Radio Australia Today Editorial

Phils Travel Blog – Part 9

28 September 2009

The Burning Bush wasn’t burning, and in fact is nothing like the drawings we used to see in Sunday School. It actually looks like a climbing rose that has been allowed to get out of control. I know that Jac had the same thought as me: it needs a good trim and some fertiliser. It is outside of this Greek monastry that houses the Bush that we hear of the academic theory that the diet of Moses and the burning of the bush could have combined to have a hallucinogenic effect on the great man. If so, it would’ve had to last until he climbed the mountain and returned with a flat stone that to him, if he was in a stupor, must’ve looked like papyrus, only very much heavier. In this holy place I can only think of the views, the extreme beauty of the aridness and the Mel Brooks sketch from History of the World Part One, where he, as Moses, comes down the Mount with two tablets, proclaiming that he has twenty (accidentally drops one tablet, smashing it).. err.. ten commandments for everyone to obey. Trust Mel to bring one of the great moments in religious history back to earth.