This from email: “Not to get into a heated religious history debate, but Ark of God and Ark of the Covenant are used interchangeably in the OT.”
Now, this is news to me. I have read the RSE and KJV of the Bible and don’t recall seeing that. Would this depend on the translation? Personally, the closest thing to an Ark of God I can think of is the one Noah made.
And then there’s the arc of God which someone asked me about in another email, but I don’t even want to get into that . . .
Well, browsing my NIV Bible, I see the following terms used for the Ark:
Ark of the testimony: Pre-Deuteronomy
Ark of the covenent: Deuteronomy, Judges
Ark of the LORD: Joshua, I Samuel (note: the NIV used LORD in place of YHWH)
Ark of God: I Samuel
“The ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty”: II Samuel
Ark of the LORD’s covenent: I Kings
The ark of our God, The ark that is called by the Name: I Chronicles
Ok… at that point, I got bored and decided to call it quits. Point being that there are a lot of names used for the box used to tote around the Ten Commandments.
Ethiopian tradition has it that the ark is now in Asmara, Ethiopia. There is a shrine there that is supposed to contain the ark, and it is tended by a single Orthodox Christian monk. Supposedly it was taken there by Menelik, a son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Probably not true, but interesting anyway.
Asmara (also spelled Asmera) is not in Ethiopia any more, but in Eritrea (it is the capital, as a matter of fact). I guess I need a new atlas.
Everybody knows that the Arc of the Covenant is sitting in a box, long-forgotten in some military storehouse somewhere. Been like that since mid-WWII. wink
rastahomie: I’m pretty sure it’s been there since the mid-1930s. It also has R2D2 and C3P0 depicted in the relief carvings on the sides. 
:eek: Is this a JOKE, or are you referring to an Easter Egg that I’ll have to watch for next time I rent Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Actually the one in Ethiopia is very likely a replica, and one made without having seen the original.
Of course, you could always search the ARCHIVES: What happened to the Ark of the Covenant?
The Hebrew word usually translated “Ark” for Noah is T-B-H (tabah). The same word is only used one other time in the Hebrew Bible, to refer to the basket of reeds that Moses’ mother hides him in to save his life from Pharoah’s decree of the death of the male infants. So a verbal connection is made between the basket that saves Moses (who will rescue Israel from Egypt) and the boat that saves Noah (and thus rescuse mankind from destruction.) Interesting parallel, is it not?
The word “Ark” as in Ark of the Covenant is a different word in Hebrew: '-R-V-N (aron). So the only confusion is in English, using the same word for two different kinds of objects.
[Edited by CKDextHavn on 09-09-2000 at 07:11 AM]
Richard Elliott Friedman in his book WHO WROTE THE BIBLE has a very good account of what the ark was, including how it looked and the tabernacle that went with it or over it, and the cherubim.