37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Closest Trip You'll Ever Take to Mt. Sinai!, June 24, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: In Search of the Mountain of God: The Discovery of the Real Mt. Sinai (Hardcover)
Do you enjoy the dangers and thrills of the unexpected? Would you dare to set foot inside a fenced and guarded mountain, forbidden to all, but perhaps one of the holiest spots on earth? All of this and more can be found in this hard to put down book. For thoses who have not heard of Robert Cornuke, he and a companion located a mountain in Saudi Arabia which they believe to be the true Mt. Sinai. There are many things to recommend about this book. Unlike other books written about this mountain named Jabal Al Lawz, this one contains 16 pages of excellent quality color photographs. (The photographs alone make the book worth the purchase) Several of the pictures of the sites on the mountain are smartly captioned with passages from the Bible which appear to allude to it. Essentially, the book contains two sections. The larger first section focuses on Cornuke's discoveries in Saudi Arabia and the price he and his partner pay for taking such a risks in a country which is unsympathetic towards intruders. The highlight of the book is Cornuke's descriptions of his remarkable observations on Jabal Al Lawz. The smaller second section focuses mainly on Egypt. Included in this section is an examination of the problems with the traditional Mt. Sinai, and the exploration of an underwater land bridge in the Gulf of Aqaba. Readers of Howard Blum's "The Gold of Exodus" will note many differences between the two books. Cornuke's book does not touch on the intrigue which is present in Blum's book. Also missing is any mention of the potential treasure which Blum's book claims may be buried around the mountain. The reader may even conclude after reading Cornuke's book that Blum perhaps took a great many literary shortcuts around the true story. Cornuke's book can be recommended to readers on two levels. The sense of adventure conveyed through Cornuke's daring personal narrative succeeds in keeping the reader totally absorbed in the book. But it is through its own bold claims, backed up by convincing photographic evidence, that the book challenges the reader's intellect and forces one to ponder its consequences.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
REVIEWING SOME REVIEWERS, September 26, 2005
This review is from: In Search of the Mountain of God: The Discovery of the Real Mt. Sinai (Hardcover)
[Originally posted on 2004, May 6.]
I do quite a bit of reading with fairly critical eyes, and yet I don't hesitate to give IN SEARCH OF THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD five stars. It is an exciting adventure story about a very significant subject. The evidence that Mr. Cornuke provides in support of his belief that Jabal al Lawz in Saudi Arabia is the REAL Mount Sinai is absolutely overwhelming. It is an excellent book that may very well challenge some of your previously held beliefs while it authenticates the historicity of the Bible's Old Testament.
What I primarily wish to do here is to correct some remarks in three of the other online reviews which I suspect might confuse others:
A READER FROM USA states that Jabal al Lawz cannot be the real Mount Sinai because Colin Humphreys evidently claims in his book, 'The Miracles Of Exodus', that Mount Sinai had to have been a volcano (due to its burning, smoking peak, and its trembling.) Yes, that would be true, but only if one feels compelled to attribute natural phenomena to all of the miracles described in The Bible. If a person accepts that God is quite capable of transcending His own creation, then finding a "rational" explanation for every miracle is not necessary, and probably fruitless. Because the circumstances on Mount Sinai when Moses met there with God describes what we commonly associate with volcanic activity, it does not at all follow that Mount Sinai MUST have been a volcano. God may heal a person of cancer, but that DOES NOT mean that God MUST be a surgeon.
WILLIAM E. THOMPSON seems to be reviewing two of Cornuke's books simultaneously and that is bound to cause confusion for those unfamiliar with the other book. The statement that the explorers should have (admittedly) returned to the site for further investigation is in regards to Cornuke's, 'In Search Of The Lost Mountains Of Noah', in which he relates his failure to locate Noah's Ark. Although Chapter Twenty-Six ('The Blood Of The Lamb') of that book is quite moving - in which the sacrifice of a lamb is compared with the sacrificial act of Jesus - I agree that the book ultimately should have been shelved until the author had legitimate evidence to offer. But that is no reason to avoid this superior book on the discovery of Mount Sinai.
In his review, ABUJIFAN far too easily dismisses the many indicators that point to Jabal al Lawz as the REAL Mount Sinai. He fails to address many of the historic landmarks that (coincidentally?!) happen to be in the same general location as the burnt Mountain, and also the coral reef that (conveniently) connects the lower tip of the Sinai Peninsula (across The Red Sea) with Saudi Arabia and the immediate area where all of these landmarks are found! He didn't mention the existence of the water-worn Split Rock (referenced in Exodus 17:5-6 and Isaiah 48:21 of The Bible) - an astonishing find! And he dismisses the photograph of the (presumed) Golden Calf Altar as a pile of rocks that "look like many naturally-occurring formations all over Western Arabia." Well, I've lived in the Southwestern U.S. all of my life, and unless rocks form quite differently in Arabia than they do here, that formation is hardly naturally-occurring, and I find it incredible that a person with a degree in archaeology would make such a claim. And therein, I suspect, is the rub. Is this a case of "professional jealousy"? Would it bother a pedigreed archaeologist if a testosterone-laden explorer armed with just his wits and his Bible made one of the greatest discoveries in the archaeologist's own backyard? Well, I don't know the answer to that, but I DO KNOW that 'IN SEARCH OF THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD: THE DISCOVERY OF THE REAL MOUNT SINAI' is a real page-turner and a Five Star book, doggone it! That's all I have to say; I'm gonna go climb back under my rock now and wait to see who finds me first, an archaeologist or an adventurer.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Investigative Work!, August 25, 2000
This review is from: In Search of the Mountain of God: The Discovery of the Real Mt. Sinai (Hardcover)
As a former professional journalist and current university professor in Old Testament studies, I am impressed with Bob Cornuke's willingness to retrace the biblical account farther back than the consensus of liberal scholarship, and to seek hard, physical evidence based on eyewitness accounts and extrabiblical testimony. Having conducted extensive research on the actual "crisis point" at the "Sea of Reeds," I believe Cornuke is dead-on in locating that point at the Straits of Tiran at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, where all the physical landmarks come together in the way the Exodus account describes. He is equally correct in contending that Mt. Sinai must have, by definition, been located outside the jurisdiction of Egypt in that day. His boldness in taking his life in his hands to see the Bible's geography attested firsthand is not only commendable -- it is potentially historic!
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