The Lost Ark
And they shall make an ark of acacia wood;
two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a
cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside
and out you shall overlay it. And you shall make two cherubim of gold. And the
cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with
their wings. You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you
shall put the Testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet with you,
and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two
cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will
give you in commandment to the children of Israel. - Exodus 25:10-22
God
instructed Moses to build the gold-covered wooden box not only as a vessel for
the Ten Commandments, but also as a device though which He could, according to
the Bible, literally converse with Moses when He wanted to. It was also a
source of great and deadly power. This makes the Ark one of the most interesting
and mysterious artifacts of the Old Testament.
Considered
by the Israelites to be the embodiment of God himself on Earth, they carried
the Ark before them as they traveled in search of a homeland and to lead their
army into battle. According to Graham Hancock's The Sign and the Seal, Biblical accounts
and Jewish legends describe the Ark as sometimes "blazing with fire and
light, inflicting cancerous tumors and severe burns, leveling mountains,
stopping rivers, blasting whole armies, and laying waste cities."
Some of the
other Biblical anecdotes about the Ark's amazing power include: an incident in
which priests attempting to carry the Ark were thrown into the air and then to
the ground; that two of Moses's nephews were killed by the Ark when they
entered the Holy of Holies where the Ark was kept; and that the cherubim
figures on top of the Ark often sparked and caused damage to nearby objects.
If the
Biblical accounts are to be taken as fact, then we have to ask why an almighty
and omnipotent God needed such a vessel through which to speak and wield his
power in the first place. This particular question has led some paranormal
investigators and ufologists to speculate that the Ark was, in fact, some kind
of communication device that an "extraterrestrial god" designed to
speak to the Earthlings he favored and befriended - namely, the Israelites.
However,
although Exodus provides the dimensions of the Ark and specifies how it should
be overlayed over in gold, inside and out, there is no mention of any kind of
circuitry... or even some kind of rudimentary speaker.
So unless we
take the stories of the Ark strictly as fable, how it worked its amazing feats
of communication and destruction is a great mystery. But just as mysterious as
the Ark's powers is its fate. Built by Moses and his artificer Bezaleel around
1250 BC, the Ark is mentioned off and on in various books of the Bible. Then
somewhere in the time period between the tenth and sixth centuries BC, the
references to it end. It simply is not mentioned again. There is no indication
of where it was kept, where it went, how it was hidden... nothing.
Besides
providing a great premise for the first Indiana Jones film, Steven Spielberg's Raiders
of the Lost Ark, the Ark has inspired many modern-day archaeologists and
religious organizations to search for its present location - not knowing
whether or not, of course, that is still exists.
Astonishingly,
some Ark hunters have claimed recently that they have found the long-lost
Ark... or at least know where it currently resides - and they don't all agree.
In
the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, swashbuckling archaeologist Indiana
Jones locates the long-missing Ark of the Covenant in the snake-filled Well of
Souls. He then loses it again to the hands of the Nazis who have orders to
deliver it directly to the occult-obsessed Adolf Hitler, who believes the Ark
will make his army invincible.
All
complete fiction, of course. But the search for the vessel that supposedly
contains the shattered remains of the tablets on which was written the original
Ten Commandments (by the finger of God, according to the Bible) is a real one.
Its true location has been the subject of speculation, tireless research, and
digging by archaeologists and treasure hunters alike for centuries. Certainly,
if it were ever found and confirmed as being genuine, it would be considered
the greatest archaeological discovery of all time - especially because of the
extraordinary paranormal powers it is said to possess.
Recently,
researchers have come forward to claim that they have actually found - or at
least know the true location of - the lost Ark.
Where
Is the Ark?
- One mention of the location of the Ark in the Bible is in II Maccabees 2:5: "And when Jeremy came thither, he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle, and the Ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door." The cave mentioned is in mount Nebo in Jordan, and many believe that it is still there. Whether or not this is being explored, I don't know.
- According to The Ark of the Covenant: Present Location and Importance, the Ark was hidden by the prophet Jeremiah at God's instruction. He moved it out of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, its former resting place, because God knew it would be looted and destroyed.
- When the Temple was rebuilt, many thought that the Ark would be returned to this Second Temple's Holy of Holies. But, according to Where Is the Ark of the Covenant?, "when the Roman General Pompey conquered Jerusalem around 63 B.C., he demanded the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies. When he did, he came out saying that he could not understand what all the interest was about the sanctuary, when it was only an empty room."
- Many believe the Ark exists right in the center of Israel. Again according to Where Is the Ark of the Covenant?, "A view that has predominated in rabbinic circles is that the Ark was hidden in a cave beneath the Temple Mount in the very heart of Israel. The theory goes that the priests hid the Ark beneath the Temple Mount, perhaps as early as during the time of King Josiah."
- The work of Biblical archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer is summarized at Where Has the Lost Ark of the Covenant Been? And his research also points to the Temple Mount. And while he has conducted many excavations of the site of the area, the Supreme Moslem Council, which has authority over the Temple Mount area itself, "has been unwilling to allow any archaeological excavations. This is partially due to their desire to keep any evidence of an ancient Jewish temple from being found on their holy site."
Recent
Discoveries
- Ron Wyatt claimed found the Ark of the Covenant, but was never allowed to provide the conclusive evidence. In 1978, according to his story, Wyatt was walking along the Calvary Escarpment in Israel when he inexplicably raised his left arm and pointed to a site being used as a trash dump and said, "That's Jeremiah's Grotto, and the Ark of the Covenant is buried in there." Amazingly, he was given permission to dig in the area and, after many trips and hours of digging, on January 6, 1982 Wyatt found and entered the cave that he believes contains the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, he claims to have actually seen the Ten Commandments stones which "look as if someone wrote in soft butter with their fingers and then turned them to stone." Unfortunately, Ron Wyatt died before he was able to prove his claims.
- In his book The Sign and the Seal, archaeologist Graham Hancock contends that the Ark resides in a chapel in Axum, a city in the Ethiopian highlands, and is guarded by a dedicated monk sworn to protect it. According to the story related to Hancock by the guardian monk, the Ark was stolen from the Temple by Menelik (the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba) and Azarius (son of Zadok, the High Priest of Israel) and taken to Ethiopia, where it has been ever since. "Are you telling me that this legend is literally true?" Hancock asks the monk. "It is not a legend," the monk replies. "It is history."
What
would it mean to the world if the Ark of the Covenant were actually found and
revealed? Would it be paraded around the globe like the treasures of King
Tutankhamun? Or, as many fundamentalist Christians believe, will it be revealed
soon as advent of the Second Coming and, with its supernatural powers, be used
in the apocalyptic Battle of Armageddon to help usher in a new age?
Or
are the Ark and its legendary paranormal powers merely the stuff of religious
myth?
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