Journey to Mount Sinai - Tim Mahoney AlongTheWay 123

This special episode of AlongTheWay/Charisma News features my friend and filmmaker, Tim Mahoney. I've loved his Patterns of Evidence series and in this interview, we talk about his upcoming film "Journey to Mount Sinai" 

Tickets are available at https://patternsofevidence.com/ for this special two-night showing Oct 17 & 18.

Video interview available on YouTube https://youtu.be/9PkbjROwHmg

Transcript

John Matarazzo: 0:01

Welcome to along the way. I'm John matter as your host and fellow traveler, thank you for joining me along my way as I tried to become more like Jesus every day. The goal of along the way is to identify the moments in life that Jesus really is walking with us and trying to get our attention. But just like the disciples along the way to a madness, we are missing those moments that our hearts are burning within us. I want us to be able to identify those moments, learn from others and apply those lessons to our lives so that we don't miss the blessings that God has for us along the way in our life journey. Along the way, has provided some great connections for me, one of my favorites is Tim Mahoney, the filmmaker of the series patterns of evidence, I realized recently that he had a new film coming out the journey to Mount Sinai, but I hadn't had a chance to talk to him about it yet. So I quickly contacted him and said, Hey, Tim, we need to talk about this. We actually did a video podcast for this episode, you can check out that video on my YouTube channel, I encourage you to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see episodes whenever I do get the chance to do a video, as well as just the all the episodes are there for another way to listen to episodes while you work. Or while you just have it on in the background. I want to make it available for you. However, you can join me along the way. I'll get to our conversation in just a moment. But as always, I want to thank you for listening to along the way. I hope that you like what you hear and that you subscribe. Please rate and review along the way on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening. All of my contact information is in the show notes. And you can check out all of my episodes, and please join my email list through my website along the way dot media, I would love to hear from you. Also, I have a Patreon page if you'd like to help me to continue to put out these along the way episodes. If you'd like to become a patreon supporter, simply go to patreon.com/along the way and select the level. The link to become a supporter is also in my show notes. And now here's my interview with Tim Mahoney about his film The journey to Mount Sinai. This is John Matarazzo. Four along the way and the charisma news podcast kind of doing a double double duty right now. I'm back with a good friend Tim Mahoney, the filmmaker for thinking Man films, the patterns of evidence franchise, I guess, coming from the exodus to the Moses controversy, the Red Sea crossing part one and two. And now we're talking about the journey to Mount Sinai, which comes out October 17, and 18th on theaters all across the country for special events. And, Tim, it's great to have you back on the podcast, and to be able to talk about this amazing film on this journey that God has brought you on for many, many years.

Tim Mahoney: 2:55

Gentlemen, I appreciate your taking the time we were we're right up to October 17th. And 18th is coming up here Monday and Tuesday. It's going to be a nationwide release of this next film. This is our our fifth film that we have released in the patterns of evidence, archaeological side of things. So we're continuing the journey. And I'm very this film is a little bit different job because I created something called the Mount Sinai scorecard. And some people say well, what is the Mount Sinai scorecard? Well, it's this document if you go to patterns of evidence.com We're going to be investigating six different mountains over the course of two films. Why? And so it's it's an interactive experience. No.

John Matarazzo: 3:42

That is really cool. So you're you're looking at different mountains. Okay, so there's the Sinai Peninsula, in, you know, in Egypt, there's other places that that people say that this might be Mount Sinai. Most of the time, we just look at a map and we can see, okay, this is what somebody else said, this is where it might be. But you actually took a trip there and a couple of trips, I believe. And you went there and and did some work in yourself to find out evidence that that we're in patterns so that you could see that if it what was really true. Tell us about that.

