This study of the Egyptian mountain widely believed to be Mount Sinai examines its geographical features, sacred sites, and the effects of rising tourism. Amid the high mountains of Egypt's southern Sinai Peninsula stands Jebel Musa, “Mount Moses,” which many Christians and Muslims revere as Mount Sinai. In this fascinating study, Joseph Hobbs draws on geography and archaeology, Biblical and Quranic accounts, and a wide array of personal experiences—from Christian monks to Bedouin shepherds, medieval Europeans, and casual tourists—to explore why this mountain came to be considered a sacred place. He also shows how that very perception now threatens its fragile ecology and inspiring solitude. After discussing the physical and geographic characteristics of Jebel Musa that suggest it as the most probable Mount Sinai, Hobbs fully describes all Christian and Muslim sacred sites around the mountain. He also views Mount Sinai from the perspectives of the Jabaliya Bedouins and the monks of the St. Katherine Monastery, both of whom have inhabited in the region for centuries. Hobbs concludes his account with the international debate over whether to build a cable car on Mount Sinai and with an unflinching description of the negative impact of tourism on the delicate desert environment. His book raises important, troubling questions for everyone concerned about the fate of the earth's wild and sacred places.

Theophanies, or manifestations of God, occur throughout the Old Testament. In this in-depth look at God's self-manifestations, Niehaus reveals their unity and how they relate to and differ from ancient Near Eastern myths and legends. *Lightning Print On Demand Title

First established 150 years ago, Chicago Sinai is one of America’s oldest Reform Jewish congregations. Its founders were upwardly mobile and civically committed men and women, founders and partners of banks and landmark businesses like Hart Schaffner & Marx, Sears & Roebuck, and the giant meatpacking firm Morris & Co. As explicitly modern Jews, Sinai’s members supported and led civic institutions and participated actively in Chicago politics. Perhaps most radically, their Sunday services, introduced in 1874 and still celebrated today, became a hallmark of the congregation. In Sundays at Sinai, Tobias Brinkmann brings modern Jewish history, immigration, urban history, and religious history together to trace the roots of radical Reform Judaism from across the Atlantic to this rapidly growing American metropolis. Brinkmann shines a light on the development of an urban reform congregation, illuminating Chicago Sinai’s practices and history, and its contribution to Christian-Jewish dialogue in the United States. Chronicling Chicago Sinai’s radical beginnings in antebellum Chicago to the present, Sundays at Sinai is the extraordinary story of a leading Jewish Reform congregation in one of America’s great cities.

In his pathbreaking Israel in Egypt James K. Hoffmeier sought to refute the claims of scholars who doubt the historical accuracy of the biblical account of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt. Analyzing a wealth of textual, archaeological, and geographical evidence, he put forth a thorough defense of the biblical tradition. Hoffmeier now turns his attention to the Wilderness narratives of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. As director of the North Sinai Archaeological Project, Hoffmeier has led several excavations that have uncovered important new evidence supporting the Wilderness narratives, including a major New Kingdom fort at Tell el-Borg that was occupied during the Israelite exodus. Hoffmeier employs these archaeological findings to shed new light on the route of the exodus from Egypt. He also investigates the location of Mount Sinai, and offers a rebuttal to those who have sought to locate it in northern Arabia and not in the Sinai peninsula as traditionally thought. Hoffmeier addresses how and when the Israelites could have lived in Sinai, as well as whether it would have been possible for Moses to write down the law received at Mount Sinai. Building on the new evidence for the Israelite sojourn in Egypt, Hoffmeier explores the Egyptian influence on the Wilderness tradition. For example, he finds Egyptian elements in Israelite religious practices, including the use of the tabernacle, and points to a significant number of Egyptian personal names among the generation of the exodus. The origin of Israel is a subject of much debate and the wilderness tradition has been marginalized by those who challenge its credibility. In Ancient Israel in Sinai, Hoffmeier brings the Wilderness tradition to the forefront and makes a case for its authenticity based on solid evidence and intelligent analysis.

A collection of reports from archaeological excavations and surveys carried out, some by the author himself, since the diverse Sinai desert was opened up to Israeli researchers in 1967. The excavations include Nabotean sites and fortresses, an Iron Age fortress and an 8th-century BCE Israelite settlement. There is also a landscape survey of the hills of Northwestern Sinai. The smaller second section contains studies of `Desert Kites', triangular hunting enclosures, in the Sinai and Southern Negev, Sinai rock inscriptions and past and present desert nomads.