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0:48
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:53
Let's get into it.
0:54
Our guys today, we've got a special guest on the podcast.
0:56
His name is Tim Mahoney.
0:57
So he is an investigative filmmaker and he runs patterns of evidence
1:01
which makes documentaries about investigating the historicity of the Bible.
1:04
So these include the Red Sea Miracle, the Exodus, the Moses controversy,
1:08
and his latest documentary, which is actually a two-part documentary
1:11
called Journey to Mount Sinai.
1:12
So that's what we're going to spend a lot of time of, you know, a lot of our time today, rather.
1:15
Talking about that, it's actually a four-hour-long documentary that is releasing in two parts.
1:19
And what that documentary is doing is it is basically challenging
1:22
the accepted narrative that, you know, traditional Mount Sinai is found on this place
1:27
in the map.
1:28
And he's actually exploring, I guess you could call it, the top six options
1:31
that are potentially better than the traditional option of where Mount Sinai is.
1:35
And so we go back to the beginning where we talk about why he wanted to become a documentary filmmaker,
1:39
how he was able to make that happen.
1:40
But then I even asked him the question of like, you know,
1:42
why should we really care about where Mount Sinai is?
1:44
Like, do we need to know exactly where something is?
1:46
Because again, you know, we don't know exactly where Jesus' crucifixion took place,
1:50
like the exact pinpoint location on the map.
1:53
We don't know where the wood from the crucifix is,
1:55
even though I'm sure there's somebody in the Catholic shirt that'll,
1:57
that'll sell you a piece of it or something like that.
1:59
But like, there's a lot of things out there that we don't know the exact location.
2:03
And it's fine. It doesn't really affect the foundations of our face.
2:05
So I really liked his answer on that.
2:07
You know, we go into where people think the traditional Mount Sinai is
2:10
and where we got that idea.
2:11
Some of the people whose research have kind of helped kind of mold this modern overall sense
2:16
that there's probably something else here that we haven't taken into account.
2:20
And where the Bible can help us, you know, the stuff that's outside the Bible,
2:23
extra Bible or extra biblical things and kind of what that could potentially look like for this.
2:27
Kind of what comes after this, what comes after this whole research project and everything else like that.
2:31
So guys, I enjoyed my time with Tim Mahoney.
2:33
So without further ado, let's get into it.
2:36
Tim Mahoney, welcome to Donald's Life of Man's podcast.
2:39
Hey, I'm so glad to be here.
2:41
Well, we're glad to have you on here and just as a, as a soft place to land,
2:44
I guess to start out this, this whole interview here,
2:47
you're a documentary filmmaker.
2:48
And then I guess you could throw the word investigative documentary filmmaker into there.
2:53
I'm assuming you didn't want to do that when you were like six years old playing in the backyard.
2:57
So I guess take me through the process, give us the truncated version of how you became that.
3:02
Yeah.
3:03
When I was six years old, I was actually just mainly watching black and white TV back in my day.
3:09
And we had, you know, one of those, I forgot where they call it, but it's like this little thing,
3:14
footstool that you used to lean on.
3:16
I mean, I watched TV on my knees leaning, watching, watching Roy Rogers and shows like that.
3:23
And I think there was only, the closest thing I got to documentary was Mutual of Omaha,
3:30
had some kind of a Nate, you know, like an outdoor show, you know, with Lions and Zebra's.
3:36
And so I was never thinking I would be involved with making documentary films.
3:42
I thought for sure as I got older, I was, I actually became interested in making a film
3:50
after I saw my first feature film and believe it or not, I didn't go to a movie theater
3:55
until I was 18 years old and somebody said, well, why is that?
3:59
Well, it's because my family was conservative and, you know, it just seemed like movies
4:04
where there wasn't any movies my family felt were worthy of watching.
4:09
But when I became 18, Billy Graham had a movie company called World Wide Pictures and they
4:15
made a film called The Hiding Place, which was the true story of this family in Holland.
4:21
And they were, they were hiding Jewish people in their home and getting them out of the
4:27
country during the time when World War II was happening.
4:31
And so I said, hey, mom, I really, really want to see this movie.
4:35
And so I went to it and the first time I'd ever been in a, you know, getting that sense
4:40
of the cinema and I was able to, I actually want to see the film three times in one week.
4:48
It really had a power on me and I thought I was going to go into be a musician.
4:52
And so I played an unusual instrument called a pedal steel guitar, which is sort of used
4:58
in country music.
4:59
Yeah.
5:00
And I had done, I played on a few albums in high school and I left home twice to play
5:07
with groups that were older, I got on their bus and, you know, left for home.
5:11
And I thought that that was going to be my life until I actually went on road and realized
5:16
how it's not the greatest life to be, you know, traveling around on the bus, at least
5:22
for me at that time.
5:24
And I decided, I think I'm going to look for something else.
5:27
And I thought radio.
5:28
I thought, hey, I love radio.
5:30
So I used to hang out at a radio station as a teenager.
