Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Polycarp66 AT aol.com]

In a message dated 4/20/2000 12:40:22 PM Central Standard Time, 
tmcos AT hotmail.com writes:

<<  I know this may be unrelated but I was wondering if any of you have heard 
 about a book wriiten by a Larry Williams arguing that the biblical Mt.Sinai 
 is not in the Sinai Peninsula but rather in Saudi Arabia. Paul mentions 
 Mt.Sinai being "in Arabia" in Gal 4:25. I know of no serious scholar that 
 has argued this. This may be just hype. Any thoughts? Thank you.
  >>

I think we probably tend to impose our modern concept of what constitutes 
Arabia on this.  Here is a section from the _Anchor Bible Dictionary_ , s.v.  
"Arabia."



ARABIA (PLACE) [Heb >(a:RaB]. ARABIAN. The OT has no true geographical place 
name “Arabia,” the collective noun >aáraµb (“Arabs”) being used to 
designate the region; the geographical term “Arabia” appears only in Greek 
texts. Arabs are also sometimes referred to in the OT as beáneÆ qedem “people 
[literally “sons”] of the East” (e.g., Judg 6:3, 1 Kgs 4:30) and their 
region as <eres\ qedem, “land of the East,” or simply qedem, “East” (so Gen 
25:6, Isa 2:6).

