Issue Date: March 11, 2001

In this article:
Noah's Ark
Sodom and Gomorrah
The Red Sea
The Burning Bush
Also this week:
Preview the first chapter of Bruce Feiler's book, "Walking the Bible"
Chat with author Bruce Feiler on Monday, March 12!
Buy this book on Amazon.com
Walking the Bible : A Journey by Land

The Bible: Myth or Truth?

The Holy Land. For many, a tourist destination. Now, view its mystical power in a new light: Journey on a quest for truth in this special sneak peek at the upcoming book "Walking the Bible".

By Bruce Feiler

A FEW YEARS AGO, I was on a visit to Jerusalem. On my first day, a friend took me to a spot overlooking the city. Over there, he said, is Har Homa, a controversial neighborhood. And over there, he continued, is the rock where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. Real or not, that piece of information hit me like a bolt of Cecil B. DeMille lightning. It had never occurred to me that that story -- so timeless, so abstract -- might have happened in a place that was identifiable, no less one I could visit.

Immediately, I hatched a plan. I would take this ancient book, the Bible, the embodiment of old-fashioned knowledge, and approach it with contemporary methods of learning -- traveling, talking, living. I would enter the Bible as if it were any other world and seek to become a part of it.

For over a year, I traveled through five countries, on three continents, in four war zones, by foot, jeep, rowboat and camel, visiting the actual places of some of history's most storied events: from the volcanic peak of Mount Ararat, where Noah's ark landed, to the barren salt flats of Sodom and Gomorrah, to the depths of the Nile Valley.

In each place, I gathered the latest archaeological research, read the stories in their natural surroundings and attempted to bring the Bible back to life. I actually crossed the Red Sea. I spent weeks camping in the Sinai -- eating nothing but bread, cheese, tuna and honey -- and visited the legendary burning bush. In one of my most emotional days, I climbed the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

If I learned anything during my travels, it was this: The Bible is not an abstraction, nor even just a book. It's a living, breathing entity, undiminished by the passage of time.

More important, the Bible can be even more meaningful when viewed from the ground. The desert is one of the most profound places on Earth: It makes one feel small; it makes one feel grateful. And it never forgets. Visiting the region today, one realizes the stories of the Bible have never disappeared; they're just lying beneath the surface, waiting for someone to kick up the dust and lie on top of them. And when I, for one, lay down on them, I realized the Bible was no longer distant. What happened to those characters was happening to me. I was becoming attached to the land. I was reimagining myself. And, yes, I was drawing closer to God.

Noah's ark

My journey began in one of the most dangerous corners of the Middle East, extreme eastern Turkey, on the border with Iran. Here is the tallest mountain in the region. Mount Ararat is a perfect volcanic pyramid nearly 17,000 feet high, with a junior volcano, Little Ararat, attached to its hip. The eighth chapter of Genesis says Noah's ark, after seven months on the flood waters, came to rest on "the mountains of Ararat." Sightings of Noah's ark have long been a staple. In 1887, two Persian princes claimed they saw the ark. In 1916, Czar Nicholas II sent two expeditions to photograph it. Even Air Force One is said to have spied it in 1977. Most archaeologists dismiss these sightings, but hunters still thrive.

At the base of the mountain, I was directed to a dark building, and up a flight of stairs, where I met a shadowy figure. "Parachute," as he called himself, told me that while hiking on the mountain a few years ago he found a piece of the ark. For most of an afternoon, I pressed Parachute on his discovery. I asked him to show me pictures; he refused. I told him he could be the savior of his people; he was unmoved. I told him that my mother was dying -- a lie -- and that she could die in peace if she knew Noah was real. Nothing. "Not even for my mother?"

"Tell your mother that there is one person who has seen Noah's ark. The Bible is true."

"If she sees your ark, will she believe in God?"

"She'll have to," he said. "And you will, too. God is real. I have seen the proof."

Sodom and Gomorrah

In one of the most memorable passages of Genesis, God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of unnamed sins. At the last minute, Abraham's nephew Lot and his family are told to flee without looking behind them. When Lot's wife does look back, she becomes a pillar of salt.

This story, like Noah's, can be placed confidently on a map. The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on Earth. The area, on the border between Israel and Jordan, is like an anti-greenhouse. Because of the heat, water evaporates rapidly, leaving the sea with about 25% solids and a retching 7% salt, nearly seven times saltier than the ocean. People are said to be able to float in this brine. The one time I went in, I felt like a won ton -- not quite floating, not quite sinking, and covered in a fatty soup.

