For what it’s worth, Richard Haliburton, the 20th Century adventurer who wrote a slew of travel books about the strange things he did – like swimming the Panama Canal – explored the Tunnel of Hezekiah, the old access from the Temple Mount to a spring, back in the 1930s. There was a partial cave-in that he was not able to get beyond, but which he could see past, and he claimed to have seen something squarish and gleaming on beyond that – and speculated that it might have been the hiding place of the Ark. (I remember reading this as a kid.)
I have no idea if anyone has ever followed up on this claim.
Huh. OK, did some digging in the basement to figure out why I had the weird notion nobody knows quite how to say it. I have right here in my notes from my Hebrew Bible class (I’m dating myself here: 1990):
Tetragrammaton: yodh heh waw heh
told to Moses (Ex: 3:14-15)
Means: “I AM” or “I cause to be” or maybe “I cause to happen what happens”
ineffible: only spoken in Holy of Holies on n. yr. (yom kip) - often subst. “adonai” -LORD
Tyndale (1525) IEHOVA (jehova) incorrect pronun.
Gk. transliteration: “yahweh”
vowelization added to Bib. middle agess, but come from “adonai”…hence jehovah
no vowelization in original text
Ex: 20:7 - Do not take LORDs name in vain!
(doesn’t mean “goddamnit”, means ineffible) only spoken by high priest, etc.
correct pronon. prob. lost circa 300 BCE
we can’t take LORDs name in vain…we don’t know how.
I’ve tried to refute this mess above by searching the net, but everything I’ve come up with so far actually corroborates it.
Okay, this is a really stupid question, but what WAS the Ark of the Covenant exactly, again? (I know vaguely what it is-but what’s the whole story behind it?)
During the time of the Crusades, the Knights Templars went to a lot of effort excavating under the Temple Mount because they thought they could find the Ark down there.
Looking back at my notes more carefully, I can only assume I messed up n yr. myself, as that’s Rosh Hashanah, and my prof. knew his stuff so well he could never have made such a stupid mistake.
It was a box, about 3’x2’x2’, made of wood covered with gold leaf, and adorned on the top with two kneeling cherubim, the wings of which pointed towards each other. Inside was kept (among a few other artifacts) the fragments of stones upon which was originally written the Ten Commandments, which Moses bore down from Mt. Sinai. The Ark was meant to be portable, as its home was in the Tabernacle, which the Jews carried around with them during their sojourn in the desert after leaving Egypt. When the Temple was built by David, it was placed in the Holy of Holies, which I guess is the chamber housing the very location from which Creation emanated.
I seem to remember that when David transported the Ark to its new home in Jerusalem, someone stumbled and nearly overturned it. When they attempted to right it with a steadying hand, they were killed instantly upon touching it. The Ark supposedly was imbued with such power that merely looking it askance could cause disease or death. It’s like a little piece of G-d’s awesome might has been stuck in a box, as the Philistines found out the hard way. In this respect, its a curious artifact in Jewish religion, which is normally so hostile to graven images and other such trappings. I can’t think of any other hand-made object to which the Jews universally associate with such great religious importance, aside from the scriptures themselves.
Contrast that to early Christianity, with its proliferation of Holy artifacts, most notably enough fragments of the Cross to assemble one many times the size necessary to nail some poor soul onto and hang upon.
I have a hard time believing the Ark could have sat around hidden for so long without somebody finding it. The Temple Mount is only so big, and it’s been a focus of attention for thousands of years. If some folks knew Josiah put it in a tunnel in the Temple mount, why didn’t they just dig it up and put it in its proper place after the return from Babylon? Also, during the reign of Herod the Great, when the erstwhile humbly-proportioned Second Temple was expanded and elaborated to a structure of world-class magnificence, did nobody then find themselves digging for it, or just stumbling upon it during all that excavating and constructing?
My best guess would be that someone did find it in antiquity. The thing was partially made of gold. If found by someone other than a devout Jew, they’d carry it off and remove the gold to spend it. It may be that some Jews did remember when they came back from Babylon where Josiah put it in a tunnel, but upon searching found it was no longer there.