Tim Mahoney: 4:19

Yeah, so well patterns of evidence films. A pattern of evidence is the scientific approach. And what do we know is that we have the scriptures, we have the Bible, and the Bible gives us criteria in the recording of it. And the first five books of the Bible, Moses was writing what he was seeing or hearing from God. And so he was he was telling us information. And obviously some of the information was passed down from generation to generation, so that eventually Moses was able to write this out in the first five books of the Bible. And so but when he does, especially during the time of the axis, there are clues that He's giving people and those clues are really, really significant because that's how we can find whether or not we're heading in the right direction, right. So when the Israelites left Egypt, they were heading back to this mountain. And we do know that they were told to turn back and kept by the sea. And that was a film that I made just two years ago, the red sea miracle, where what's this crossing? And what we've done is in this in Mount Sinai scorecard that we have here to watch this movie, yes, there it is. Great job. I have listed six different mountains that we're going to be looking at. And the first ones are the traditional Mount Sinai, Jebel sanea, and another one called Servite, or Hashem el Turriff, in this particular case, so. So those are three mountains that are Sinai Peninsula oriented, there in that area. And those mountains, what we started to see when we were making the film was that there's a lot of details, lots of information. So we've got, let's see, 12345, we have five different areas we're gonna be focusing on on what is the journey to the mountain? Okay, what was the what was the journey? And what were the what were the scriptures that telling us about the journey, and that's in this biblical criteria per section? If you go down a little bit, yeah, even go down a little bit there, the investigation criteria, we're going to be able to look at the Scripture versus you can ahead of time read, do a little bit of prep time. The second one is Midian, where's the land of Midian? It has to be the mountain has to be in the vicinity of this area, because Moses, when he left, he fled to the land of Midian. And then when he was there, 40 years later, he came to the backside of the wilderness. And that backside of the wilderness is something we're going to be looking at what is the definition of that? And where could that be. And then we're going to look at attributes. The Bible says that the Israelites camped in front of the mountain. So there had to be a plain large enough and not just a narrow little valley, but large enough for the Israelites to camp in, there had to be enough water for literally 1000s if not millions of people, the Bible says there was a stream at the mountain and that they were able to wash their clothes and that when the golden calf altar was destroyed, Moses grounded up and threw it in the stream and made people drink it and then there was a cave there that Elijah went to this is a map here of we also show in our dog our handout, we show where these mountains are located. And then there are campsites also we we address there on the bottom. So okay, sense of these campsites. So that is basically then the final question is, is there any artifacts there, leftover from this event? And some of the people that have the different modes are saying, yes, there are inscriptions that are talking about the event. Others are saying that there are the possibility of altars and pillars that have still remained from that event. And some are saying that they found you know, graves massive grave site where the Israelites are the ones that disobeyed and were killed after the golden calf incident. All of that information is what we're going to be looking at. So that's why when we go through this first film, I've got the scorecard. Not it's like bowling. Have you ever gone bowling?

John Matarazzo: 8:37

Yes, I've gone bowling some days are better than others. And it's hard to stay out of the gutter sometimes. Yeah.

Tim Mahoney: 8:43

Well, in on the scorecard what we have there is we've got a yes, a maybe an A No. So as you go through the mountains, we go through the attributes, you can see up up up in the upper left hand corner, you got a strike a spare or gutter ball. And you can see do these How are you going to gauge these mountains as we go from mountain to mountain to mountain, right. And that's that's what the investigation is, I don't think I've been to any movies ever that had an interactive component to it like this.

John Matarazzo: 9:12

And that's a really cool thing. I love how as you've done a number of these films, each one, you're thinking of more ways to communicate what your understanding of what you're learning. Because really what you're doing is you're not, at least in the past films, and I'm sure you're continuing this way, because I haven't had a chance to see this screener of it yet. So I hope to get a chance to see it soon. But you always do a really good job of just displaying the evidence and letting the audience decide. And so it's all of your films have an interactive element because of that, because you're not just telling people this is my own conclusion. I mean, you do have your own conclusions as well, because you've seen the evidence firsthand yourself. And you've been to these places. So I'm sure You have your own thoughts. But I appreciate that you always take the time to step back and just present the evidence and let the audience let us as people that are really interested in finding the truth, see the patterns ourselves. And yeah,

Tim Mahoney: 10:14

that's awesome. Oh, thank you, John. And, and I believe that that part is important for people. Because if I, I've been learning that if I make films, once, once I make a film that allows the audience to see what the pattern is, that gives them an opportunity to, to look at the evidence, and I let the different viewpoints share what their strengths are, then the audience is free, then to make a decision. And as opposed to making a film and a lot of films, I think, are are less documentary, and more propaganda, where they look like their documentary, but they tend to just be only telling you one thing, and it's not dramatic. So they call it a documentary, but they're really propaganda films. And in this particular case, I am trying to make a film, and the films that we're making that actually open it up and allow for different voices to be heard. And we can take a look at at the information and then you as the audience can can decide. That's the reason why I'm helping you out with this scorecard here, right, so that you can make a decision, an informed decision about where Mount Sinai is.

John Matarazzo: 11:30

So I love that people can get the scorecard ahead of time. And because your films are something where it's actually good and beneficial to take notes during because there's so much information, and you present it in a very, very good way that you can continually recap as you bring in a new, not just elements of it are a new point, you're bringing like the series of these different views about a specific point. And then you bring those in, and you just kind of keep making a bigger and bigger argument, I guess for or just maybe a bigger and bigger display of evidence. And so it's good to take notes. But you've just provided an easier way for everybody to say, oh, yeah, yes, yes, no, or maybe. And so that's, that's good.

Tim Mahoney: 12:20

Well, John, sometimes I actually one of my favorite things to do is to go into the grocery store, like to go get something is our local grocery store. First of all, I do like to eat, and then it's my chance to buy things that I want. And then you know, I always get like dark chocolate, you know certain of my things that I have that I'm interested in. And but I found that when I go out to the grocery store, sometimes I don't, I only go there with one thing in mind. But I start walking through the aisles and I see something and I grab that and I grab something else. And before you know it, my arms are just filled with things I didn't know I needed before I walked into a grocery store. And I find these films are going to be like that you think you're going to be watching about the film, you're going to have to have a place to put that as your arms or your mind gets Fuller, this mount sinai scorecard is going to help you to kind of clear your thoughts and be able to at least document it. So you don't have to hold it and get confused about anything. And that's the fun part about it, I think. And then this film is also about what does it mean to go into the wilderness, because the Israelites actually God calls them out of slavery. And he's saying, I'm going to I want to meet you, I want to I want to, I'm going to be your God and and I'm going to do something at this mountain that's very special. And for a lot of us, we're in that same place where God is calling us out of this bondage. And he's calling us sometimes, though, in this wilderness experience to meet him. And he's saying that he's going to provide for us and he's going to give us he gets he's going to give us what we need to drink, what we need to eat. And then he's going to give us a mission. And that's what happened to the Israelites that were given a mission at Mount Sinai. So I find this to be a very personal film for me, because I've been working hard and there are times when I feel like I am in the wilderness making these and like God, how are you going to provide? How is this going to go forward? And

John Matarazzo: 14:26

so you weren't on this journey for a long time? And when did you first start this journey just for people that that aren't familiar with the patterns of evidence series?

Tim Mahoney: 14:39

I started being aware of it in 2000, the year 2000. So, you know, here we are. 23 years later, officially, I was in Egypt in 2002. And then I went to Saudi Arabia in 2003. And then I went to Israel in 2005. So then from there on, I mean, I've been to you European, back to different places. So I've been many, many trips, hundreds of trips filming, and digging into this information. And I think it's interesting because there are, you know, are we living in? As some people would say the End Times? And it will, why should we care about the Old Testament is because history repeats itself. The Bible even tells us that in the book of Revelation that the plagues of the Exodus are coming back. And there are things that we need to know even about the nation of Israel, because this mountain is where the nation of Israel becomes the nation, they move from just being regular people, but God's then basically bits them together to become his people. And he's, you know, the mission was they're supposed to go to the promised land. And you can learn something by this too, is because they complained a lot. They complained a lot. And we have to look at our own lives and say, okay, it has God given us a mission. But we're complaining about this, that or the other thing, and I think that's the lessons that you can learn from this investigation. Yeah,