5:34
And then eventually when I went to this movie, that became the interest of becoming a filmmaker
5:40
about a year later.
5:42
And so you become interested in becoming a filmmaker, but there are a lot of people
5:45
that are interested in doing things and then they never do it.
5:47
It's like there are people that are really interested in the idea of being in shape, but
5:50
then they don't want to actually like go to the gym or run or do any of those things.
5:53
And so it's like, you have the interest.
5:55
So how do you like make that a reality?
5:57
Take me through that.
5:58
Yeah.
5:59
I think part of it too is that I have to feel and touch things.
6:04
So I ended up once I made a decision to become a filmmaker, it was very awkward because what
6:16
I did is I finished college, I took a two year associate's degree, and then I heard
6:21
a radio commercial for this film school.
6:24
And that then said, hey, am I going to do this or am I going to go on the radio?
6:28
And I met with the people at the radio place and actually I thought I'd go into electronics.
6:33
And the guy who came from the school said, listen, if you want to go on the radio, you
6:38
shouldn't necessarily go into this side of the business.
6:41
I was more interested, it was more like repairing things electronically.
6:45
And he said, I don't think this is for you.
6:48
And then I had this other idea of, well, what if I go to film school?
6:52
And so I went to a one year, it was actually a two year film school, but I only went for
6:55
one year, and that opened up my, it took me to the next level where I then had to make
7:02
what you're supposed to make films.
7:04
And I bought a camera and I started looking through it and trying to get an idea of how
7:09
do you look through a camera?
7:10
How do you see a shot?
7:12
And in my particular case, I actually prayed and I said, I said, Lord, I want to be a filmmaker,
7:21
but I don't really even know what I'm doing.
7:22
I don't really know how to look through this lens and see anything.
7:25
And it was like a week later or so, all of a sudden I could see, I could see what I was,
7:31
I could see shots, I could see them in different places.
7:33
So I think that God answered my prayer.
7:36
And I think for a lot of us, if we've got something we think we're supposed to do or
7:40
have a sense of direction, then I think we need to pray and ask, you know, how, how,
7:47
how can I go in that direction, show me a way.
7:50
And so I then started being able to see shots.
7:53
And that led me to having a sense of, I would probably say the thing that, that has helped
7:58
me throughout my entire career as a filmmaker is having a sense of direction, whether that
8:05
direction is, Hey, there's a shot here, or there's a, you know, a story here, or there's
8:09
something I need to pay attention to.
8:12
And I think that's a combination of who, how God's created me, but I think he creates
8:17
a lot of us with this antenna, and that antenna is listening to that still small voice.
8:24
And for me, so the very first films that I made were much more documentary style, because
8:34
I was more or less not working with actors.
8:38
I was working with just, you know, going around with the camera, trying to figure stuff out.
8:43
I made some comedic, you know, productions in college, and then I made some, you know,
8:50
they almost look like avant-garde.
8:53
I was interested in music, so I took music and I filmed a sink with water dripping and
9:01
pouring out and put a soundtrack to it, because you're just experimenting, right?
9:06
And so that, that kind of led me into eventually, I met my wife at that same time.
9:12
In fact, we made a movie just recently called The Journey Home, and The Journey Home is a
9:18
testimony of my own personal life, and in the sense that I had a calling to make films,
9:26
but I didn't know how to fulfill that calling.
9:29
And so The Journey Home starts really with my wife and I, and then when I tell my backstory
9:35
after that of what happened in my own family, and so when I met my wife, I was like, "Hey,
9:44
I want to be a filmmaker," and she, you know, thought, "Well, that's kind of interesting.
9:51
How are we going to do that?
9:52
You know, how do you make a living as a filmmaker when you don't know what you're doing?"
9:57
You know?
9:58
So it's been a process to get there, eventually my family, my uncle, my backstory for my childhood
10:10
was that my dad was abused when he was a kid, and then he was, his mother had passed away.
10:18
He was left kind of alone with his brothers to fend for themselves, that their grandparents
10:22
and some neighbor abused them sexually, and he had a lot of rage, a lot of anger.
10:29
And then he went off to the Korean War, and he was in a terrible battle.
10:33
He received a silver star and a purple heart for being wounded, a silver star for bravery.
10:42
But he had this rage in him.
10:44
He eventually came and met my mother, who was really sweet, and we always had to deal
10:48
with my dad's anger, eventually we had to escape because he'd threatened to kill the
10:53
family, and we went in hiding for a long time just for our own safety.
11:01
And so I tell that story in the film, "The Journey Home," and I think it shaped my life
11:07
because my mother was such a person of faith that she would pray, and we would get done
11:14
on our knees and call out to God for protection, for provision.
11:21
I grew up on welfare because my dad decided to leave the state to avoid any kind of responsibility
11:32
to the family, and so we didn't have any income.
11:35
My mom had four kids, I was the oldest, and that began sort of our journey of faith.
