Is the Ark of the Covenant REALLY lost?

[Music] the ark of the covenant according to the hebrew bible it's an ornate gold box supposed to have housed two stone tablets containing the original 10 commandments as well as being a sacred artifact there are several stories detailing its immense power used by the israelites in warfare to destroy enemy armies and flatten entire cities however at a certain point in the biblical account it vanishes never to be seen or heard of again although many believe that it was destroyed when a babylonian army besieged jerusalem in 587 bce there's evidence to suggest that it's still out there waiting to be discovered some say that it's in an undiscovered cave in the judean desert sealed away for millennia others claim to have actually seen it and that it's safely kept in a church in ethiopia yet others still so that it's in the very place it went missing in an underground vault deep below jerusalem the whereabouts of this mythical hebrew object continues to elude biblical archaeologists it's often the subject of wild and elaborate speculation with entertaining yet unsubstantiated conspiracies as to its current location that's where i hope to come in i want to investigate this matter carefully and really separate the fact from the fiction so with that let's ask the question is the ark of the covenant really lost historically speaking the precise origin of the ark is unknown but the bible offers its own version of events which can be found in the book of exodus after escaping slavery in egypt moses and the israelites were camped out at the base of mount sinai then suddenly the earth shook and smoke appeared on the mountain's summit and the voice of god cooled out from above he commanded moses to ascend the mountain and there he stayed for forty days and forty nights when moses returned he carried with him two stone tablets inscribed on them were the ten commandments these ten sacred laws constituted part of the covenant a divine pact between god and the nation of israel the israelites will become a cherished people of god provided they follow his laws shortly after god demanded that moses construct a chest or ark to safely house the two stone tablets he then gave a very detailed description on how it is supposed to look quote have them make an arc of acacia wood two and a half cubits long a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high overlay it with pure gold both inside and out and make a gold molding around it the description continues and the arc is supposed to have two gold rings on either side through which large poles could be fitted so that it could be carried inside the ark were placed the stone tablets containing the ten commandments elsewhere in the bible we learned that it also stalled a jar of manna the miraculous food substance that appeared in the desert as well as a wooden staff which belonged to aaron moses's brother on the top of the ark was an elaborate gold lid with two cherubim facing one another the lid was known as the mercy seat and it was the holiest part of the ark it acted as a throne for god who was said to appear seated on it before moses and aaron the ark was then housed in a great tent known as the tabernacle only moses and his brother aaron were allowed to enter the innermost sanctum where the artifact was safely kept there it was said that they could communicate with god directly taken as a whole the ark of the covenant would have been a truly magnificent thing to behold aside from its decorative splendor it would have represented god's physical presence on earth as well as containing material symbols of the sinai covenant many biblical scholars and archaeologists believe that the ark of the covenant probably existed due to these incredibly precise measurements the bible offers it's likely that a scribe was carefully measuring the ark first hand and then proceeding to write it down on parchment what's more the practice of creating ornate ceremonial arcs was widespread across the ancient near east the ark of the covenant has often been compared with ancient egyptian procession barks which carried statues of gods that were paraded around cities or transported down the nile with the discovery of the tomb of tutankhamen in 1922 archaeologist howard carter saw a chest-like object which he initially thought was the fabled lost ark upon further inspection however it was revealed to be a gilded funerary box for the young pharaoh the similarity to the ark is indeed striking except that upon this chest sat the god anubis who is there to guide king tut into the afterlife parallels to the ark of the covenant can be found outside ancient egypt this 9th century phoenician sarcophagus housing the body of king aharam depicts the storm god el sitting atop a throne guarded by two cherubim which bears a close resemblance to the mercy seat on which the hebrew god is supposed to appear on a side note this levantine storm god l is believed to be the precursor of the biblical god who in hebrew is also often referred to as l or more frequently in the plural form elohim these close connections to neighbouring ancient cultures provide good evidence that the ark of the covenant probably existed in one form or another although some of the more mythological elements are of course debatable in the biblical account when it came time to travel the ark was carried by the priests it always went one kilometer before the people and would emit a column of smoke that would guide the israelites through their 40 years wandering the desert when they finally arrived in the promised land under moses's successor joshua the ark miraculously separated the river jordan allowing the israelites save passage just like moses had done to the red sea all those years ago however if anyone handled the ark that wasn't supposed to they would meet a terrible fate for soon revealed the ark had fearsome destructive powers in the book of leviticus two of moses nephews sneaked into the tabernacle and made an unauthorized offering to the ark only priests were permitted to do this so the