Chapter XXXVIII

(1A.) This somewhat confused description of St. Catherine’s mount and of Mount Sinaï, is to be accounted for by Schiltberger’s statement that he had not ascended the latter, and that he described the sites from hearsay only. He distinguishes, however, St. Catherine from what he calls “Muntagi, the mountain of the apparition”, upon which, as he was informed, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush; where flows the spring from the rock that Moses struck with his staff; the site where our Lord delivered to him the tables with the ten Commandments, etc., etc. “Muntagi” may therefore have been intended for Musa dagh, the Turkish, as Jabal Musa is the Arabic for Mountain of Moses, about which, in the words of Dean Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, 39) the traditions of Israel have lingered, certainly since the 6th century, and perhaps from a still earlier date. Mount Sinaï is called Tur Sina by Ibn Haukal, and Jabal Tur and Et Tur by Edrisi and Aboulfeda.—Ed.