John Matarazzo: 16:11

now I saw on the, the, the scorecard, which everybody can get if they go to patterns of evidence.com/mount, Sinai, mt s i n a i, or just go to patterns of evidence.com. And you can click the link there. But I saw that you're actually splitting this journey to Mount Sinai into two films as well, because there's just too much evidence to put into just one film,

Tim Mahoney: 16:40

there's an awful lot to consider. Yeah. And, you know, I could, I felt that happening with the red sea miracle when we were making it, I was like, Man, I don't think we're going to make it here. If I'm going to really be able to communicate Same thing here. And I felt like after 2020 plus years, you know, for me, 22 years of working on this, you you just have, you know too much. And there's too much that needs to be considered. And so that's the reason why we saw it as a two film investigation. And we're still trying to raise the money for the second film. So we are a nonprofit now patterns of evidence foundation. So if people want to help us get these films out, they can go to patterns of evidence.com and help us. And one way to help us is, is to go to the theater and to see the movie. And one of the things that I wanted to say is that, as I've been thinking about this is that right now, people are voting, you know, they're going to be voting this fall, and a lot of political ads out there. What when I want to film like patterns of evidence journey to Mount Sinai, I go so Theater, which is going to be October 17, and 18th, Monday night, Tuesday night, that's a vote, if you'd be willing to vote for that film by by getting a ticket, inviting your Sunday school class or inviting your small group or inviting your family or friends, go see that movie, because it's telling the world that the Bible is important. And that that they they're interested, I can tell you something, it's going to be an amazing evening. This is you're going to learn so much I'm going to take you to places you've never been to before. We've got inscriptions that are amazing. What if it's true, what they're saying, that relate to the Exodus, there's so many things that you're going to see that you've never seen before. It's going to be quite an inspiring and uplifting event.

John Matarazzo: 18:35

Wow. So can you give us a little teaser about what some of these things might be? Or even just a clue.

Tim Mahoney: 18:43

The there there are inscriptions in the Sinai Peninsula, that I believe is that the earliest form of Hebrew. And in our film, the Moses controversy, we were seeing that this early, this early writing is connected, I believe, to the Israelites in the Moses controversy. And the challenge has always been well what did these inscriptions say? Because there's been so many different interpretations about what they say. The question is, is who is reading them the right way, but what we have some people that are gonna look at them, they're gonna read them, they're gonna say that they see a connection to the word mana to the golden calf. And there's phrases that are that are are connecting to the Exodus event in and around the time of of Mount Sinai when the Israelites were there. And that's why they believe that Mount Sinai has to be right there in the Sinai Peninsula because of those inscriptions.

John Matarazzo: 19:40

Wow. Wow. So I can't wait to see this film as I've been a fan of your films from the first time that I saw a Facebook ad many many years ago as the as the first film was coming out the patterns of evidence Exodus. I was blown away by by that ad and I knew that I had to see the films And then because I was producing a TV show, I was like, I need to get him on as a guest. And then you started doing more films, and I couldn't be more happy to see you going after what God has called you to do, as a filmmaker, to really display that the Bible is is trustworthy. I mean, you can, you can bank on the fact that what the Bible says is true. And archaeology is proving it, history is proving it. And your films are helping to just point people in the right direction. And I want to thank you so much for for the work that you've been doing and you've been faithful with. And there's another film that you've been that you've been working on your, the your journey home, my journey home. Can you talk a little bit about that, because that's more of your story, Tim, about your personal life as well.

