), p. 30f; Alli- 

 bone, Diet, of Eng. Lit., Suppl. I. 

 ' Mount Sinai a Volcano (London, 1873), 48 pp. 

 » Athenseum, 1873, pp. 181, 214f. 



