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He still placed Kadesh and Paran in the Sinai Peninsula, in fact Paran is what he prefers to call that Peninsula. I feel I have firmly proven they are Petra, east of Israel's southern border, however this mountain fits Petra as Kadesh quite well regardless of that.
He actually gets into an early version of Mziraim wasn't Egypt speculation, but his take on that isn't as extreme. He argues Miizraim was a tribe dwelling on the Wadi al Arish the Biblical "River of Egypt", and he identifies them as the Hyksos. I actually think this may be a reasonable way to reconcile the issues, Mizraim settled there but his 7 named sons lead colonies into Africa.
He also predates Wyatt and Cornuke in arguing for the Biblical Yam Suph referring to specifically the Gulf of Aqaba.
I'm not willing to settle on this theory for Sinai yet. What compels me to make a post on this is some of the material that surprisingly adds new context to the Petra as the original Mecca speculations.
Beke is informed by local Arabs that Jabal Baghir is also known as Jebel en-Nur or Jebel e-Nur, the Mountain of Light. And the thing is he doesn't even seem to know that name is more famously the name of a Mountain near Mecca where Jibril first appeared to Muhammad. He was simply told the Mountain of Light is one of three Mountains visible from Aqaba.
Dan Gibson, the main popularizer of the Petra as the original Mecca theory doesn't identify this mountain with Al-Nour, instead his location for the Cave of Hira is within Petra north of where the major Tombs are. But I think this mountain being a little further from Mecca then it's usually thought to be can work well, it's a place Muhammad traveled to and stayed for a month.
On page 417 Beke concludes that an earlier writer, Burckhardt, had used the name Jebel Shafeh to refer to Jebel Shera, if Jebel Shera is a mountain near Petra, it might be the one Gibson has identified as Safa or it might by Gibson's Marwah.
I wonder if it would be accurate to describe Jebel Bagir as 5 Kilometers from Aqaba?
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