DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27910#0015
MOUNT SERBAL, FROM THE WADEE FEYRAN.
reception of local traditions and the identification of sacred sites. When, however, we come to inquire into
their mode of proceeding, we find it to have been utterly uninfluenced by what we may term the critical
faculty, and depending either upon mere chance, or upon arbitrary suppositions that are repugnant to our
reason. Thus a Jewish, a pagan, or a Christian tradition as to the true Sinai, cannot reasonably be held
to have any real weight. The arguments against Serbal seem to us to be of much greater force. Its lower
elevation than other peaks is perhaps not of much importance, since it has an appearance of equal, or even
greater height, from its isolated position ; but there is a more serious difficulty than this. The holy mountain
must have risen, at least on one side, from a great plain, where the whole Israelite encampment could have
lain. This is fatal to Serbdl. It has indeed been suggested that only a part may have encamped beneath
it, while the rest were housed in caves and scattered about the valleys in search of pasture; but this suggestion
runs counter to the Biblical narrative, which not alone makes the whole congregation to have been present
at the giving of the Law, but makes their presence a necessity in their religious training. If there is anything
most especially clear in the narrative, it is that all the Israelites were present at this, great turning-point of
their history, in order that they might bear witness of it to their children and posterity. This argument,
depending upon the fitness of the site for the circumstances of the history, seems to us almost as favourable
to what is now called Mount Horeb as it is fatal to Gebel Serbal. Beneath the former is the wide plain of
Er-Raha, amply sufficient for the Israelite camp, and completely overlooked by the broad front of the
mountain. But it cannot be said with absolute certainty that no other elevation might not as well fulfil
the required conditions: here we pause, therefore, without venturing to recommend a definite hypothesis.
reception of local traditions and the identification of sacred sites. When, however, we come to inquire into
their mode of proceeding, we find it to have been utterly uninfluenced by what we may term the critical
faculty, and depending either upon mere chance, or upon arbitrary suppositions that are repugnant to our
reason. Thus a Jewish, a pagan, or a Christian tradition as to the true Sinai, cannot reasonably be held
to have any real weight. The arguments against Serbal seem to us to be of much greater force. Its lower
elevation than other peaks is perhaps not of much importance, since it has an appearance of equal, or even
greater height, from its isolated position ; but there is a more serious difficulty than this. The holy mountain
must have risen, at least on one side, from a great plain, where the whole Israelite encampment could have
lain. This is fatal to Serbdl. It has indeed been suggested that only a part may have encamped beneath
it, while the rest were housed in caves and scattered about the valleys in search of pasture; but this suggestion
runs counter to the Biblical narrative, which not alone makes the whole congregation to have been present
at the giving of the Law, but makes their presence a necessity in their religious training. If there is anything
most especially clear in the narrative, it is that all the Israelites were present at this, great turning-point of
their history, in order that they might bear witness of it to their children and posterity. This argument,
depending upon the fitness of the site for the circumstances of the history, seems to us almost as favourable
to what is now called Mount Horeb as it is fatal to Gebel Serbal. Beneath the former is the wide plain of
Er-Raha, amply sufficient for the Israelite camp, and completely overlooked by the broad front of the
mountain. But it cannot be said with absolute certainty that no other elevation might not as well fulfil
the required conditions: here we pause, therefore, without venturing to recommend a definite hypothesis.