11:41
And I look back on it, and I don't think it was, I mean, somehow God miraculously provided
11:46
some relatives helped us get this little house, and my mom was a real do-it-yourselfer and
11:51
she got it all fixed up, and you know, just a little bit at a time.
11:57
So part of my MO is you find something that people don't have any value in and fix it
12:02
up, you know, because sometimes there are things that have a lot of value, but not in
12:09
everyone's eyes, it's like junk to them, but my mother was one of those who could see
12:13
it, she'd go, "Hey, I think we can fix this up," you know, and we did, and it just taught
12:20
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Well, I appreciate you going into all that detail because obviously those were very formative
13:28
experiences for you as you go into your career and as you start getting into the things that
13:32
you're interested in.
13:33
And so for you, it's obviously clear again, guys, the website is patternsofevidence.com.
13:38
You can check out most of the films today.
13:40
We're going to be spending most of our time talking about your newest film, Journey to
13:43
Mount Sinai, at least the first part of Journey to Mount Sinai, and then we'll get into part
13:47
two whenever that comes out in the future as well.
13:49
But you have a tremendous amount of interest in not only the Bible itself and God's plan
13:54
for this earth, but specifically things in the Old Testament and even more specifically,
13:59
the things of Moses and the things kind of surrounding the Exodus and a lot of things
14:03
that are kind of in that vein.
14:05
And so Journey to Mount Sinai, excuse me, you're trying to find the real location of Mount Sinai
14:12
and not just going with what we have believed for hundreds and hundreds of years, or maybe
14:16
even thousands of years at this point, about Mount Sinai being at this particular location.
14:21
And that's what the documentary is about, at least the way that I would summarize it.
14:25
So for you and for our audience, how about you give us an idea about what the Journey
14:29
to Mount Sinai, what is the documentary about, and then I guess specifically, why was that
14:33
such an area of interest for you that you decided to make a documentary about it?
14:39
Those are excellent questions, and the Journey to Mount Sinai came about 20 plus years ago.
14:47
I heard that people were looking for the Exodus route, and they were looking also for chariots
14:59
and chariot wheels on the bottom of the Red Sea.
15:01
I don't know if you've ever heard about that, but people have heard about that.
15:05
Well, once I learned about that and I was involved and brought to a show in a film where
15:13
people were investigating it, I thought this is fascinating.
15:18
Could I get involved with this?
15:19
Because I was looking for something, and I had a sense, and I don't know if anybody
15:26
in their life has a sense like there's a draw to something, and I hadn't made any big films
15:32
at the time.
15:34
I had made some TV specials on the Bible, and I made one called the Bible Code, which
15:40
looked for skip sequences, if you believe it, where you would look for equidistant skip
15:47
sequences in the Torah, and they would look for words or phrases.
15:54
That was a book that came out 25 years ago called the Bible Code, and we made a documentary
15:58
on that.
16:01
I was interested, that began my interest in non-fiction more, I think documentary, I have
16:10
found that I've been drawn to it because I know that for the most part, I like it because
16:17
it's real world, real life.
16:20
It seems to sometimes be very profound when you look at documentaries.
16:24
The one challenge with documentaries today is that a lot of them aren't really documentary.
16:28
They're propaganda.
16:29
They're propaganda films that have been painted over to say it's a documentary, but a true
16:37
documentary is looking at multiple viewpoints and trying to get a clarity on what is the
16:42
truth here, whereas some films are not.
16:47
I think that's the sadness that's happened in this genre.
16:51
In this particular case, I'd heard about the fact that people were searching for these
16:56
chariot wheels, and not only that, but there was photography coming out of Saudi Arabia
17:02
that the real Mount Sinai might be in Saudi Arabia.
17:05
I was only in 2000, 2001.
17:09
I started to really seriously plan on going to make a film about it, and then 9/11 happened,
17:21
and the Middle East got more scary for a lot of people, but I still had this passion to
17:27
search.
17:28
I met a Swedish scientist by the name of Dr. Leonard Moller, who has since passed away,
17:34
but he had written a book called The Exodus Case.
17:37
I ended up talking with him, and we were able to raise money.
17:44
In the spring, in April of 2002, I went into Egypt, and I went to the locations where the
17:54
Israelites were said to have lived.
17:56
I went on the routes.
17:57
I went to the different crossing spots along the border of Egypt, and then I went to the
18:03
office who has, and then I went to the Red Sea area where other people believe the Sea
18:09
was part of it at the place called Nueba Beach.
18:12
I went to all these different locations filming everything, and that began, for me, the first
18:19
part of the investigation, and I had also then knew that there was more across the Red
18:28
Sea there in Saudi Arabia that I was fascinated by, and I got a call from a person who said,
18:34
"Hey, there's this couple who you might want to talk with," and it was Jim and Penny Caldwell.
18:39
They had lived in Saudi Arabia.
18:41
They had come out.
18:43
They were the ones who were taking quite a bit of photography, and we talked with them.
18:47
A very interesting side note to this is that when I heard about who they were was at the
18:55
same time that Dr. Mueller was staying with me from Sweden.
18:59
We talked to this couple, and Jim said that he had summited the peak on this particular
19:07
date, it's in September, and he said it was on my birthday, and Leonard Mueller said,
19:15
"What year were you born?"
19:18
He said what the year was, and as it turned out, both Dr. Mueller and Jim Caldwell were
19:24
actually born on the same day and the same year, which somebody would say, "Well, that's
19:31
just a coincidence."
19:32
It's interesting that two guys who were born on the same day or the same year were searching
19:38
for this mountain.
19:41
It was just fun because we always knew every year when they had a birthday that here these
19:46
two guys had this unique passion, as it were.
19:50
That's how I would explain it, would be that it was an amazing passion that people had.
19:55
They could not explain, I don't know if you've seen the movie, it's an older film called "Close
20:02
Encounters of the Third Kind."
20:03
I've heard of it culturally, but I've not watched it myself.
20:07
Yeah, well, Richard Dreyfus is a character that basically he has this experience where
20:12
he's like, "Can't get out," he's like possessed with this idea of this mountain, and he takes
20:17
potatoes and builds this mountain on his dining room table to get to this mountain.
20:23
I just joke about it because I think about the fact that these people that I would meet
20:27
were so moved and spent every resource that they could have and tried to get to this mountain
20:34
to find out where did God come down to Mount Sinai and meet with the Israelites?
20:40
Was this the location?
20:43
There's this great fascination.
20:44
I was caught with the same kind of passion.
20:48
It's hard to explain for this many years.
20:51
Here we are.
20:53
It's been 22 years and counting that I've been working on.
21:01
We've produced now five feature films on the Exodus, starting with Patterns of Evidence,
21:07
the Exodus.
21:08
Then we did the Moses Controversy, which was about the writing of the first books of the
21:12
Bible and discovering this language called the Protosynitic inscriptions that is really
21:19
the basis of the first alphabet.
21:21
Then we did Red Sea Miracle 1 and 2, and now we're at Journey to Mount Sinai 1, and we're
21:25
just working on Journey to Mount Sinai 2 as well.
21:29
My whole life has been, in the last third of my life here, has been consumed by this
21:35
interest and passion to investigate the historical credibility of these events.
21:43
Well, let's talk a little bit just to even set the stage because, guys, you will be able
21:47
to access the documentary and the show notes, you can check it out for yourself.
21:52
But I guess where do we get the idea in modernity that Mount Sinai is where most people, oh,
21:57
well, I guess let me back up.
21:58
Where do most people think the traditional Mount Sinai is today?
22:03
How did we get to that point of view in modernity where we feel like that's really it?
22:07
It matches exactly like the maps that are in the back of most of our Bibles.
22:11
Just to make it even more complicated a question, I guess one thing that I was struck by as
22:15
I was watching the film and hearing all these different experts and hearing you kind of
22:19
take us through everything is, why should we care about the actual location of Mount
22:24
Sinai?
22:25
I'm sure you've gotten that question before, but to some people it's like, okay, we think
22:29
it's that peak, but it might be that one.
22:31
And part of it's like, can we just go ahead with the fact that this probably happened
22:35
and like, let's just move forward, like, let's trust the Bible and let's just kind of move
22:38
on with our lives.
22:39
So a lot of questions in there, if you forget one of them, I'll try to remember myself, but
22:42
go ahead.
22:43
Well, first one is why should we care?
22:46
One of the reasons why I think that I am involved with this is because a lot of people today
22:53
that are in mainstream, let's say, scholarship are saying that there's no evidence for this.
23:00
So the Bible's not true.
23:02
So what they're basically doing is the Bible is being attacked because in the Sinai Peninsula
23:08
and you ask, well, where was that?
23:09
One was this idea kind of put forth and it was during the time of Queen Helena.
23:14
I think it's around, I want to say it's around 350 BC sometime in that time.
23:20
I might have this wrong, but it was when she was she was Constantine's mother and she went
23:27
searching for during the Byzantine period, she went searching for biblical sites and,
23:33
you know, declaring them and she was told that Sinai was down in this particular area.
23:38
I mean, the Sinai Peninsula was named Sinai Peninsula because Queen Helena basically declared
23:44
this is where Mount Sinai is.
23:47
And so what happens is that these places receive their names because of the way people think.
23:55
And then other names start to come around those names.
23:59
So the question of when you're investigating something, does the place name, did it get
24:05
its name because people thought it was where it was or was it, was that the name prior
24:09
to it?
24:10
And that was, you know, that's the challenge of using topographical names to sort of find
24:17
things because then you're saying, well, these names fit the route of the Exodus.
24:23
But once again is were those names given to those places so that it would fit the idea
24:29
of Sinai Mount Sinai being in the Sinai Peninsula.
24:33
And so, but there are other clues in this investigation.
24:37
It's a two film, four hour investigation.
24:40
But the basic question to answer is why does it matter?
24:44
It's because the Bible is telling us that God acts in time and space and that this event
24:50
really happened.
