19 Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant[h] was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.
1 Samuel 5:11
So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people.” For death had filled the city with panic; God’s hand was very heavy on it.
1 Samuel 6:1-3
The Ark Returned to Israel
6 When the ark of the Lord had been in Philistine territory seven months, 2 the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.”
3 They answered, “If you return the ark of the god of Israel, do not send it back to him without a gift; by all means send a guilt offering to him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why his hand has not been lifted from you.”Uzzah Struck dead for touching the Ark
http://www.gotquestions.org/Uzzah.html
ARCHAEOLOGISTS BELIEVE THEY MAY HAVE FOUND WHERE THE TABERNACLE HOUSING THE ARK OF THE COVENANT ONCE STOOD
In the Bible during the Hebrews’ 40 year trek in the wilderness, the Tabernacle was described as a movable tent which housed the Ark of the Covenant and accompanied the Israelites as they made their way to the Promised Land.
Now, archaeologists in Israel say they think they’ve discovered one place where the Tabernacle – also known as the Tent of Meeting – was parked, a discovery that has political significance today.
According to Israel Hayom, the Tabernacle as described in the Bible was constructed of wood and fabric, “not materials cut out for thousands of years of survival.” Even so, archaeologists have been searching for the past few years for evidence of the Tabernacle. That search has focused on a site believed to be the ancient city of Shiloh and has yielded some intriguing findings.
Archeologists say they found holes carved into the ground into which beams of a temporary structure could have fit. Israel Hayom writes:
Near the holes, in the northern part of Tel Shiloh, structures were unearthed that correspond to the dates when Joshua first settled the land of Israel until the period of King David’s reign.One of these structures was found to contain ceramic vessels as well as three large taboon clay ovens.
Hananya Hizmi, staff officer for archeology in the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, says, “This is not something that was common in private residences and therefore we do not believe these structures served as family dwellings.”
This being the Middle East, the discovery inevitably has a political dimension. TheBlaze contacted Yisrael Medad, who writes the blog My Right Word and resides in the modern Israeli community of Shiloh which is adjacent to the Bible-era settlement. It’s also located in Samaria, part of what Palestinians and most countries refer to as the West Bank. Medad has been writing about the archaeological dig at Tel Shiloh next door.
With the Palestinians demanding Israel give up Judea and Samaria and the international community continuing to refer to the region as “Occupied Territory,” Medad explains that this evidence of millennial-old Jewish connection to the land is significant.
“The Arabs, from the very beginning, have sought to negate and ignore any element of Jewish national ethos or historical connection to this land – which is important since, as we know, the San Remo Conference [after World War I which demarcated the borders for territories captured by the Allies] and League of Nations decisions of international law specifically noted the ‘historical connection’ between the Jews and this country,” Medad says.
“I call that a policy of disinventivity that they are engaged in. The digs at Shiloh, deep in the heartland of the Land of Israel – which is not the Land of Ishmael – are quite important in countering that campaign,” he adds.
Medad explains, “The archaeology at Tel Shiloh covers not only Roman, Byzantine, Early Arab periods, including three basilicas but the layers of excavation have revealed a firm conformity to the Biblical narrative. This narrative is not an ideological fabrication of political myth but a true historical record. History and religious belief are dove-tailed.”
The Palestinian Authority and its allies in the Arab world have for years been accusing Israel of “Judaizing Jerusalem” despite the copious evidence of Jewish presence in the holy city – including the Western Wall believed to be a remnant of the Second Temple – for thousands of years.
In an article in the Jewish Press, Medad slammed Palestinian activists for creating a new historical narrative to bolster their claims to the disputed land. He wrote: “But as to who is a-thieving, and stealing and expropriating historical identity, first of all, ‘Palestinianism’ is a model of disinventivity nationalism. Not only do they invent their own narrative but they disinvent Jewish history.”
“The Tomb of Rachel. Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs. The Temple Mount. Jerusalem Denial. The whole UNESCO campaign. All, and the entire Land of Israel, have been the subject of incessant Islamic reinvention. My home town – Shiloh – became Seilun and the Pal. Minister for Archaeology denies its past,” he wrote.
