Was Moses high on drugs on top of Mount Sinai?

Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has written a very provocative article in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy. In his article the professor claims that the biblical Moses was high on drugs when he sat on top of Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments “from God”. This assertion gives new meaning to Moses being “high” on top of the mountain.

According to the professor, Israelites regularly consumed plants with psychoactive components known for their mind-altering capabilities. The plants are usually combined in a drink called ayahuasca. He writes that “in advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings”.

The account in the Book of Exodus of thunder, lightning and a blaring trumpet, according to Shanon, are the classic imaginings of people under the influence of drugs, while Christians would rather believe that these signalled the presence and power of God.

He contends that the vision of the burning bush was obviously a drug-fuelled hallucination. The professor said the telltale signs of drug-induced visions include a loss of sense of time, seeing bright lights or fire, a blurring of the senses and profound religious and spiritual feelings.

He argues that Moses’s sense of time changed and an actual moment in physical time was subjectively perceived as an eternity — enough time for the bush in front of him to be burnt and consumed.

In the Book of Exodus, Moses was taking care of the sheep and goats of his father-in-law, Jethro; he led the flock across the desert and came to the holy mountain of Sinai. There Moses claims the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame coming from the middle of a bush. He saw that the bush was on fire but that it was not burning up.

It is at that moment that, according to Shanon, Moses began hearing voices he believed were God talking to him. I have been told that smokers highly inebriated by marijuana are also susceptible to such hallucinations and often hear the living Jah Almighty make revelations to them.

If the findings of Shanon are true, then they raise questions about the truth behind the gospels contained in the Bible; whether what Christians believe to be the word of God is a mere conjuring of the altered mental condition.

Shanon’s findings challenge orthodox Christian beliefs and it would be of no surprise if they are dismissed without further interrogation by conservative historians and the churches.

The Book of Exodus refers to the most important event in the history of Israel — the departure of the people of Israel from Egypt, where they had been enslaved. Moses, a self-confessed murderer (Exodus 2:11) and now a drug junkie, as we are told, was chosen by God to lead his people from Egypt. Why would God have entrusted a man of questionable virtues with the leadership of the Israelites from Egypt?

Shanon’s article opens a new and very interesting debate about the gospel contained in the Bible.