In the Jewish and Christian religions, the time when the Jewish people left Egypt and were no longer slaves is an important part of the religion. The route taken, one would think, should be well known. Along the journey, Mosses went up Mr. Sinai and came back with the 10 Commandments or the laws of the people. What if for hundreds of years, the mountain that was chosen is not the correct one? What if the mountain is actually in Saudi Arabia, in the land of Midian? When Mosses was cast out by Egypt, he settled in Midian, when he lead the people out of Egypt he went back to Midian, later Israel was founded. So the simple question is where is Midian? and why were people going to another site? When the Roman Emperor Constaintine the Great converted and made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, he had a team sent to the South Sinai Peninsula and they picked a mountain. In the Jewish tradition, the mountain where Mosses received the 10 Commandments was a mystery or an unknown. Midian is now in the boundaries of Saudi Arabia.

A wonderful book called the Gold of Exodus was written by Howard Blum, Simon and Schuster, 1998. In the book, two adventurers Larry Williams and Bob Cornuke went looking for the mountain for both spiritual and financial reasons. When the Jews left Egypt, they took a lot of gold and silver from Egypt, some of it went to the Golden Calf which was destroyed; some of it went to the Ark of the Convenant and the some was left by the mountain. Maybe it is still there? The adventurers used a variety of methods to determine where upwards of a million people would leave their trail and operations. Clues are found in the Bible for some of the bible is fact and some of it is belief. The real route to Mt. Sinai was found – from Cairo down the Gulf of Suez across the Strait of Tiran and to the mountain called Jabal al Lawz, which is in Saudi Arabia. It happens very few people will be going to the Mt. because the Saudi’s have built military infrastructure in the area. The infrastructure costs billions of dollars and will not be moving anytime soon, thus Saudi Arabia has the distinction of having the two holiest shires of the Muslim religion and the holy shine of the Christian religion.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the adventure started with a chance to find gold as well as the real Mt. Sinai, with the adventurers thinking gold was the top priority. As they followed the route, the journey of the man Mosses becomes more important and given the military infrastructure, the priorities switched to the journey. With your investments, the adventure or sense of adventure starts and one always hopes for more gold, but the journey is important. Along that journey if you can collect dividends, it makes the journey easier and then you can relish in both the journey and the gold.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions