Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

[Icefrisco]

i have heard a few theories but none seem to be realistic. where do you guys think it is?

[-Conan the Barbarian-]

In the Bible.

[Sosobra]

Indiana Jones has it. Seriously I have no idea probably destroyed long ago.

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Yeah I'm assuming someone took it home with them when they sacked the place, and it got lost.

Shame really, would come in handy in case those dang Nazis get ideas again.

[Mythos]

I think the Romans got it when they looted the temple, no?

[Town Watch]

BTW where's the spear of Longinus? Is it in still in Austria? Hmm I just wikied and it came up with Armenia, the lance which was found during the first crusade from Antioch. Fascinating indeed. It seems that there are multiple lances of Longinus

[Leonidas The Lion]

It is probably hidden somewhere. I say one day we will find it just as they found the dead sea scrolls and the other gospels.

[Icefrisco]

i had heard it was in the vatican? doesnt sounds possible though.

the one that sounds reasonable is that the jews burried it under the temple after it was destroyed.

[William the Bastard]

I am using it as a coffee table

[Markas]

I recall a documentary where it was said to be in an Ethiopian church I think. Hasn't done the Ethiopians much good, though.

[Markas]

Scratch what I posted earlier it was based on a dodgy Graham Hancock book apparently. A summary can be found on this charming bible study link, amongst other theories.

[Dunecat]

Most likely it was melted and pieces parts salvaged after the temple was destroyed in 74 ce. (or 75? ACK, I'm horrible at dates...)

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Most likely it was melted and pieces parts salvaged after the temple was destroyed in 74 ce. (or 75? ACK, I'm horrible at dates...)

That's 70 AD. But the Temple that was destroyed then was the Second Temple, built by Herod the Great. The Ark had vanished from history centuries before Herod's time and there was no Ark in Herod's Temple.

It seems to have disappeared sometime before or during the Babylonian conquest of Israel.

Of course, there's a small industry of kooky books claiming to have "solved the mystery" of what happened to the Ark or even "discovered it". They're a bit like all those books on the Holy Grail, Ancient Astronauts etc: ie if you soak those books in paraffin they make excellent firelighters at your next BBQ. They are also usually printed on poor quality paper - suitably smooth but readily absorbent if you ever run out of toilet paper.

[Last_Crusader]

It's in Ethiopia. I do believe that my omniscient friends Google and Wikipedia can tell you more on that story, but insofar as holy relics have ever come up in my studies of religion, I seem to recall Ethiopia's the front runner.

[boofhead]

Well this is from Wiki and basically tells me that....nobody knows. Nebucchadnezzar probably had it melted down or something.

Fate of the Ark

In contrast to the general consensus of historians (that supposes that the Ark was taken away and destroyed), variant traditions about the ultimate fate of the Ark include the intentional concealing of the Ark under the Temple Mount, the removal of the Ark from Jerusalem in advance of the Babylonians (this variant usually ends up with the Ark in Ethiopia), the removal of the Ark by the Ethiopian prince Menelik I (purported son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba), removal by Jewish priests during the reign of Manasseh of Judah, possibly taken to a Jewish temple on Elephantine in Egypt, and the miraculous removal of the Ark by divine intervention (Cf. 2 Chronicles).

[edit] Concealment

Some believe that the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle of the Lord was hidden. This is referenced by four separate sources (except from the previous mentioned in 2 Maccabees):

1. the Mishnayot of Rabbi Hertz
2. the Marble Tablets of Beirut
3. the Copper Scroll
4. the ancient Ben Ezra Synagogue sacred texts.

[edit] Mishnayot

The Mishnayot introduction included ancient records that Rabbi Hertz called the "Mishnayot". Hertz used the term "Mishnayot", since the text of the Mishnayot is missing from the Mishnah (Mishna), which is the first section of the Talmud, a collection of ancient Rabbinic writings including also the Gemara, "the summary", and containing the Jewish religious law.[2]

The "missing" Mishnaic text in the Mishnayot is called the Massakhet Keilim, written in twelve chapters. Each chapter of the Mishnayot describes vessels which were hidden under the direction of Jeremiah the Prophet by five holy men (Shimor HaLevi, Chizkiah, Tzidkiyahu, Haggai the Prophet and Zechariah the Prophet), seven years prior to the destruction of Solomon's First Temple, because the dangers of Babylonian conquest were imminent. The Mishnayot describing this hiding was then written in Babylon during the Babylonian Captivity.

The first chapter of the Mishnayot describes the vessels that were hidden - including the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle of the Lord, i.e. the Mishkan, the Tablets of Moses, the altar (with cherubim) for the daily and seasonal sacrifices (the ushebtis), the Menorah (candelabra), the Qalal (copper urn) containing the Ashes of the Red Heifer (ashes from a red cow sacrificed under Moses, necessary for ritual purification of the priests), and numerous vessels of the Kohanim (priests).

The second chapter of the Mishnayot states that a list of these treasures was inscribed upon a copper tablet. This is the Copper Scroll found at Qumran.