24:52
And when so many people were saying the Bible isn't true, you can just ignore it and the
24:57
events of the Bible aren't necessarily historical either.
25:01
If the events of the Exodus then are being, you know, if we're being told by scholars
25:05
that it didn't happen, then what happens to the words of Jesus?
25:10
Because Jesus talks about Moses, he talks about events in the Old Testament, and then
25:19
I actually have had scholars look at me and I say, yeah, but if this didn't happen, then
25:22
what about Jesus?
25:23
And they just give this kind of smirk on their face and they go, yeah, that's the reason
25:27
why I don't believe in Jesus either.
25:29
So if I could jump in Tim right into that point, part of the problem that people who
25:34
are not Christians or Christians, I don't read their Bible where they get kind of mixed
25:37
up and I guess flummox is you can't read the Bible as if it's all one type of writing.
25:42
I mean, there's historical writing, there's, you know, poetry, there's lament, there's,
25:49
you know, revelation and all the things there's, I'm kind of getting a little bit tongue tied,
25:53
but the prophets, there's prophecy, there's all these different types of writings.
25:58
And so I don't want to move into the world of blasphemy here.
26:01
I'm just trying to give the devil as do and I don't mean any pun with that.
26:05
But is it possible that the Exodus accounts are not meant to be read historically, but
26:09
are meant to be read allegorically or something to that point?
26:13
I'm just, I'm trying to think because I know what my opinion is, but I'm trying to think
26:17
like what would a non-Christian or what would a skeptic say in the same vein that we were
26:21
talking about?
26:22
Does that make sense?
26:23
I understand and I think that there are even in the description of the events.
26:30
For example, that the wall, that the water was parted and there were walls of water on
26:36
the left and the right.
26:37
So when we see, let's say Cecil Bina Mill's recreation of that in the Ten Commandments,
26:44
what do you see is that he, he shows walls of water standing on end with the Israelites
26:50
walking through it, but that's what we're told.
26:53
And then other people would say, well, there was an east wind that blew all night.
26:58
And so it, the wind was blowing and it was a naturalistic reason for it.
27:03
So some people would say that God works in nature and that miracles are, are natural.
27:10
The miracle is in the timing of it, the location and that it came at the right time.
27:15
And others would say, no, the wind was, was not completely physical.
27:23
It was symbolic as well and that the events actually happened.
27:28
But the question of, did the Exodus happen and was there an Exodus?
27:32
What we found in the first film was that we can see that there's actually evidence for
27:36
Joseph and his family coming into Egypt, that the location where the Bible places them.
27:42
There's evidence for Joseph's tomb.
27:45
There's evidence for the plagues of Egypt in corresponding Egyptian documents that people
27:51
have ignored because they're earlier in time.
27:54
So what we're seeing is that there's an amazing pattern of evidence.
28:00
And the whole idea of a, of a more of a scientific approach, which is the pattern approach.
28:06
Science looks for patterns and, and they want to seek this.
28:10
This is hypothesis.
28:11
They want to find a pattern there.
28:13
So all I've done as a filmmaker is, I've just said, well, what does the Bible say?
28:19
And can we find a pattern?
28:21
And then how do you explain that pattern?
28:23
And I listened to different points of view.
28:25
And that's the way we structured the films and the investigation.
28:28
But what we're seeing is this amazing pattern that is matching the biblical event.
28:33
We're just following that through the historical chronology of the Bible.
28:40
So one thing that you also described in the, in the documentary, and again, there's so
28:44
much content in there when I'm going to be able to, to talk about a third of it in our
28:48
time today.
28:49
But you do discuss the difference between the Egyptian and the Hebrew approaches to understanding
28:54
the Exodus events.
28:56
And I've heard a lot about, about Exodus and about, Hey, you know, why can't we find any
29:00
of the chariot wheels like, you know, in, in the, in the sand there and all these different
29:04
things.
29:05
And you know, I can't really get too much into that.
29:06
Cause gosh, I don't know.
29:07
I don't know how much stuff is below the sands in the Sahara desert or anywhere else
29:10
in the world where, you know, the topography has changed or something like that.
29:13
But I guess just give us an overview as to the differences between approaching the Exodus
29:17
events in the Egyptian way versus the Hebrew way.
29:20
Yeah.
29:21
I had to actually come up with a way to communicate these viewpoints.
29:27
And I chose the Hebrew and the Egyptian approach and Egyptian approach, basically what I could
29:33
see was that many people who were using toponyms, toponyms, our place names, they were looking
29:40
at words in the Hebrew and they're trying to connect them to words in Egypt.
29:46
And they felt that, that even the place that where the sea was crossed, it was called yam
29:52
suf.
29:53
And yam means see and suf has a different meaning, suf, they were wondering if it was connected
30:00
to the Egyptian word tuf, which means weedy or reeds or something like that.
30:07
And so they were trying to basically say, well, maybe this place that was crossed was
30:14
connected to Egypt and it was the Reedy lakes along Egypt.
30:20
And so they started to move the Exodus because of the idea of miracles.