ark set the two men on fire burning them to a crisp elsewhere in the bible there's an instant where the ark is carted off to jerusalem the oxen in front stumbled and the ark wobbled to prevent it from falling off the driver briefly steadied the ark with his hand big mistake for it kills him instantly perhaps the most cataclysmic event is when the ark is brought to a town called beth shemesh out of curiosity the townsfolk look inside as you'd expect such a transgression would not go unpunished the town is quickly engulfed in a fiery inferno the death toll varies but in one manuscript it's at fifty thousand and seventy [Music] learning of the ark's incredible power the israelites see its potential as a deadly weapon its most famous use could be found in the book of joshua where it is used to bring down the walls of jericho during the siege the ark was processed around the city walls whilst horns were sounded this happened once a day on the seventh day everyone was instructed to shout simultaneously in doing so the city walls collapsed and the israelite army came flooding in to slaughter the city's inhabitants following god's law no one was to be spared the ark of the covenant was some kind of biblical superweapon the israelites brought it to a number of battles in order to unleash its devastating power upon their enemies the ark did not always guarantee victory however in one story it gets captured by the philistines and is taken away to their capital ashdod there it's placed before a statue of their god daegon angered at this the ark destroys the statue and then releases a horrific bubonic plague upon the city's population fearing the ark the philistines rushed to offer it back to the israelites who gratefully accept their request you can see how all these bible stories about the ark of the covenant inspired the 1981 film raiders of the lost ark in the film the nazis seek to use the ark as a weapon aware of its destructive powers in the dramatic climax they finally get hold of it and prise it open but in a gory use of melting wax prosthetics they're all met with a grisly fate it's good to see that hollywood is up to scratch with all their biblical research the ark causes all the devastation you'd come to expect of it once the israelites had settled in the promised land the ark was eventually placed in a permanent home the temple when the building was finally completed by king solomon the ark was placed in a sacred inner chamber known as the holy of holies once a year on the festival of yom kippur or the day of atonement the high priest would be permitted to enter the sacred room there he would transfer all the nation's sins onto two small goats and then sacrifice them upon an altar proceeding to sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat this incidentally is the origin of the term scapegoat you're welcome the final mention of the ark is not as destruction or theft but how its caretakers were told to move it back to jerusalem after it spent some time away from the temple this event took place during the passover in the 18th year in the reign of king josiah which places us roughly in the spring of 621 bce this is the last known sighting of the ark after which it is never mentioned again disappearing entirely from the biblical narrative the sudden disappearance of the ark takes place just before jerusalem is beset by disaster about 35 years later in 587 bce the neo-babylonian empire besieged jerusalem under the command of king nebuchadnezzar ii the conquering army set everything ablaze the temple was ransacked and destroyed much of the population was killed but those who survived were captured and sent away to babylon forbidden from returning home there they endured great turmoil as many were forced into slavery this lasted for 70 years marking a dark period in jewish history known as the exile after the exile when the jews eventually returned to their homeland and rebuilt the temple there are no references to the ark it doesn't seem to have been there anymore even when this second temple was eventually destroyed by the romans in 70 ce there's no mention of the ark being taken a contemporary jewish writer flavius josephus offers an itinerary of things stolen but the ark is missing quote the golden table of the weight of many talents the candlestick also that was made of gold and the last of all in the spoils was carried away the law of the jews there is no direct mention of the ark although some have taken that last phrase the law of the jews as a hidden reference to it to me it seems a bit unlikely as in the roman forum today there's a triumphal arc depicting this very incident you can see all the treasures of the temple including that golden candlestick but no ark this is unusual for such a valuable and significant treasure it would have deserved some sort of representation either by the romans or by josephus all lines of inquiry point back to the babylonian siege of jerusalem in 587 as the date the ark officially goes missing it's likely that the disappearance of the ark in the bible is somehow connected to this babylonian invasion and the destruction of the temple in the talmud a collection of jewish writings the rabbis assume that the ark of the covenant was properly destroyed that day either when the temple burnt down and collapsed or when it was carted away to babylon this is possible but is also an assumption nowhere does it explicitly say that the ark of the covenant was indeed destroyed that day with this lack of evidence it raises a near infinite number of other possibilities perhaps the ark was hidden somewhere safe before the arrival of the babylonians or perhaps it was never even there in the first place it may be out there today waiting to be discovered these possibilities we turn to now with such a famous and high-profile artifact like the ark of the covenant there are several theories as to its current location some are better than others so i've narrowed it down to three of the most plausible some early jewish sources say that it was hidden in a safe location somewhere