Moses Was Really High on Mount Sinai

Moses was high on Mount Sinai. We all know that. No, I mean Moses was high on dope, at least according to an Israeli researcher.

In an amazing feat of reductionist theology, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher named Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, he said.

“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

So here’s what this brilliant guy thought. It was either supernatural which couldn’t be or it was a lie which he doesn’t believe. So it must be the dope. Wow! One question: Why doesn’t he believe that the supernatural explanation is true? Of course, because it couldn’t be because it’s supernatural.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances. But the Bible doesn’t have Moses getting the munchies or saying, “Whoa, cooool bush, man.”

“The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a classic phenomenon,” he said.

But why is this “researcher” so keen on the drug explanation? He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil’s Amazon forest in 1991. “I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations,” Shanon said.

Oh. I see.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

So because he had visions that means anyone who has visions must be on drugs. The guy isn’t exactly a logician.

No word yet on why Saul fell off his horse.