30:27
You started to see more naturalistic explanations and I, in the film, the Red Sea Miracle, one,
30:34
I basically talk about the same time that Charles Darwin was putting forth his ideas,
30:42
naturalistic ideas for creation and naturalistic ideas for the Bible.
30:47
People started to diminish the miraculous.
30:49
It was possibly even offensive to them and they started looking for naturalistic explanations.
30:54
And that drew the Egyptian approach and Egyptologists drew the extra story close to Egypt so that
31:02
all the events happened close to Egypt, the partying happened close, the names were connected
31:08
and they followed all that close to Egypt.
31:11
Now, the Hebrew approach would tell you this, the Bible never uses the word yam suf to identify
31:17
any other location than the Gulf of Akaba, which is the right arm of the Red Sea.
31:26
And in all the, whenever it's given as a geographical term, even when Moses writes about it, he
31:33
basically creates the boundary of Israel using the term yam suf.
31:39
So that means that the sea that was crossed had to be on the other side of the Sinai Peninsula
31:44
and that the land that they went into had to be in Arabia, what's known today as Saudi Arabia.
31:51
And that idea is what these films are unfolding, how we read, how we got to that place.
31:59
But I can tell you that the logic is there in a very strong way.
32:04
And so the Hebrew approach uses the Hebrew understandings of things.
32:11
The Egyptian approach uses the Egyptian interpretations.
32:14
But since the Bible is a Hebrew document, I lean towards what is the Hebrew understanding
32:20
of it, as opposed to what is an Egyptian understanding of it.
32:24
So that's how, have you ever seen in the Bible, says the sea of weeds or sea of reeds, you
32:30
know?
32:31
But what does suf mean?
32:32
Because there's another definition to it.
32:35
I think the word suf means the boundary or border or end of, and it was given as a boundary,
32:42
the southern tip of Israel, when Moses basically tells what the boundary markers are.
32:49
He says from yam suf up to the sea of the Philistines, which is the Mediterranean.
32:54
And that's what they have been historically and that's what they are today, you know?
32:59
So what you're seeing, that's why I wanted to basically, and I'm a student, I'm just
33:07
trying to figure out what I'm learning as I go along here.
33:11
And I just say, okay, for me to understand this, I need to say it this way.
33:15
So often I was, when I was filming people, I had to take whatever complexity that they
33:21
were putting on what they were saying and simplify it so that I could understand it.
33:25
And then I simplified it so that people could understand it.
33:29
So there were a couple of people that were very prominent to this documentary in terms
33:33
of, you know, everyone talks about, we're all just standing on the shoulders of giants
33:36
or those that came before us.
33:38
And so if you think about it, someone may spend 50 years of their life trying to figure
33:41
out this one part that gives us this little grain of theology that we could read in an
33:45
afternoon, and then we can build off the top of that.
33:47
So seemingly a lot of people that are interested in this, you included, are really standing
33:51
on the shoulders of people named Robinson and Smith.
33:55
And so why were these two people so important for the research that you're doing in really
34:00
this whole quest to find the true Mount Sinai?
34:03
Robinson and Smith were like, there were two explorers that were versed in the Bible,
34:14
and they went out and went out on a trail, and they believed, I think, that they were
34:19
identifying the journey to Mount Sinai.
34:22
So they favored the Sinai Peninsula, a location.
34:27
But what we'd have to do is look at and go back possibly even further to, they're at
34:34
the same time there are others like Charles Beak, and I'm trying to think of his name.
34:42
There are others that were seeing that the evidence, I see if I got the book in front
34:46
of me here, that Midian, where Moses fled to, was in Saudi Arabia.
34:53
But that was a really hard thing for some people to accept, because, let's say, almost
35:02
2,000 years of tradition had placed Mount Sinai in Sinai Peninsula.
35:08
So you have Robinson and Smith that are basically following and confirming the journey and the
35:14
route and the distances to the traditional location.
35:17
And then you have this other scholar who actually Charles Beak was a celebrated and decorated
35:24
medal winner for National Geographic, and he had actually found the source of the Nile.
35:30
But when he basically came out and said that he thought that Saudi Arabia was, that Mount
35:37
Sinai was in Saudi Arabia, and that area was probably Saudi in Arabia on the east side
35:42
of the Gulf of Al-Aqaba, he was stripped of his medal.
35:47
It was that big of a conflict for people to get their head around.
35:55
But what I've done as a filmmaker and as a storyteller is that all these characters
36:02
are part of this story, they're part of the investigation.
36:10
And so there are a lot of good things that they have done, but sometimes they were standing
36:15
on somebody else's shoulders, right?
36:19
So then you have to basically say, well, what's the basis for what they believed?
36:23
Where did that come from?
36:25
And then you have to go back to that.
36:26
Well, if it came from, let's say, tradition of Queen Helena from 1,000, 1500 years earlier,
36:35
then you have to basically go, but is that correct?
36:41
So that's obviously very, very helpful research.
