Frank Moore Cross believes the origins of Israel's conception of God is to be found in the region of Midian in northwestern Arabia. Cross argues that archaic biblical poetry locates Yahweh's movements in Edom/Seir/Teman/Midian and that these "are our most reliable evidence for locating Sinai/Horeb, the mountain of God."
My research concerning the Horites of Seir and Edom (Gen 36) certainly points in that direction. Midian was one of Abraham's nine sons and Tema was a Horite chief. Seir is explicitly designated a "Horite" in Genesis 36 and he was a contemporary of Esau the Elder who was a ruler of the Edo people.
According to Cross, Israel's earliest religious traditions about Yahweh, reflected in both the story of Exodus and archaic Biblical poetry like the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), indicate Yahweh came from Midian, a mountainous desert land in what is today southern Jordan and northwestern Saudi Arabia. This theory of Yahweh's Arabian origins, known by earlier scholars as the "Midianite hypothesis," has been augmented by recent archaeological discoveries that suggest a sophisticated urban culture thrived in this region at the end of the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 B.C.E.), the period when most scholars place Moses and the Exodus tradition.
Given this evidence, Cross believes the biblical writers understood Mt. Horeb, the mountain of Yahweh, to be in Arabia, not Sinai.
Cross notes that the belief that the 'mountain of God' was located in the Sinai Peninsula "has no older tradition supporting it than Byzantine times."
Order Cross' e-book here.
Related reading: Abraham and Job: Horite Rulers; Moses' Horite Family; Kushite Wives; Abraham's Sons, Nephews and Niece; Edom and the Horites
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