[edit] Marble tablets of Beirut

In 1952 two large marble tablets were found in the basement of a museum in Beirut, stating they were the words of Shimor HaLevi, the servant of HaShem, and the writing on the tablets is the entire missing text of "Massakhet Keilim" (Mishnayot) including reference to the Copper Scroll.

[edit] Copper scroll

The first of the Dead Sea Scrolls was discovered in 1947, and the famed Copper Scroll - made of pure copper - was found at Qumran in 1952. The Copper Scroll is an inventory - written in Hebrew - of treasures, thought by some to be from Solomon's First Temple, hidden before the destruction of that temple by the Babylonians and treasures which have not been seen since.

The Copper Scroll states that a silver [or alabaster?] chest, the vestments of the Cohen Gadol (Hebrew High Priest), gold and silver in great quantities, the Tabernacle of the Lord (perhaps the Mishkan) and many treasures were hidden in a desolate valley - under a hill - on its east side, forty stones deep. The Mishkan was a "portable" Temple for the Ark of the Covenant. The writings in the Copper Scroll were confirmed 40 years later in the 1990s through an ancient text found in the introduction to Emeq HaMelekh ("Valley of the King(s)") -- a book published in 1648 in Amsterdam, Holland, by Rabbi Naftali Hertz Ben Ya’acov Elchanon (Rabbi Hertz).

[edit] Ben Ezra synagogue texts

Work in the 1990s showed that in 1896, almost one hundred years previous, Solomon Schechter at Cambridge University in England had acquired 100,000 pages of ancient Hebrew texts from the Genizah (repository for aged sacred Jewish texts) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. A copy of the "Tosefta" (supplement to the Mishnah) was found in these texts, included among the text on Keilim (vessels). This "Tosefta" is the same text as cited by Rabbi Hertz as his source for the Mishnayot.

[edit] Rumoured present locations

Some have claimed to have possession or discovered the Ark.

[edit] Middle East

In 1989, the late Ron Wyatt claimed to have broken into a chamber while digging underground beneath Mount Moriah, also known as The Temple Mount. He claimed to have seen the ark and taken photographs. All photos came out blurry (leading to skepticism of the claim). According to Wyatt the excavations were closed off (because of private property concerns) and, to the extent of knowledge, no one has seen the ark since. Ron Wyatt was widely seen in the Biblical archaeology community as an attention seeker, often announcing he had found Biblically important objects with little or no hard evidence to back up his claims.

Vendyl Jones claimed to have found the entrance to the chamber in the cave of the Column - Qumran. Here, he stated, is where the Ark was hidden prior to the destruction of the First Temple. Arutz Sheva quoted Jones stating he would reveal the ark on Tisha B'Av (August 14, 2005), the anniversary of the destruction of both the First and Second Temples.[3] However, this did not occur. On Jones' website he states that he was misquoted and actually said it would be appropriate if he discovered the ark on Tisha B'Av. Jones is waiting for funding to explore the cave.

Modern excavations near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have found tunnels, but digging beneath the Temple Mount is somewhat restricted. One of the most important Islamic shrines, the Dome of the Rock, sits in the location where the First Temple of Solomon once stood.

[edit] Africa

Some sources suggest that during the reign of King Manasseh (2 Chron 33) the Ark was smuggled from the temple by way of the Well of Souls and taken to Egypt, eventually ending up in Ethiopia. There are some carvings on the Cathedral of Chartres that may refer to this. This theory was dramatized by George Lucas, Philip Kaufman and Lawrence Kasdan in their story and screenplay for the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was directed by Steven Spielberg.
The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.
The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.

[edit] Ethiopian Orthodox Church

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Axum, Ethiopia is the only one in the world which still claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant. According to the Kebra Nagast, after Menelik I had come to Jerusalem to visit his father, King Solomon, his father had given him a copy of the Ark, and had commanded the first-born sons of the elders of his kingdom to travel back to Ethiopia to settle there. However, these Israelites did not want to live away from the presence of the Ark, so they switched the copy with the original and smuggled the Ark out of the country; Menelik only learned that the original was with his group during the journey home. Not only did Solomon lose the object to his son by the Queen of Sheba but the divine favor that went with it.

Although it was once paraded before the town once each year, the object is now kept under constant guard in a "treasury" near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, and only the head priest of the church is allowed to view it. Most Western historians are skeptical of this claim.

[edit] Valley of Kings

Andis Kaulins claims that the hiding place of the ark, said specifically by ancient sources (such as the Mishnayot), to be

"a desolate valley under a hill - on its east side, forty stones deep".

Today, it is believed by some that this refers to the Tomb of Tutankhamun (east side of the Valley of Kings, ca. forty stones deep). Some believe that what was found there are the described treasures, including the Mishkan and the Ark of the Covenant.[4]

I also read (Von Daniken maybe?) that the metals and design of the Ark could actually create a radio receiver ( ) and that the Voice of God emanating from the Ark was actually aliens in orbit altering the course of human history

[DariusEG]

The Ark is claimed to be here in Ethiopia:


It's a highly guarded place and only one man is able to enter it until his death which they select a new one.