36:44
And even in the documentary, you bring in a ton of different people that have a lot of
36:47
different expertise.
36:48
They don't just all come from an evangelical conservative Christian point of view, certainly
36:52
not, but they all have a lot of information that they can give to this overall search.
36:57
So I'm curious what you think are some of the most significant materials that come outside
37:02
the Bible or outside of, you know, typical Protestantism that are able to aid you in
37:08
this journey to find the true location?
37:12
That's a great question.
37:13
And I'm trying to think through right now, I think that if there are extra biblical sources,
37:22
one of the things that I'm working on right now is called the willingness of sure.
37:28
And sure, S-H-U-R, so when the Israelites came out of the sea, they were in the wilderness
37:36
of sure.
37:38
And that's my understanding.
37:41
And the question is, where is this wilderness?
37:47
And many people think the wilderness is close to Egypt and that there's, it sure means wall.
37:54
And some people think that the wilderness is connected to this wall along where Pharaoh
38:03
had a forts, it was like a protection of security, you know, of these forts to keep the invaders
38:11
from coming into Egypt.
38:13
But there's another way to look at that and that, and I don't know if there's any other
38:18
biblical sources other than outside of the biblical sources, the understanding of where
38:23
Ishmael and his family were sent to.
38:27
And they were sent east of the promised land.
38:30
And if you, if I had a map, a satellite map will show you or a map will show you that
38:36
there's this mountain ridge that goes from the Gulf of Akhava all the way up through
38:43
the Arabah Valley up into the Jordan Valley in this area where there's this wall.
38:49
And we, I believe that that is where sure is.
38:53
And so there's a lot of tradition, a lot of understanding that's possibly both Islamic
38:57
as well as Christian, that this is where Ishmael's lights lived and this is where historically
39:02
speaking these other tribes were, that were all descendants of Esau, like the Moabites
39:08
I believe are, I'm trying to think of the different other groups that were there in
39:15
the Bible.
39:16
Some other archaeologists that these were these people lived.
39:21
And so I think that there are outside sources there, but you know when I do an investigation
39:26
I don't track down everything because it's just so enormous where we're at.
39:31
But as far as extra biblical ideas, I think that it's a pretty, pretty well to know where
39:38
the Ishmaelites are.
39:39
And they ended up heading towards the east off from Israel.
39:45
And even like Midian, the Bible talks about Midianites coming from the east in camels
39:52
in the story of Gideon.
39:56
And they had lots of camels and they rated, well what we do know is that scientists, archaeologists
40:02
know that the Midianite people lived in that area.
40:05
And Midian night, Midian was a, was a brother to Ishmael, he was a half brother.
40:12
And so these tribes sort of intermingled and they're all on that eastern side.
40:18
And they're all also connected to this area of shore, this wall, and this wall potentially
40:22
could be the wall of mountains that was a boundary between Jordan and Israel.
40:32
So that's kind of a complicated answer.
40:36
But what I'm saying to you is that the archeology of the, of the Bible and the people groups
40:43
that the Bible says are in the areas where they, we know that those are the areas.
40:47
And when you start to separate that out, you start to realize that that means that Mount
40:51
Sinai has to be in that area, not closer to Egypt.
40:56
Okay.
40:57
I appreciate you breaking down that detail.
40:58
So as you mentioned earlier, this is part one that's out right now, but it's technically
41:02
a four hour long documentary that has is being released in two different parts.
41:06
My understanding is you're going to look at the first three potential locations in the
41:10
first documentary.
41:11
And then you've got three more in the second documentary.
41:13
And then I believe at the end of the second documentary, you'll give us your best guess
41:18
or where you've come to with all the evidence and all that to where you think it is.
41:21
So tell us a little bit about that process.
41:23
Is there a potential that there will be a part three?
41:25
Is there more stuff that you're going to leave teased out there for us?
41:28
Just take that wherever you want to go.
41:30
Okay.
41:31
Well, I am working my way through the Bible.
41:34
So if you were to say part three, once we get to the mountain, we're going to basically
41:38
look at the part three or the next one will be patterns of evidence.
41:43
Each time I've used patterns of evidence to give the idea of what the film is about with
41:49
a colon, which would basically then tell us that what the subject matter will be.
41:53
We're going to look at what happened at the mountain because it says that God made a covenant
41:57
with the Israelites, then they build a tabernacle and they built the arch of covenant and he
42:02
comes down in their midst and the Israelites make a covenant with God.
42:09
And this is a very significant and important covenant.
42:12
Originally Abraham made a covenant with God.
42:14
Now Moses brings these Israelites who've now become a nation of 12 tribes and they make
42:20
a covenant to him.
42:22
And after about a year, I think at the mountain, they're going to go to the promised land to
42:29
take it.
42:30
It was given to them, was promised to them.
42:33
And this is what this promise was to Abraham 400 years earlier, that your descendants will
42:37
grow into mighty nation and they'll be enslaved, but in the future they'll return to this land.
42:43
But they didn't have the faith.
