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We went with a group of
sixteen from St. George's College, an adult education organization that
specializes in tours around the near east. We left by bus for Eilat, the
southern most point of Israel, in the Gulf of Aqaba, then to Taba, which
is the little town where the Egyptian border starts. The goal of the trip
was Jebel Musa (Moses Mountain), the supposed spot where Moses got the
ten commandments. After leaving the bus at Taba, we switched to two all
terrain vehicles driven by two bedouin. They drove south for a while til
just past Nuweiba on the Gulf of Aqaba (just across from Saudi Arabia),
when they suddenly took off over the sand driving for nearly an hour through
sand-dune covered valleys to a camping spot under the stars.
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The second day we drove
to St. Catherine's Monastery, founded in the fourth century CE by Helena,
the mother of the Emperor Constantine, where we overnighted. It was rebuilt
in the sixth century, and the walls and church date from that period.
At 3:00 am the next day, we got up for a camel ride to a spot just below
the summit of Jebel Musa, which took nearly two hours. There we waited
for the sunrise and froze a little. |
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The photo on the left shows
the walls of St. Catherine's Monastery, built in 547 by the Roman emperor
Justinian.
The photo on the right is a view of St. Catherine's from the roof of the
newer building housing the library and the dining rooms. The church has
a tin roof, and an 18th century bell tower, but was basically constructed
in the sixth century. To the left is a mosque built in the 12th century
to accommodate the Muslims in the area. |
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One of the more exciting reasons
for me to visit the Monastery was its famous library, containing more
than 3,000 handwritten Greek manuscripts (only the Vatican library has
a larger collection of ca. 4,000 Greek manuscripts). Father Justin (born
in Los Angeles) gave us a tour of the library (pictured above left).
One spectatular find was twelve additional pages of Codex
Sinaiticus in an attic in 1975 (pictured above right), a mid-fourth century
Greek manuscript of the entire Bible, perhaps one of fifty commissioned
by the emperor Constantine. The pages shown are from Barnabas and the
Shepherd of Hermas, appended to the New Testament and indicating that
the extent of the canon had not yet been fixed when the manuscript was
produced.
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We then headed back toward
Nuweiba on the Gulf of Aqaba where we camped on the sand again, this time
a bit more comfortable because I supposed we started to get used to it.
In the morning we went on a long hike down a valley filled with enormous
sand dunes. |
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| Bedouins making breakfast |
Bedouin children |
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Sunrise on the Sinai |
David at sunrise on the Sinai |
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Buying from the Bedouin |
Our campsite |
Click "next" to
see the second page of Sinai photos.
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