The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant by Graham Phillips

Author:Graham Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2011-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

9

The Forgotten Cave

The location and topography of Jebel Madhbah certainly seemed to fit with the biblical Mountain of God. Furthermore, there were rare natural phenomena at the site that could account for the miraculous events said to have surrounded God’s appearance on the sacred mountain. However, if Jebel Madhbah really was Mount Sinai, then the holy places Moses associated with God were already being used by the Edomites. This left me with two important questions. The Bible appeared to portray the Edomites as a hostile people who practiced pagan idolatry. How had the Israelites managed to gain access to Jebel Madhbah and, more significant, why would they want to? Why would they have thought that an Edomite religious site was a place where their own God resided? To resolve this dilemma, I first needed to examine the Old Testament’s portrayal of events that led to the Israelites getting to the Mountain of God in the first place.

According to the book of Numbers, when the Israelites arrived in Kadesh, at what appears to have been the entrance to the Siq at the southeastern end of the Valley of Edom, Moses created the miraculous spring at Horeb, the Mountain of God. He then sent a message to the Edomite king asking for permission to enter his lands. However, the king refused: “Thus [the king of] Edom refused to give Israel [the Israelites] passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him” (Nm 20:21).

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