I totally forget where Wyatt claimed Golgotha & the Ark were (and yes, I think he claimed to be able to all but pinpoint where it was underground, the cavern could not be accessed- it would have to be excavated into). I’m sure it’s on the Net somewhere.
In the Books of the Maccabees, it’s claimed that Jeremiah took the ark & hid it in a cave, which I think God later covered over. The book of Jeremiah also prophesied a day in which the Ark would no longer be considered important, probably the reconstruction of the Temple without it. After God’s departure from the Temple in Ezekiel 10-11, the Ark would have been de-energized.
According to some Jewish sources, in Raphael Patai’s THE HEBREW GODDESS, kneeling is not exactly what the Cherubim on the Ark cover were doing. There is some indication they were “embracing as male and female”. :eek:
OK, to follow this blasphemous turn in the thread:
Unless I’m going loony myself, I have this distinct memory of somebody, a scientist I think, claiming the Ark, as constructed, was some kind of electrostatic storage device, and the reason it was written people were getting zapped by it was because…well, because they were getting zapped by it. Marching it around over the hot, dry sands of the Desert caused the gold leaf on wood (and insulator) to pick up a wicked static charge, and if you got too close or touched it, the Ark would arc, so to speak, and you’d get a good smiting.
Heh. Anyone here Jewish who could comment on what according to the faith might happen to some Babylonian who found it and stripped the gold from it? While it would seem to me any Jew who knew what this was and did that would get the full wrath of God, remember a non-Jew likely wouldn’t even be aware of the significance of the ark. To them, they would have just stumbled across a valuable looking box. Thus the intent of their actions would be blasphemous.
Put those eyes back in your head! Indeed they weren’t kneeling; I don’t know who says they were. Jewish tradition says that they stood facing one another when G-d was pleased with Israel, and stood with backs turned away from one another when G-d was displeased. “Embracing” is a stretch, and to attach erotic, rather than emotional significance to the term is even more of one.
rfgdxm:
Nothing good, I’d wager. The Philistines, who had captured the Ark during a war in Samuel’s time, has outbreaks of hemmorhoids in their city and the idol in their temple kept getting knocked over and dismembered. They ended up returning the thing of their own accord. Nonetheless, doesn’t sounf like they’d be killed as punsihment - merely made uncomfortable enough to return it to its place.
Heck, Uzzah died because he just had the temerity to try and catch the Ark when he thought it was on the verge of falling!
Actually, the Babylonians might have known very well about all Jewish holy treasures. King Hezekiah showed off everything to visiting Babylonian dignitaries.
“Wait, what was that, loopy? You say the Ark was electrical?”
“Well, I think I remember reading that someplace.”
“My, that’s interesting.”
“Sure is.”
“Hmm. So, it would be fascinating to learn more about this, don’t you think?”
“I sure do. Boy, maybe some scholar of Ark lore could help shed some light on this.”
“Yeah, that would be wonderful.”
“And how.”
“Yep.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Yep yepyepyepyepyep.”
“So…electrical Arks”
“Looks like the Ark scholars are taking a break, loopy.”
“Kinda looks that way.”
“Best hit google, I suppose.”
“Googling…”
“…Moses was undoubtedly a practical and skillful electrician far in advance of his time. The Bible describes precisely and minutely arrangements constituting a machine in which electricity was generated by friction of air against silk curtains and stored in a box constructed like a condenser. It is very plausible to assume that the sons of Aaron were killed by a high tension discharge…”
Depending exactly how the ark was constructed, it could have been an early version of a Leyden jar. This is a type of capacitor. It could have packed quite a whallop if the electrical energy it stored discharged through someone. I can easily see people thinking that is properties were miraculous.
…for bringing up Richard haliburton. I happened to read one of his books, many years ago. This guy was strange…but he had a lot of adventures…he disappeared while on a trans-Pacific sailing trip, just before WWII. He was sailing a chinese junk, and somewhere in the vast pacific, he vanished. i remember his talking about a maze of tunnels under the temple Mount, including one which reached a hidden spring (which the jebusites used for their water supply). I’m wondering if the temple mount could be thoroughly excavated…I’m sure a lot of stuff would turn up.
About the Ark…tradition says that it was moved to Ethiopia…anything on this?
)