Tim Mahoney: 20:50

That's that's a lot of times these films, I'm not planning on actually taking a film in a particular direction. But that film, The Journey Home came about because I felt that it was important to document people who I have, who helped me make these films, and Dr. Leonard Moeller is a Swedish DNA research scientist. He was the one who introduced me to the whole idea of taking a scientific approach. And that's what he was doing. And so I really have to give him all the credit for the idea for a patterns of evidence approach really came from his, his thinking, it's more methodical, it's more well, what is the what does the Bible say we should look for? What the What pattern would that be that pattern recognition, and then you look for that pattern. And so Dr. Leonard Moeller got sick. And I went on an investigation with him in Jordan. And I could tell he, he had gotten a form of Alzheimer's, where he was losing his ability to speak. And he was being locked up. And eventually now he's, he's passed away. And he was the young man. I mean, and I had another, another friend of mine in Europe as well. That passed away. And I thought, These are key people that I looked up to, and I felt that they could be around for a long time, but then they weren't. So my purpose or making the journey home was to capture the people that had been around and to tell the stories of the making of what had happened. While we may patterns of evidence, because as you know, John, there are things that when you're making a project or something, God is acting in the daily, sometimes weekly, or throughout the year, where you look and say, Wow, that was a natural that was like supernatural that God allowed that to happen. And we tell the story of how we were led to Israel, we thought we were making a film about the Israelites in Egypt. And we had this event, this unusual board meeting, where we then were something supernatural happened in the room. And someone read a letter about the nation of Israel. And as they read that letter, he sat down, he said, if this, if this event, we're going to have a public relations event, and we're going to call it the Texas, okay, instead of the Exodus. We're going to try to do a reenactment of the Israelites from a walking in Texas, you know, I think Goshen Texas, and then we're going to go to El Passover. You know, but just to see what that would be like, just for national exposure, that, that when he read that letter and set it down, his name was Paul Ridgeway, we had this supernatural event where it was like the presence of God came in the room and swept through the room and, and people started to weep. And, and so we told that story in this film, and there's other powerful film stories. But as I was working on that film, I hired actually director Rick Altizer and recall Tyler had made me had made the film show me the Father with the Kendricks brothers, okay, vettery about fatherhood. And he started asking me questions about my girl, you know, tell me about your childhood. Tell me about what happened. And I wasn't expecting to talk about that at all. And, but we had a dark past because my father was a man who, who had been abused and, and as, as he had lots of anger. And so our family was traumatized by his past as it were, and we actually had to flee him and go in hiding. The Journey Home is really a film about my own personal life. It's a film It's a metaphor for life in general. And the fact that that we are on a journey, and that there are many songs that people could read, this world is not my home, I'm just the path is passing through. As you get a little bit older, you start to understand that more clearly that there has to be something more than just the brief years we have here. Where do where do we go from here. And I had the opportunity to, I start that film the journey home with a scene of the burial of my mother. And by the way, today is my mother's birthday. She passed away a year and a half ago, and we buried her during that COVID time. In fact, we were probably one of the last funerals allowed. Because it didn't allow people to get together. Yeah. And so we were able to bury her and and I end with her in a in the family cemetery in Wisconsin. And she talks about, about those who are passing on. And the journey home as a, again, is a testimonial film about the testimonies of God acting in our present lives as we're making a film about God acting in the past. So that's the that's the story of the journey home.

John Matarazzo: 26:16

And what is your hope for that film? I know, it's your telling your story, but what is your hope for the audience to take away as they watch that?

Tim Mahoney: 26:24

You know, it meant a lot for my family. This sounds funny, but my hope is that people will be encouraged that, that God does call us to do certain things that we don't expect to do. And, and that you have to have faith that if God has a sense of direction for you, and that's what I'd say in my own life is currently I'm in as you know, I'm struggling to make the next film. And I There are times when I get discouraged. I have to look past the situation right now. And the journey home was me telling story after story of, of obstacle. I look back on unknown, I say, Well, God really came through. But just like the Israelites, I'm no different in some cases. You know, you ask yourself, well, why did the Israelites keep complaining? Because then they see all the miracles in the past? Didn't they see all this that was happening? And yet they couldn't trust God. And here I am a fairly mature Christian. And I am sometimes just like the Israelites, I forget what God did in the past. Right. And so the journey home, I like to watch, because it reminds me of what God has done in the past when I was going through difficult times. But I think what it does for a lot of people, some people who have seen all of our films, have said that the journey home is the most powerful film that they have ever seen. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, if you want to you could you play a trailer from there.

