November 3, 1999
Baptist plans pilgrimage up Sinai with Judge Moore and Ten Commandments
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___Judge Roy Moore of Alabama has been invited to lead a group of Christian pilgrims to the top of the traditional Mount Sinai site next April in what may be the first-ever re-enactment of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments.
___Moore is the circuit court judge who was at the center of controversy earlier this year because he posted the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. At least two lawsuits werefiled over his posting of the Commandments, sparking a national debate about freedom of religious expression and separation of church and state.
THE TRADITIONAL SITE believed to be the biblical Mount Sinai is seen in the background of this photo. The buildings in the foreground are the Monastery of St. Catherine, built on the site early Christians believed to be where Moses saw the burning bush. Christian pilgrims on the Ten Commandments tour next April will trek over a roughly hewn path to ascend the mountain for prayer and worship before descending with their own tablets bearing the Commandments. (Photo courtesy of Tommy Brisco/Southwestern Seminary)
___The April trek up Jebal Musa is being planned by Ed McAteer of Memphis, Tenn. McAteer, a retired marketing executive, is a well-known activist for conservative Christian political causes and for evangelical Christian support for the nation of Israel.
___The event will be McAteer's 19th annual International Christian Prayer Breakfast in honor of Israel and to pray for the "peace of Jerusalem," a biblical reference. The prayer breakfast will be the focal point of a nine-day Holy Land tour.
___After the morning prayer meeting at the Ramada Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem April 2, participants will journey to Egypt, where they will hold a memorial service that night at the foot of Mount Sinai, McAteer said.
___Scholars have some disagreement about the exact location of what was known in patriarchal times as Mount Sinai, but the most commonly agreed upon site is in Egypt and called Jebal Musa.
___Moore and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, both Baptists, have been invited to serve as keynote speakers for the Sinai service as well as for a journey to the top of the mountain the next morning.
___McAteer said he hopes to take the pilgrims up more than 300 roughly hewn steps to the mountaintop before daybreak, where they will hold another service, read the Commandments and pray.
___Moore, he said, has been asked to provide comments while on the mountaintop about the importance of the Ten Commandments.
___The pilgrims then will descend the mountain carrying stone tablets with the Commandments engraved upon them. Tablets will be prepared in 38 languages, McAteer said.
___"As we come down, the people will have the tables of stone in their hands," he explained. "This will be a repeat of what Moses did. ... This will be the first time in 3,400 years--as far as we know--that this has happened."
___McAteer said he could think of no one more fitting to speak at the event than Moore because he has become "better identified with the Ten Commandments than any man in America."
___The evangelical Christian pilgrimage will occur just one week after the planned visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel, one of many special events planned in the Holy Land during the millennial year.
___McAteer anticipates 1,200 people attending the prayer breakfast, with an unknown number making the journey to Sinai.
___The Sinai trip is offered as an add-on to the regular tour, and reserving your own tablets to carry down the mountain will cost $95.
___For more information about the trip and prayer breakfast, call Abraham Dori at (612) 928-8518.
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