A. History and Geography
The origin of the Arabs is debated; the conventional view is that they 
originated in the central or S part of the Arabian peninsula (e.g., 
Montgomery 1934, Hitti 1970). The inclusion of the S part of the peninsula in 
the designation “Arabia” is not, however, attested until Roman times, nor do 
people identified as “Arabs” appear in ancient texts as inhabitants of the S 
region until the same period (Eph>al 1982:8); prior to that time the S region 
was known by the names of the various kingdoms that inhabited it, such as 
Saba, Qataban, and Hadhramaut. Considerable evidence favors the theory that 
the Arabs first appeared on the N, W, and E edges of the Syrian desert, with 
an extension into the Negev, the Sinai peninsula, and the N part of the Hejaz 
(the NW coast and mountain range of the Arabian peninsula).
Egyptian texts as early as the 3d millennium b.c. refer to inhabitants of the 
S Levant as “sand-dwellers,” a term that originally must have alluded to 
nomads, although even at that early date it also applied to sedentary 
Levantine peoples. The homeland of these Asiatics was sometimes designated, 
as in the Egyptian story of Sinuhe which originated in the 20th century b.c., 
by the Semitic word qedem. Archaeological investigations have shown that 
nomads were much in evidence in Syro-Palestinian life during the period 
2200–1900 b.c., following the collapse of the EB cultures, but partially 
withdrew to the S and E desert regions during the subsequent centuries of 
ascendancy of the Canaanite city-states. The tendency of nomads to press into 
Palestine and W Transjordan as the Canaanite culture began to disintegrate 
during the latter part of the 1st millennium b.c. was impeded by the 
establishment of Edom, Moab, Israel, and other fledgling kingdoms. During 
much of the 1st millennium b.c. Arabs moved about on the fringes of the 
settled regions, not only providing the sedentary peoples with sheep, goats, 
camels, asses, and animal by-products such as skins and wool, but also 
serving as itinerant merchants trading in spices, dates, embroidery, incense, 
iron, copper, gold, precious stones, pearls, and other commodities, some of 
which originated in distant places (see Gen 2:11, 1 Kgs 10:2, Ezek 27:21–22).
Arabs were also active in the extreme S part of Palestine and Transjordan 
during the OT period. Nomadic groups, often called by tribal names rather 
than the generic term “Arab,” had long moved about in the W part of the 
Negeb between Judah and the “Brook of Egypt” (Wadi el->Arish, the 
traditional border between Palestine and Egypt) and in the rugged terrain E 
toward Edom and Midian. The Midianites, who were related to, if not identical 
with, the biblical Ishmaelites, were of Arab stock, and engaged in 
caravaneering. The biblical story of Joseph describes a Midianite caravan on 
its way from Gilead in the Transjordanian highlands to Egypt, passing through 
the vicinity of Dothan in N Palestine (Gen 37:25–28). The traders carried 
with them stock items of resin, balm, and myrrh, and also trafficked in 
slaves. Some Arab tribes probably made their living, as they did at later 
times in history, by preying upon such caravans, or by raiding villages or 
the encampments of other Arabs.
The earliest known appearance of the word “Arab” in extrabiblical texts is 
in an Assyrian record from the time of Shalmaneser III which states that an 
Arab leader named Gindibu<, who probably had his home on the SW edge of the 
Syrian desert, went with troops and 1000 camels to participate in a military 
coalition against the Assyrians that culminated in the battle of Qarqar in 
853 b.c. Arabs appear frequently in the records of a number of later Assyrian 
monarchs, from Tiglath-pileser III through Ashurbanipal (745–627 b.c.), 
sometimes as allies and sometimes as the vanquished. Tiglath-pileser’s annals 
identify various Arab tribes or leaders that were nominally integrated into 
the Assyrian empire. Under Sargon II, some Arabs were resettled in Palestine 
and elsewhere, either voluntarily or otherwise (see Eph>al 1982: 105–8). 
Arabs also appear sporadically in the records of the subsequent 
Neo-Babylonian and Persian empires. None of the Near Eastern empires could, 
however, effectively control these nomads or their territories permanently; 
at most they could make incursions into the inhospitable desert regions, and 
usually had to content themselves with striking bargains with the Bedouin 
leaders to achieve their main goal, that of keeping commercial routes open. 
See BEDOUIN AND BEDOUIN STATES.
During the Greco-Roman period, the Arabs became much better known than 
previously. Geographers began to make rudimentary distinctions among the 
regions inhabited by Arabs, referring to the North Arabian region as “Arabia 
Deserta” and the SW coast of the Arabian peninsula as “Arabia Felix.” 
Damascus was generally regarded as standing at the NW corner of Arabia 
Deserta (cf. Jdt 2:25). A third region, Arabia Petraea, emerged in Edom as 
one group of Arabs, the Nabataeans, rose to prominence during the 3d–1st 
centuries b.c. Transforming tribal leadership into kingship and their nomadic 
way of life into a sedentary existence, the Nabataeans gradually increased 
their cultural sphere N and W during this time, becoming prosperous through 
trade. They vigorously and creatively adapted Hellenistic-Roman culture to 
their indigenous traditions, particularly in their capital city of Petra. By 
the early 1st century a.d., at its zenith, the kingdom of Nabatea dominated a 
large part of Transjordan and the Negev (see Glueck 1959 and 1970, Bowersock 
1983, and Negev 1986). See also NABATEANS.
The Romans, who had actively entered the governance of the Levant with 
Pompey’s conquest of Syria and Palestine in 64–63 b.c., maintained the 
Nabataeans as a client state within the larger geographical region they 
called “Arabia” (comprising portions of Transjordan, S Syria, the Negev, and 
the NW Arabian peninsula) for well over a century, but in a.d. 106 annexed a 
large part of the Nabatean kingdom as a Roman province. Subsequently, 
attempting to prevent the still populous non-Nabatean Arab groups situated 
farther to the E and S from encroaching upon the boundaries of the empire, 
the Romans established a series of military posts in Transjordan (see 
Bowersock 1983 and Parker 1986), but these only partially achieved their 
purpose and after several centuries were abandoned; ultimately the Romans 
proved to have little more success than previous empires in controlling the 
Arabs. During the 4th–6th centuries a.d. the Arabs had considerable contact 
with the Byzantine world, but it was only when Islam emerged in the 7th 
century a.d. that they moved to the forefront of Near Eastern history.

Freedman, David Noel, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (New York: Doubleday) 
1997, 1992.

gfsomsel