John Matarazzo: 28:05

We're gonna play a little bit of that trailer.

Tim Mahoney: 28:09

You have turned the sound on Yeah.

John Matarazzo: 28:18

The sound coming through

Unknown: 28:19

No, no sound. Yeah.

John Matarazzo: 28:21

Well, sure exactly how to do that with this. But. But if you want to go to the website, patterns of evidence.com, you can check out and see the see the entire film, see all the things that Tim has done. Over the years, if you've got the journey to Mount Sinai, the red sea miracle part one and two, the journey home. And they're just, they're just phenomenal, phenomenal films. And, you know, Tim, is we're, we're running out of time here. And I'm going to try to figure out how to play this so that people can actually hear it. But just tell us a little bit about the path to thinking Man films and the just that some of the projects that people can be involved in as what you're with what you're doing.

Tim Mahoney: 29:10

Well, we are now a pattern is out his foundation. So we are trying to make the next film patterns of evidence, journey to Mount Sinai, part two. So my belief is God has called me to make to bring the Bible to the world to have a dialogue with the world with these films and to encourage people that there is a pattern of evidence of God acting in history. So if people want to help support us, they can go to patterns of evidence.com it can go to the movie and tell all their friends, it's going to be October 17 and 18th. That's this coming Monday and Tuesday. Or they can also go to patterns of evidence.com and sign up to be a thinker because we if you just want to get emails and be in touch with everything every week, we send out emails and we also do I have, as part of being a part of our community, we have the historical face society, which is, which is, you know, for people that want to help out with that monthly, I'll give you videos about Bible and archaeology that are coming up all the time. There's just a lot of different videos that we make that just help to help to encourage people. And when you give to that you're helping us make more films, by the way. And we think that the films have been the most powerful tool for encouraging people in their faith, as well as if I make films so that they're shareable. They're shareable with people who don't believe they're shareable with just a lot of different kinds of people. And so if you want to get it become a part of the family, we would appreciate it. Like we've said, we're, we're working on a lot of material to try to keep yeah, there it is. There's a number of films and by the way, there's more to come. And that's what we when I talked about just having faith that God is going to continue to do what we're doing. I know what the other films are, we actually haven't some of them shot. But we need to continue to have a larger family help us to make these films and to keep keep the lights on as it were in the studio.

John Matarazzo: 31:20

Yeah, that's great. And so if you go to patterns of evidence.com, you can be a part of that you can check out the film, you can get your tickets, you can see where the where it's where it's going to be playing on bigger screens, October 17, and 18th. And, Tim, it is just great to reconnect with you. It's been a little while. But I'm so glad to know that you're making more films, and that you've got more in the down the pipeline that will be coming out soon as well. And, Tim, I just want to bless you for the work that you're doing. And I know that that the the audience here loves archaeological undertakings and things that help prove that the Bible was real, the stories that we read about in the Bible are real, they really did happen. And we can trust that the Bible is true. And again, thank you so much for just taking the investment of your life of your finances of your talent, to help other people that won't be able to go to Egypt and Israel and search throughout the wilderness to find the true Sinai. You're taking people there through these stunning films, even though they might not be able to buy a plane ticket and get there themselves. They can go and bake, they can buy a ticket to go see this film, the 17th and 18th. And then I'm sure that there will be ways that people can watch it at home or streaming afterwards. Once that is once that becomes available, but go to patterns of evidence.com and you can stay up to date with the latest that filmmaker Tim Mahoney is undertaking. So, Tim, it's a pleasure to have you back on the podcast and I greatly appreciate who you are your friendship and what you're doing. Thank

Tim Mahoney: 33:05

you. Thank you, John, for having me in. And as we say at the end of our thinkers, keep on thinking everybody.

John Matarazzo: 33:14

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