I don't want to argue process.
The quote below does not distinguish between now and then, and even quotes a psalm to show that it was more likely then than now...."they let out smoke" or "raging {mountain}"
The site doesn't claim they had a word for volcano. If you had "a word" for volcano you wouldn't describe it as described in Psalms 104. Let's say the Hebrew word for volcano was "razmataz". It would say something like "The One who glances at the earth and ceates "earthquakes" (as they didn't have a word for this either); who touches mountains and makes them "razmataz".
Do you see? This time period was much earlier in linguistic history. Period. They didn't have words for everything. We STILL do not have words for everything. Many words have multiple definitions. However, volcano was accepted as representing what a volcano is before science needed to add a word of its own to distinguish it from mountains. So what I'm suggesting to you is that if they had a word for volcanoes they would have used it. The site isn't saying they had a word for it in the past. It's simply drawing a conclusion that certain mountains mentioned in the bible were volcanoes based on their description relative to the modern hebrew word for volcano and its etymological origins.
If it was a Volcano They could or would see fire and smoke rising or spewing out of it..... there is no need to go up the mountain.
you mean like the "pillar of fire"? or the "cloud"? You allow both of these obvious signs of a "raging mountain" being a volcano and allow them to be disembodied from the mountain they appear over. The israelites don't say they were led by a volcano or a "raging mountain" but rather by the cloud and the "pillar of fire". Clouds exist in nature and are not noteworthy of themselves. They could have only been led by a cloud that was fundamentally different from all other clouds in the sky. They had to travel by foot and saw what was most likely the same volcano that Moses was near to in Midian, because Jethro was there and no evidence of Jethro going to Egypt with Moses or being present when they left Egypt on foot. So these elements had to be visible for almost 300 miles at least. From that distance, if the terrain was flat, how much of the mountain would be visible on the horizon? Just... think about it.
I am saying they know the difference, and Moses tried using his own words to describe what was being experienced. Some actions Moses described being taken by the "pillar of smoke" cannot be a volcano.....unless as you contend Moses is a liar and a conman.
Yet you quote the "smoke and or fire was descending" because it fits with your hypothesis, whilst we (moderns) know smoke from a volcano ascend especially if described in a pillar form and fire or molten lava burns and consumes that which it comes in contact with.....
Yes... I AM saying Moses was a liar and a conman. I'm pretty sure I said that explicity. It is the very discription of "God descending in fire" that I'm taking issue with. What they saw wasn't "coming down". It was "going up". But it fit Moses's propaganda to say that "God was coming down" because with all the theological dogma concerning angels and the "heavens" it wouldn't work to make "God" come "up from the ground". There isn't even enough material on the top of a mountain to sustain a fire, so it wasn't that God's presence ignited the mountain but that his presence was the fire.
Because of the sheer size of it, Moses could pull off this deception since no one had seen a volcanic eruption before. Even if you think someone else saw one and the word was spread but not to the extent that there was a word for it... there's no reason to believe the FIRST person who saw a volcanic eruption was any less superstitious or any more of a scientist than the Israelites were. So even if someone else saw a "raging mountain", what could they really say about it without getting close enough to learn that it was a natural phenominon. I'm black. I assume you are too. Are you telling me that if you saw a volcanic eruption and didn't know what it was you would go investigate it? Or would you run as soon as you sensed danger? I am suggesting to you that they really didn't know what a volcano was, as science had not progressed far enough to give them that understanding. It's not about being smart or intelligent. If they had the scientific understanding they wouldn't have been so superstitious in general. And we all know they were so it's hard for me to really grasp your argument to the contrary. Ignorance is the evironment that superstition thrives in. Take away ignorance and you take away superstition. There are still people today who are superstitious and who believe in magic. Are they typically working in fields of advanced science and boast degrees? You know the answer is no.
Geological event "the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.....in him we live move and have our being" The connection is to God.
You think the Ancients see the world in parts. No the see the entire existence as one whole and that one whole is God. We moderns see the world in parts and then try to find how the parts relate to the whole.
Sure... except that the bible doesn't say God swallowed Jonah. It says a whale swallowed Jonah. The implication is that God, being all powerful, sent the whale and instructed it. The implication in Exodus, is not that God used a volcano to guide them, but that he descended from the sky and physically manifested in fire on top of a REGULAR mountain... which just so happened to have all the observable traits and characteristics of a volcano. But you don't want to call it that. You're arguing that it wasn't a volcano but rather smoke and fire. And that this fire happened to, at one time, be located at the top of a mountain, but that the smoke and/or fire was also independent of any such mountain, such that God could descend another time, without the super dangerous, kill you if you got too close fire, in exchange for a more tame version that appeared at the extremely flammable tent used for ritual temple services where they expected the people to bring them free food and gifts because of the belief that Moses convinced them to have in a God who had descended in fire.
So why should I or anyone, for that matter, believe that Moses was just being honest, and that he had talked to God and God had told him to collect food and money from the people, to give to he and his family. So not only are we to believe that a volcano wasn't a volcano, but was God. We're also supposed to believe that Moses heard a voice from it that told him what to tell the people to do, which just so happened, by strange coincidence, to benefit Moses and Aaron? And wait! That's not all! We must also believe that anyone who didn't believe Moses (and who therefore might spread dissent against him and cause other people to think too hard and to second guess Moses) all deserved to die and it was God who told Moses to execute them. So we must also conclude that God is a tyrant who doesn't care that he supposedly made you with freedom to choose or to think and reason, but must, whenever he chooses a human to chat with and somehow is unable to talk loud enough (microphone... speakers... megaphones...) so that everyone could hear. We must also conclude that Moses told other people not to go with him to talk to God, ever, not because he didn't want witnesses that would say he was lying, but because they weren't holy enough or whatever enough for God to want to talk to them or even allow them to overhear what he was saying. We must also believe that this same God who could kill the first born of Egypt with the "angel of death" was somehow unable to simply kill their enemies so that they wouldn't have to fight. We also have to believe they had enough time to make weapons to fight with as I don't know any large mass of slaves who are allowed to be armed; especially if pharaoh had taken such extreme precautions against them that he had their sons killed. But suddenly they have an army. And we have to believe that when Moses held his staff up (which means he wasn't doing a lick of fighting himself) it was helping them win and how does that even work? This leads us to the belief that God would only help them fight if Moses behaved like Gandalf the Grey. And if he didn't then God was going to let them lose and die.
Is this what you'd rather believe? If you really marinate on everything I just said... and this was just off the dome... what it describes is an evil, petty, childish god who takes commands from humans but only if they perform some action that looks like they're doing magic. But we know people who perform some action like this with the hopes to deceive the audience to think they did magic. We call them magicians... illusionists. And we know that however it is they are doing what they're doing, its not really magic but rather clever deception and manipulation. This is what Moses did. This is what he did when he went up against the priests (magicians) of Egypt.
Exodus 7:11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts:
This is what Moses learned in Egypt. He didn't simply learn wisdom and knowledge. The magicians of Egypt were using illusions and manipulation to make people, even the king, believe that they either had magic powers or were in contact with spirits who did. They didn't have a word for volcano but they had a word for sorcerer (kashaph) and another word for "magicians" (khartome) and a word for "enchantments" (lahat). So you want to explain to me how they had multiple words for magic and people who practiced it, not were describing volcanoes in vague descriptions?
How about you explain...
Isaiah 30:33
Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.
Why is the breath of Yahweh like a "stream" of "burning sulfur"?
Do you still insist that these holy mountains weren't volcanoes?