in the judean desert one of these is the second book of maccabees you won't find this book in all bibles it's what's known as an apocryphal text in the centuries after the babylonian exile new biblical texts were composed examples include the book of jubilees and the book of enoch since they lacked the long history of tradition that books like genesis or exodus enjoyed their canonical statist has not quite been agreed upon the second book of maccabees is one of these apocryphal books believed to have been written somewhere between 150 and 120 bce the book describes how just before the babylonian invasion the prophet jeremiah had a premonition that the ark would be destroyed and so decided to hide it in the wilderness the book says that jeremiah took it to quote the mountain where moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of god this has been thought to refer to mount nebo in jordan the mountain from which moses saw god's promised land in the book of deuteronomy although this is far from certain after hiding the ark in a cave at the base of the mountain along with some other temple paraphernalia jeremiah closed off the entrance some of his followers wanted to mark the site so that they could find it later but the prophet stopped them from doing so saying quote the place shall remain unknown until god gathers his people together again and shows his mercy this somewhat cryptic biblical prophecy has not stopped many intrepid gravediggers from making illegal excavations around mount nebo hoping to find the ark to which the jordanian government monitors closely and prosecutes heavily for sanctioned archaeological digs much has been found nearby the mountain but no secret cave containing the lost ark of the covenant this has prompted archaeologists to look at other mountains featured in the bible hoping to find the ark there instead particularly mount sinai the place where moses received the ten commandments problem is however no one actually knows where the original mount sinai is supposed to be and so a whole other investigation gets underway most say that the biblical mount sinai is jeber musa in egypt this tradition goes back to the 6th century ce when christians built a monastery near the base of the mountain but there's evidence to suggest that the actual mount sinai may be elsewhere here are all the possible locations that have been put forward for the biblical mount sinai you can see that we're dealing with a very large geographical area covering parts of egypt saudi arabia and jordan any one of these locations could have a cave holding the ark of the covenant assuming of course that it hasn't already been discovered one writer suggests that the ark of the covenant was already found during the crusades by a group of knights known as the templar according to this theory these knights were camped out near the ruins of petra jordan having heard that the ark may be hidden somewhere nearby they began to search the area eventually arriving at a mountain called jebel al-madba at the base of this mountain they reportedly stumbled across an unmarked cave lighting their torches they ventured inside glinting in the torchlight lay golden treasures and ancient ornaments that had presumably remained undisturbed for thousands of years but at the back of the cave they found what they'd been looking for the ark of the covenant from here it's been said that the templars brought their treasures back to europe but they remained secretive about the ark of the covenant which they jealously kept for themselves some believe that it went to chartres cathedral in france others say it went to the estate of the english nobleman ralph de sadly others still said that it was taken to ireland and then shipped off to the emerging american colonies these stories raise some interesting possibilities but as much as i'd like to believe in them it's difficult too you see there's not a lot of valid evidence behind these theories it's primarily speculation relying on some pretty dubious source material as such these theories are typically dismissed by most historians and deemed to be the work of controversial and fringe writers returning back to our initial position that the ark was supposedly hidden in the judean desert one thing that is really going for this theory is that significant archaeological finds continue to be discovered in this region particularly in desert caves in 1946 two bedroom shepherds were herding their goats near some ruins by the dead sea noticing small caves on the cliffside they climbed up to have a look in the caves they found a collection of small clay pots breaking them open they found a series of delicate scrolls and manuscript fragments they had been incredibly well preserved due to the hot desert climate and the ancient hebrew was still legible what was unknown to them is they had made the most significant archaeological find in biblical scholarship to this date it's currently believed that these scrolls belong to a jewish sect known as the essenes who hid these pots right before their community was attacked by the romans rather similar to how the book of maccabees said that the prophet jeremiah hid the ark shortly before the babylonian invasion just like the caves containing the dead sea scrolls lay unexplored for thousands of years there may be other caves out there waiting to be discovered if the stories are to be believed then the ark of the covenant may be inside one of them unless however that the ark was never hidden in the desert in the first place but instead taken to africa as this next theory shall explore [Music] for centuries a group of christians in aksum ethiopia have claimed to be in possession of the ark it's allegedly being held in a small chapel but no one is allowed to see it the story as to how the ark may have ended up in ethiopia can be found in the kebra nagast a sacred chronicle of the country in one story it claims that king solomon and the queen of sheba had a son together whom they named menelik although he was raised in jerusalem when he reached adulthood menelik had