The Lost Testament
David Rohl
2002 AD
"On the boundary between the deserts of Paran and Zin was an ancient holy mountain where these nomadic descendants of Abraham had worshipped El-shaddai but whom they now identified with Yahweh. The broad flat-topped summit and sandy plain below were scattered with stone altars and blackened standing stones from that bygone age of the sons of Abraham's concubines (EB/MB to Middle Bronze I). Bedouin tradition calls the place Jebel Ideid, which Arabic scholars believe means either 'Mountain of the Multitude of the Preparation' or 'Mountain of Commemoration'. The modern Israelis have dubbed it Har-Karkom (`Saffron Mountain). (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
The archaeologist who has been overseeing an archaeological survey of the site, Professor Emmanuel Anati, believes it to have been the mountain of the Ten Commandments (i.e. Mount Horeb). He is wrong in this assumption, but he has indeed found one of the most important places in the Exodus story. for this is the true site of Kadesh Barnea the holy gathering place where the multitude of Israel prepared to enter the Promised I and where they commemorated their covenant with Yahweh for the first time on top of the sacred mountain. (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
Whilst the Israelites rested at Kadesh, Moses sent spies into the country north of the Negeb desert to scout out the terrain and bring news back about the land and its people. (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
In the eleventh month of the long sojourn in the Paran desert Moses' sister, Miriam, died. She was buried on the summit of Gebel Ideid. (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
The place was called Moserah [Deuteronomy 10:61 but we know it today by its Classical Greek name of Petra - the Rose-Red City of the Nabateans, carved out of the rocks of Mount Seir a thousand years after the Israelites' had arrived at Moserah. Even so, the local descendants of the Midianites continue to call the place Wadi Musa the 'valley of Moses') in memory of the prophet's stay there. Close by is another 'Ain Musa' - spring of Moses -where, tradition holds, Yahweh's messenger struck the rock to bring forth the waters which still feed the valley of Moses. (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
It was here in the multicoloured canyons of Moserah/Petra that the twelve tribes remained km thirty seven long summers and winters. (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
Near the end of their generation-long sojourn in Wadi Musa, Moses' brother Aaron, the first Israelite high priest of Yahweh, was nearing the end of his life. It was time for him to make his last journey -- the ascent of the highest rocky peak in the Petra region where the god of Israel was awaiting his priestly servant. Moses and Eleanor, Aaron's eldest son, helped the old man climb up to the 1,396-metre-high summit of Mount liar whilst the people watched his slow progress from Wadi Thugra at the foot of the mountain. (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
Aaron was buried in a small cave atop Mount Hor, overlooking Petra, where a tiny whitewashed Muslim shrine dedicated to the 'Prophet Harun' still stands to this day. At some distant, forgotten time, between then and now, a stone sarcophagus was placed in the cave beneath the shrine within which the prophet bones were laid to rest." (The Lost Testament, David Rohl, 2002, p 223-227)
By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.