In this thread, Exapno Mapcase wrote that one possibility regarding the Ark of the Covenant is that it is: “Something that existed only in inspirational fiction and subsequent myth, and so can never be found.”
This brings me to ask: are there any eye-witness accounts of the Ark? Or is our knowledge of the Ark (what it looked like, where it rested, etc.) limited to secondary sources?
WRS/Thû
The Roman emperor Titus put down the Jewish rebellion in Jerusalem in the Year 70 A.D. He sacked and looted the Temple and stole all of the artifacts including the Ark. That fucking pussy with an Army over ten times the size of the Jewish millitia barely ecked out the win and then erected a large arch in Rome to commemorate the victory not too far from the Collesium. The Arch of Titus is still there and you can see a scene on it of the temple looting. In the scene, the soldiers are carrying off a large box which I believe is the Ark.
Haj, who hocked a big loogie on that fucking arch.
But I thought the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple was empty. If the Ark existed during the Second Temple period, wouldn’t it have been in the Holy of Holies? How could have Titus carried it off if it did not sit in the Holy of Holies?
WRS/Thû
Here’s a picture of the scene. Haj, do you think that box in front is the Ark?
That’s what I thought until WeRSauron forced me to do a little more research. It would seem that that box was empty. The Ark was probably destroyed by the Babylonians after the first temple was destroyed.
Haj
All synagogues to this day keep the Torah scrolls inside an ark. The word ark is from the initial letters of Aron Kodesh or holy cabinet.
I don’t doubt for a moment that the Temple in Jerusalem had an ark with a Torah inside. It wouldn’t be a synagogue otherwise. (There may also have been a symbolic empty box for show as opposed to everyday needs.)
But except for historic tradition, what conceivable provenance can anyone give that the ark inside any Temple at any time was actually the Ark? Even assuming that such a thing ever existed in the first place.
There is no archaeological record of any of the events surrounding the Ark taking place, right down to the very presence of a large population of Jewish slaves in Egypt. No Jewish history appears in the record for centuries after. There are no eye witness accounts, no secondary sources, no archaeological record. Just tradition and belief.
To say that because people venerated an Ark that they associated with their religious heritage, that Ark indeed existed in continuous history a thousand years beyond the times hundreds of years after the fact when these miraculous events were first written down and collated is to ignore all human behavior.
Not to nitpick, but according to my understanding of the evolution of Judaism, the aron qodesh was in imitation of the Temple in Jerusalem: synagogues were supposed to be miniature and lesser replicas of the Temple, so that Jews in the Diaspora (even within the Holy Land) would be able to have some connection with the Temple even when far away. (This is also the origin of the ner tamid, a copy of the practice in the Temple of keeping one lamp of the menorah lit at all times.)
You say: “I don’t doubt for a moment that the Temple in Jerusalem had an ark with a Torah inside. It wouldn’t be a synagogue otherwise. (There may also have been a symbolic empty box for show as opposed to everyday needs.)”
First, the Temples architecture and institution developed independent of synagogues, or rather that synagogues developed based on the Temple and not the other way around.
Second, the Temple was, quite conspicuously, definitely not a synagogue. It was a place for prayer, offerings, and public assembly (such as during Yom Kippur). It was not used for reading the Torah, daily public prayer (tefillah), preaching, or weekly assembly - for which synagogues were built.
Third, from what I recall (and I may be wrong - I am unable for this matter to even provide a cite either way), the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple was empty. There was even no empty box for show purposes. (Well, not that it would matter anyway. No one was permitted to enter or look into the Holy of Holies. Even the Kohen ha-Gadol would simply do what he had to do on Yom Kippur through the curtains, without actually entering.) Regarding the First Temple, I am sure the Ark rested there. (Whether it contained what it was supposed to contain is another matter all together, and quite irrelevant.)
WRS/Thû
Based upon what non-biblical evidence?
Well, that takes me back to my original question, no?
If something stood in the Holy of Holies, it would be the Ark of the Covenant by definition. Whether it was the same one carried with the Israelies in their wandering in the wilderness, whether it contained the Tablets of the Law, etc., is irrelevant. Any box in the Holy of Holies would be considered the Ark, which is good for me. The rabble would not doubt the authenticity of something for which the Temple priesthood (in all their holiness) vouch as the Ark.
Are there no pagan travellers who have documented the Israelites fondness for the Ark? No conquerors who have boasted taking the Ark? No humble priests who ministered in the Temple who praise the beauty of the box and the cheruvim?
WRS/Thû
The destruction of the temple happend in 597 B.C. My impression is that there wasn’t a lot of writing going on then as priests were the only ones that could read, and the only records from back then are inscriptions on monuments, myths/religious writings and practical records (tax records and such). Not the kind of travel logs one would see a century later with Herodotus and the other greeks, who had a literate population could actually read what they’d written. Consider, for example, that no one at the time bothered to write about the Hanging Gardens that were built during the same period in the much more central and important city of Babylon.
As such I would doubt that anyone would bother writing about a box that some wierdo kingdom in the hinterland worshiped. To the Egyptians and Babylonians it was just more loot.