to return to the land of his mother's origin ethiopia before he left however some of malek's priests sneaked into the temple and secretly stole king solomon's most precious object the ark they replaced it with a flawless copy impossible to differentiate from the original on his journey home menelik discovered that the ark was with him but was surprised to see that no one had been harmed by its infamously destructive powers not even the priests who had taken it interpreting this as a sign from god he brought it back to ethiopia and placed it in the holy city of aksum legend has it that it's been there for 3 000 years and can be found in a small chapel at the church of our lady mary of zion it's been guarded by an unbroken line of monks who are forbidden to leave the chapel grounds no one from the outside world is allowed to enter despite this there are some out there who have claimed to have been inside the chapel and have seen the ark with their own eyes british historian edward ullendorf a professor of ethiopian studies in london is one of them in an interview he revealed to have been shown it secretly in 1941 while stationed there during the second world war however he did not believe that it was genuine having inspected the ark for himself he described it as quote a wooden box but it's empty middle to late medieval construction when these were fabricated ad hoc since this revelation scholars have doubted the claims the ark really is in ethiopia they regard the story of king menelik as an attempt at national myth-making and a way for ethiopian monarchs to justify their right to rule many ethiopian christians vehemently deny these claims maintaining that the true ark really is in their possession to my mind what would prove beyond a doubt that the ark really is in ethiopia would be if it was finally shown to the world dispelling all the rumors claiming it's a hoax this actually nearly happened in 2009 when patriarch abu ne paulos stated to the foreign press he would finally unveil it unfortunately however he retracted his offer the next day as of now the ark of the covenant supposedly remains in this ethiopian chapel until the ark is shown to the world voluntarily or it is taken by force as some have feared recently this line of inquiry remains unresolved [Music] for this final theory we'll be returning to the holy land back to the city where our search began jerusalem some believe that the ark was hidden underneath the temple on the site on what's today known as temple mount in the 12th century ce jewish scholar and philosopher maimonies claimed to know the whereabouts of the ark he wrote that whilst building the temple king solomon had a warning from god that one day it would all be destroyed including the treasures it was designed to protect as a precaution king solomon allegedly constructed a network of maze-like vaults so that the ark could be safely kept underground the account continues to state that king josiah who reigned during the last mention of the ark in the bible used these underground chambers to secretly house the ark before the arrival of the babylonians as it was located safely underground it would have survived the collapse of the temple above but as it was never seen or heard of again perhaps no one came to collect it and it may be still down there today even if you don't believe in the story offered by maimonies there are a number of rumors that are indeed underground chambers beneath temple mount writing roughly a thousand years before my modneys jewish historian flavius josephus wrote about certain royal caves underneath the city of jerusalem that were used to escape the romans that's an unusual descriptor royal it seems to hint to the idea that some of these caves were built during the reign of israelite kings in modern times a number of underground networks have actually been discovered across jerusalem in 1854 archaeologists discovered a disused quarry that ran beneath part of the old city's muslim quarter named zedekiah's cave it covers an area of about five acres and it's the largest cave network discovered beneath the city since then archaeologists have mapped out a whole subterranean network underneath jerusalem some of these like the siloam tunnel date somewhere around the 9th to 8th century bce roughly the same time in which king solomon is supposed to have reigned but there's one place that has not been explored properly the area underneath temple mount the reason why no excavations have been carried out beneath temple mount is because there are a number of sacred structures that lie on top of it the most prominent of which is the dome of the rock initially completed in 962 ce the dome is a beautifully decorated islamic monument that enshrines the rock where the prophet muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven the dome of the rock as well as the nearby alaksha mosque are built atop temple mount upon the site where solomon's temple is believed to have stood just below temple mount is also the western wall the last surviving portion of the second temple that was destroyed by the romans this wall is considered to be the holiest place in judaism performing an excavation on temple mount would be controversial it would risk upsetting a number of religious groups as archaeological work beneath these structures could cause damage or even collapse this hasn't stopped some however from trying on the 28th of july 1981 a dispute broke out near the western wall it had been discovered that someone had been performing an unlicensed dig beneath temple mount this someone was rabbi yehuda getz he had been trying to find the ark having been warned not to getz had organized a secret excavation beneath temple mount the dig took place during the cover of night and shortly into proceedings a small opening was discovered behind which lay a large tunnel 28 meters long and 6 metres wide the newly discovered tunnel was believed to connect to a number of chambers underneath temple mount as a small archway was discovered near the end getz was sure that behind this lay the