Nearby, my guide, archaeologist Avner Goren, led me to a cylindrical chamber about the size of a spiral staircase with matching two-story knobbly pillars. Only these towers weren't made of wood. They were made of salt.

"Entirely of salt?"

"Lick it," he said.

Because water evaporates so rapidly here, the floor of the Dead Sea is lined with a layer of salt. The air pushes down on the water, which in turn pushes down on the salt, which is forced out toward the shore, where it pokes up in assorted asparagus-like formations. "Every schoolkid today calls these formations Lot's wife," Avner said.

Sitting on the pillars, I could clearly see the hills of Jordan, where Lot settled with his daughters. "It's almost as if the Bible's a Baedeker," I said. "It's certainly better than my guidebooks."

"It's better because of the story," he said. "Anybody can immediately tell you which side is good. That's the reason so many of these stories work: The moral is very clear."

The Red Sea

The climactic event of the book of Exodus occurs when the Israelites cross the Red Sea to freedom from bondage in Egypt. Identifying which body of water they crossed is tricky. The Bible uses the term "yam suf," which means "sea of reeds," not "Red Sea," a mistranslation introduced 2,000 years ago.

There are five major candidates in the joint between Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, where the Suez Canal is today: the southern tip of the Mediterranean, a marsh just south of there, Lake Timsah, the Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea itself. Because the reed is papyrus, which grows in fresh water, speculation centers on the lakes. Timsah is more likely because it is shallow; one can easily imagine the Israelites wading across as Pharaoh's chariots get caught in the mud.

For me, crossing Lake Timsah was an important goal, yet on the day I arrived it was deserted and drenched in rain. I tried to hire a boat but failed. I tried to find a canoe but couldn't. "Can't you just take a picture?" my Egyptian guide asked. I was preparing to concede when suddenly we spotted a small fishing enclave. I nearly leapt from the car. A 16-year-old boy, Mohammed, agreed to ferry us across. "I catch mostly gray mullet," he said, "or sometimes Moses fish."

"Moses fish?" I repeated.

"It's a kind of flounder," Avner added.

As he spoke, the sun broke through the clouds. Quickly the scene changed, and I felt the landscape reaching up to touch me, reminding me of the danger the Israelites must have felt. They were leaving the most civilized place on Earth for the desert, based solely on the word of a god they had never seen. It was an enormous act of faith, so much so that as I sat on the water that afternoon, listening to the gulls, I felt something inside of me open up that I didnt even know was closed.

"So what do you know about Moses?" I asked.

"He was a prophet, wasn't he?" the boy said.

"Yes. He split the sea. Do you think you can do that for us?"

"Sorry," Mohammed said. "That's a miracle."

And for the first time since I started the trip, I felt myself start to cry.

The burning bush

After crossing the sea, the route the Israelites took through the desert is unclear. Twenty-two candidates have been proposed for Mount Sinai, including ones in Israel, the Sinai and Saudi Arabia. For the past 1,500 years, most pilgrims have flocked to a stirring red granite mountain in the southern Sinai. Chief reason: the burning bush.

In the fourth century, monks, building on a Bedouin tradition, identified a raspberry bramble at the base of the mountain as the burning bush of the Bible and erected a monastery to protect it. The bush -- today about six feet tall, with large, dangling branches -- is rare in the desert. The night I visited, a rusty fire extinguisher stood at one side. A fire extinguisher?

At first, I thought it was an eyesore, but then I realized the unintended humor. Was this in case the burning bush caught fire?

While the bush may be a curiosity, the mountain behind it is a marvel, the most mystical place I've ever been. Climbing, breathless, to the top the next day, I could see nothing but brown. The absence of water is not a tease here; it's stark reality. The mountains look like melting dinosaurs.

The feeling one gets is awe, coupled with humility: awe at the size of the desert, humility at the help one needs to survive it. The desert is the forge out of which the people of Israel are formed. Staring at it that afternoon, I realized how familiar it seemed, as if I'd been carrying it around with me for years.

By the end, I came to believe that the essential spirit that animates those places also animates me. If that spirit is God, then I found God in the course of my journey. If that spirit is life, then I found life. Part of me suspects that it's both and that neither can exist without the other. Either way, what I know for sure is that all I had to do to discover that spirit was not to look or listen or taste or feel. All I had to do was remember, for what I was looking for I somehow already knew.

Bruce Feiler's previous books include "Dreaming Out Loud" and "Learning to Bow". He writes often for "The New Yorker" and "The New York Times Magazine" and is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's "All Things Considered".