On the trail of the lost Ark of the Covenant

[jw5]

Beth Shemesh​

The Ark is set up in one of the fields where, out of curiosity, the town's men open up the golden chest and gaze inside. This unholy act results in God's wrath, with Him punishing most of the hapless onlookers with death. Pictured are the foundations of Beth Shemesh in 1898.

 

[syed putra]

The ten commandments probably the only holy book you need.

 

[jw5]

Kiriath-Jearim​

The Bethshemites rid themselves of the Ark by dispatching it to Kiriath-Jearim (pictured in 1948), where a man called Abinadab looks after it for the next 20 years.

 

[jw5]

King David​

The coveted chest is eventually taken from Kiriath-Jearim by King David and, amid great rejoicing, the Ark is brought to Jerusalem.

 

[jw5]

King Solomon​

Much later, after David's departure from Jerusalem, King Solomon worshipped before the Ark after his dream in which God promises him wisdom. Thereafter, the king ordered a temple to be built, a building suitable in size and grandeur to accommodate the mysterious and powerful chest. A special inner room, named Kodesh Hakodashim ("Holy of Holies"), was prepared to receive and house the now legendary artifact (pictured).

 

[jw5]

Siege of Jerusalem​

In 597 and 587 BCE, the Babylonian Empire conquered the Israelites. Jerusalem was sacked and the Ark, supposedly stored in the temple, vanished. Pictured is an artist's impression of Solomon's Temple before it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE.

 

[JohnTan]

. It's certainly one of archaeology's most perplexing puzzles. Did this gold-plated wooden box said to house the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written ever exist?

I think it did. The ancient Israelites carried the Ark in the river Jordan, and in the OT story, the river flow stopped.

Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’” - Joshua 3 : 8

If so, what happened to it?

The Israelites put God to the test, brought the Ark into battle, thinking that God must now surely help them or else His own Ark will be captured. And God didn't take their bait. He let the foolish Israelites get slaughtered and let the Philistines capture the Ark. This was the first time the Ark was captured by the enemy.

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and every man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter, and there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. Also the ark of God was captured; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died. - 1 Samuel 4 : 10 - 11

 

[jw5]

What happened to the Ark?​

Was the Ark destroyed, captured, or hidden? Nobody knows. But since that fateful day in Jerusalem in 587 BCE, nothing has been seen of the gold-covered wooden chest. So where could it have ended up?

 

[jw5]

Josiah​

A late 2nd-century rabbinic work known as the Tosefta suggests that Josiah, the king of Judah, stored away the Ark which contained the tablets, a jar of manna (an edible substance that God provided for the Israelites during their travels in the desert), a jar containing holy anointing oil, and Aaron's rod. But this claim has never been substantiated. Pictured is a print depicting Josiah with the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

 

[jw5]

The Chapel of the Tablet​

One famous claim suggests that the Ark was removed from Jerusalem and taken to Ethiopia by Menelik I after he visited his father King Solomon. The chest was supposedly placed in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in the town of Axum. It was later moved to an adjoining chapel (pictured). Only a guardian monk may view the chest, and is confined to the Chapel of the Ark of the Covenant for the rest of his life, praying before it and offering incense. No one else can enter the building, and no one else has seen it. Whether or not the Ark truly resides beneath the chapel, the site still draws thousands of pilgrims each year.

 

[jw5]

Dome of the Rock​

Another theory as to the Ark's whereabouts is that it was hidden below the First Temple in Jerusalem before the Babylonians destroyed it in 587 BCE. But this is a claim that simply can't be substantiated: the site is home to the Dome of the Rock, sacred in Islam. Excavating beneath it is totally out of the question.

 

[JohnTan]

the site is home to the Dome of the Rock, sacred in Islam. Excavating beneath it is totally out of the question.

Except that excavating below Dome of the Rock has happened before, even in recent decades.

This cutaway drawing of the Dome of the Rock shows The Rock around which this Islamic structure is built. The Rock, shown in yellow, was the Foundation Stone of the First and Second Temples on which the Holy of Holies was built.
Below The Rock are steps that descend into a cave called al-Maghara.
The floor of the Dome of the Rock is shown in grey.

Using the excuse of “replacing carpets,” the Waqf (Islamic Trust) on the Temple Mount began digging up the stone floor today inside the Mosque of Omar – the site of some of the most sacred areas of the two Holy Temples of Kings Solomon and Herod.

A small tractor was brought into the famous gold-domed structure and dug and removed earth there, with no permit to do so. Such work requires permission from and supervision by the Antiquities Authority, as well as approval from the Ministerial Committee on Archaeological Digs in Holy Sites.

The Antiquities Authority said the works were not coordinated with it, and added, “Further questions must be directed towards the police, who are the sovereign body there.”

The joint Temple Mount Movements umbrella organization, HaMateh HaMeshutaf, reports that any change in the floor, and certainly a penetration into the earth below, is liable to cause irreversible damage to the foundations of the Holy Temple and the surviving remnants of the Holy Temple periods.

https://www.ritmeyer.com/2015/04/13/illegally-digging-up-the-temple-mount/

 

[jw5]

Hidden in a cave?​

Elsewhere, the Lemba people, a Bantu ethnic group native to Zimbabwe and South Africa, insist that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the ngoma lungundu or "voice of God," and eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains, their spiritual home.

 

[jw5]

Is the Ark in France?​

French journalist Louis Charpentier, author of 'The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral,' has made an assertion that the Ark was taken to Chartres Cathedral by the Knights Templar. Pictured is a gilded bas-relief of monks carrying the allusive chest at Auch Cathedral in France.

 

[jw5]

Did the Ark end up in Rome?​

Still in Europe, the Ark of the Covenant was said to have been kept in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by the Visigoths and Vandals in the 5th century BCE, but lost forever when the original basilica was ravaged by fire, first in 1307 and again in 1361. Pictured is the building today.

 

[jw5]

The Irish link​

On one occasion, Ireland was considered as the Ark's final destination. The Hill of Tara (pictured), an ancient ceremonial and burial site near Skryne in County Meath, was illegally excavated by British Israelites in the early 20th century in the belief that the hill contained the missing chest.

 

[jw5]

The Anubis Shrine​

Howard Carter's heart must have missed a beat when he entered the Anubis Shrine, part of Tutankhamun's tomb, on November 4, 1922. Already in awe of the treasures he and his team had stumbled upon, there in front of him was something that resembled the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, it was the wood, plaster, lacquer, and gold leaf Anubis Shrine. No matter though. Carter was about to discover an equally momentous archaeological find—Tutankhamun himself!

 

[jw5]

'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981)​

Arguably the most famous quest for archaeology's most misplaced box was on the big screen. In the 1981 movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is hired by the US government to find the Ark of the Covenant before Adolf Hitler's Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

The world whole owes a debt of gratitude to Indiana Jones. What would have happened if the Nazis gotten hold of the Ark?

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The leftist globalists would not even exist if the Nazis won ww2...

 

[Hypocrite-The]

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'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981)​

Arguably the most famous quest for archaeology's most misplaced box was on the big screen. In the 1981 movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is hired by the US government to find the Ark of the Covenant before Adolf Hitler's Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.