42:45
The people, they sent out 12 spies, the Bible tells us.
42:51
And 10 of them just said, "Hey, we can't go there, this is too difficult.
42:55
There's giants in the land."
42:57
And they anger God to the point where he says, "That's it, I'm done with these people.
43:02
I've lost my patience for the last time with them and they're all going to have to wander
43:07
in the wilderness and die."
43:09
And so the next film we'll actually look at this covenant, what happened, what happened
43:15
there when they decided not to go on the promised land and where did they wander.
43:19
And then after that, we're going to work our way into the death of Moses and Aaron and into
43:23
the promised land because we've got tremendous new evidence showing inscriptions at the locations
43:30
where they came in and the Israelites again, a second time make a covenant with God.
43:35
The next generation makes a covenant and there's evidence of the location.
43:45
There's evidence of a lot of this that we've already filmed in this area of them making
43:51
a covenant.
43:52
And then they work their way into the promised land and there's tremendous evidence that's
43:56
very unique about with giant footprints coming up from the Jordan Valley.
44:02
Archaeological remains, and what do these footprints mean?
44:06
And remember I told you about the tabernacle that was built?
44:09
Well, they were bringing that tabernacle wherever they went.
44:14
And then we're going to go to the location of Shiloh and look for evidence there of what
44:19
they found at the location where the tabernacles was eventually brought into Israel and stayed
44:25
for a number of years.
44:27
So that's sort of the direction, patterns of evidence, the hope and prayers to work our
44:32
way through the Bible.
44:34
Okay.
44:35
So we'll make this the last question of the day.
44:37
I'm curious in the future, is there something because always if you're going to hang with
44:41
us so you're this far into an interview, I want to give some red meat to my audience.
44:44
I want to, I want to know something that's going to make you uncomfortable to say it.
44:47
Is there something in the future like something that's been kicking around in your head?
44:51
Is there an area that you'd like to really dig into and investigate, kind of figure out
44:55
that maybe you haven't told a whole lot of people about that you'd be comfortable letting
44:58
us know something cool for the future?
45:03
There are multiple things and that, yeah, that's a great question, but I will say this.
45:10
I think that we're, we are living in mythologies right now.
45:15
We think about the Greeks, they had their Greek gods and the Romans had their gods.
45:21
Each culture, I think, in each time period has their own mythologies and we're living
45:27
in a mythology right now that the future will continue to become more advanced.
45:35
You know, they're looking at transhumanism for people, you know, they're trying to find
45:42
ways to basically say you can be whatever you want to be and the Bible says that it's
45:50
appointed unto man once to, you know, once to die.
45:55
But I've been shocked by people looking at finding a way to basically move consciousness
46:00
from themselves into some kind of machine that they would create or whatever.
46:04
And so as I'm looking into the future, I'm realizing that there are laws of the universe
46:11
and these laws are physical laws, but they're also spiritual laws and the Bible tells us
46:16
that in the future, we're going to stand before God and whether a name is in the Lamb's book
46:22
of life or not is a really serious situation.
46:27
And I think that people have, don't realize that how brief their existence is, the creator
46:34
of the universe has given us this little window of time to recognize who he is and the heavens
46:41
declare the glory of God.
46:43
And what's happening is that many people can be deceived as to, you know, why they're here
46:47
and what their origin is.
46:49
And I think if I'm one of the, as I'm working on more films, it'll be about origin and future.
46:57
It'll be about these films are films of remembrance and forewarning.
47:04
And I think that they'll become more dangerous in what they do.
47:13
Well, that'll be something interesting to keep tabs on, but Tim, I appreciate you going
47:17
into all the detail that you have today.
47:18
But that's all for me.
47:19
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
47:22
And I'll just say that when I say dangerous, I mean spiritually when you think about what's
47:26
going to happen in the future, you need to pay attention because we only get one chance
47:30
at this.
47:31
So that's, that's what I feel.
47:32
I think it's time for people to wake up and, and whether they're believe or not, it's
47:37
time for them to, to pay attention.
47:40
So thanks for having me in the show.
47:41
Absolutely.
47:42
I think that's a great place to leave it.
47:43
Tim Mahoney.
47:44
Thank you for coming on on Daunton life.
47:45
A man's podcast.
47:46
Thanks for having me.
47:47
There you go.
47:48
Guys.
47:49
I hope you enjoyed my time with Tim Mahoney.
47:50
But before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
47:53
Had a dog to life or a mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
47:55
for just spiritual mental and physical resilience.
47:58
The link I've got for you today is a link to the patterns of the evidence of websites.
48:01
So you can check out all the documentaries for yourself.
48:03
Thank you guys for listening to this episode.
48:05
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
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48:09
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you shoot me an email to
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48:14
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48:16
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48:35
The links are in the description.
48:37
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
48:39
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
48:45
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
48:49
I love the lion, I love the lion, I love the lion, I know you want, it's a sign, it's
49:16
not a sign, it's a sign, it's not a sign, it's a sign, it's a sign, it's a sign.