So last week I was reading this article on MSNBC.com, and I sort of found it an interesting read while at the same time something tripped me up about it. Finally over this past weekend I realised what it was: This is news? Let me get this straight, some guys theory based on the fact that some plants grow in a location, and those plants were used in a different location, oceans away, as a hallucinogen is enough evidence for discrediting Moses and quite a few religious texts?

British philosophy journal Time and Mind

Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.

I’m not defending the idea that maybe everything in the Bible isn’t exactly how it seems. I am a huge supporter of painting with a broader brush, when it comes to religious texts, and I think there are a lot of writings and unknowns out there that can enhance and strengthen the foundation the Bible says. However, this little theory is just a little too speculative and fact-less for my liking (and I love conspiracy theories).

The story gets better when you find out that Benny Shanon is an expert. An expert of what exactly?

MSNBC

Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the affects of the ayahuasca plant, having “partaken of the … brew about 160 times in various locales and contexts.”

So now the whole thing just becomes funny, would we listen to an addict tell us how Washington’s crossing of the Delaware was really a fabrication they came up with while high in an opium den? The most glaringly odd part of this article is the title “Was Moses high on Mount Sinai?”, because from everything presented in the article itself the only thing the theory even discusses is that the people who witnessed the event may have had hallucinations, not Moses himself.

Kudos, MSNBC, your journalistic integrity is at an all time low. I actually had to check several times upon reading this article that I hadn’t accidentally wound up on The Onion’s website.

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