final resting place of the ark before more work could be done news about it was leaked on an israeli radio station shortly after large crowds on either side of the religious divide gathered outside and a fight broke out the dig was banned and further excavations were cancelled by authorities since then the chambers beneath temple mount remain closed off as you may be aware from recent political events in jerusalem the situation is still very tense so for the time being a systematic excavation on temple mount is strictly forbidden whatever may be lying underneath temple mount continues to be out of reach in recent years however there have been some new non-destructive methods to get glimpses as to what's beneath temple mount one pioneering method is ground penetrating radar or gpr using high frequency radio waves it maps out subterranean surfaces and then generates a blurry image an advantage of this technique is that it's non-invasive nothing needs to be dug up or damaged however even the slightest amount of interference can manipulate the image this can be caused by electricity or certain rocks and in the ancient capital city of jerusalem there's plenty of both as archaeological digs are not allowed to happen anytime soon this could be the best way to finally locate the lost ark of the covenant nearing the end of our investigation we're left with three theories as to the ark of the covenant's current location one the ark is hidden in a cave somewhere in the judean desert if it hasn't already been discovered two the ark is in a chapel in ethiopia haven't been guarded there for thousands of years and three the ark is still in jerusalem buried in a secret underground chamber below the site of the original temple each of these theories have their individual merits and flaws but there's one problem that they all have in common all three of our stories are based on written accounts that were composed many years after the arc went missing the apocryphal book the second book of maccabees was written some 500 years after the ark disappeared the ethiopian chronicle the kebron aghast was likely written in the 14th century ce and the jewish scholar my modernities who claim that the ark was hidden in jerusalem lived in the 12th century ce none of these accounts are eyewitnesses we don't know where they got their information from all we're working with are anecdotes based on centuries and in some cases millennia old rumors with such a lack of reliable evidence critical investigation inevitably turns into speculation it's also worth considering the limitations of using the bible as a piece of historical evidence while some passages can be linked to known historical events they are often filtered through myth and written down centuries after the events were supposed to have happened it's difficult to know where the truth ends and the mythology begins to try to get to the bottom of this we'll need to go back and examine the things that we do know to do that let's rewind back to the original starting point we know that after the destruction of the temple in 587 bce the ark is never mentioned again in the bible i've already mentioned that many have assumed that the ark was destroyed during this time and i've expressed my issues about working on the basis of an assumption but looking back perhaps i was too harsh maybe the ark really is lost to history during the exile after the babylonians invaded in sac jerusalem the israelites faced a crisis of religion with the destruction of the temple and its sacred artifacts god's physical presence on earth was now gone for an ancient israelite this would have been an incredibly difficult reality to have to come to terms with leading many to abandon their ancestral beliefs yet it's during this time of grief and mourning when a number of changes begin to happen in the religion of these ancient people across the ancient near east a belief in a deity was based on things you could see such as statues temples or arks these things were now all gone and belief began to move into something more immaterial for the ancient israelites god was not something you had to see in order to worship it was just something you believed in despite the lack of physical evidence it is during this time where the biblical texts were codified and written down the ancient israelites put faith in their shared stories contained in their emerging holy texts it is during this time where scholars mark the end of ancient israelite religion and the start of judaism this seismic shift in religious thought would have made sense if the ark was indeed destroyed the cultic religion of ancient israel had to adapt to the loss of the material symbols of the covenant perhaps then those claiming to know the whereabouts of the ark are clinging onto something that may have already been lost unable to move on from their grief they hold on to the hope that the ark is still out there or maybe just maybe they know something that we don't perhaps there is an undiscovered cave out there in the judean desert that contains the temple's most valuable treasures or that the chapel in ethiopia really does guard the ark of the covenant and it's not an elaborate hoax as some have suspected or that the ark is safely hidden in a subterranean chamber somewhere underneath temple mount in the same place it went missing all those many years ago if any of these theories are indeed right on this and the ark of the covenant really is out there waiting to be found it would make for the greatest discovery in archaeological history however perhaps we should exercise caution considering how dangerous this artifact is supposed to be perhaps some things are best left undisturbed hey thanks for watching i really hope you enjoyed this one if you'd like to see more why not subscribe a like and a comment also go a really long way either way i look forward to seeing you next time goodbye

Channel: hochelaga

Views: 2,371,701

Keywords: covenant, ark, hochelaga

Id: _9sTr6n0MFc

Length: 32min 37sec (1957 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021