Israel Hayom reports that archaeologists are being cautious about their Shiloh discovery. They continue to dig, as they try to determine if indeed the Tabernacle once stood in that place. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/03/archaeologists-believe-they-may-have-found-where-the-tabernacle-housing-the-ark-of-the-covenant-once-stood/
Documentary : Does Trail to Ark of Covenant End Behind Aksum Curtain? : A British author believes the long-lost religious object may actually be inside a stone chapel in Ethiopia. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-09/news/wr-237_1_stone-chapel
AKSUM, Ethiopia — They wouldn't let me see it either.
The monks laughed: What a foolish question. Only the high priest and one selected guardian, they explained, are permitted inside the sanctuary to view the richest treasure of this Christian shrine, the holiest object of the Ethiopian church: the Ark of the Covenant.
Judging from biblical accounts, the original ark, the repository of the stone tablets on which God inscribed the Ten Commandments, disappeared from Solomon's Temple--which was later destroyed--some time around the 7th Century BC.
The void of evidence about its fate is so complete that filmmakers Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas could send their hero Indiana Jones on a fictional quest for it halfway around the world without much fear of contradicting any established wisdom. (He found the ark in Egypt.)
Nevertheless, in a squat, gray stone building at the center of a temple complex in this ancient capital, the Ethiopian Christian Church claims to shelter the original Ark of the Covenant. According to the Kebra Nagast ("Glory of the Kings"), the Ethiopian national saga composed in the 13th Century, the Queen of Sheba was an Ethiopian ruler who was seduced by King Solomon and bore him a son, the first Emperor Menelik. Menelik stole the ark from Solomon's Temple and brought it home, eventually to come to rest in Aksum.
To this day it is the predominant relic of Ethiopian Christianity. Every church in the country has its own symbolic replica, a casket or wooden slab called a \o7 tabot\f7 , which is paraded around during major festivals for public veneration.
Learned opinion on the fate of the ark falls into three categories: that it was destroyed along with everything else during Nebuchadnezzar's razing of Solomon's Temple in 587 BC; that it remains in an underground hiding place, either under the Temple Mount (according to the Talmud) or under Mt. Nebo, east of Jerusalem (according to an aprocryphal book of the Bible); or that it's pointless to speculate.
To Westerners, all of this might seem a historical footnote were it not for a recent book, "The Sign and the Seal," by Graham Hancock, a British journalist who has spent years in Ethiopia. Drawing together disparate, occasionally ludicrous theories and his own observations, Hancock argues that the object inside the stone chapel at Aksum must be the original ark.
"The Sign and the Seal" has unquestionably created a stir outside Ethiopia; it has been on British bestseller lists for months.
University of Toronto archeologist John Holladay called the book "garbage and hogwash" with "no scientific merit whatsoever." That response was typical.
"The (academic) reaction's been fury and incredulity," Hancock said one day from his hotel in Addis Ababa. "But it's selling like hot cakes."
Hancock's main task is to find a reasonable route for the ark to have traveled from Jerusalem to Aksum. He argues that it must first have been taken to a Jewish garrison settlement at Elephantine, an island in the upper Nile, then to storage on an island called Tana Kirkos in Lake Tana, the Ethiopian lake that is the source of the Blue Nile, and then finally to Aksum.
He bases his conclusions on many cultural truths: Ethiopian Christianity is oddly, and uniquely, influenced by Judaism in a way that suggests some strong contact in ancient times, for example. Ethiopia harbored the Beta-Israel--the mysterious Judaic tribe whose religious practices seem to hark back to biblical times. Could they have originally come to Ethiopia as escorts of the Ark of the Covenant?
Still, Hancock has lately been backpedaling from some of his more bizarre assertions, including one that the ark is really the Holy Grail of medieval legend and that it has been the object of a secretive search over the centuries by the Knights Templar and the Masons, societies that have been warhorses of paranoid conspiracy theorists since ancient times.
"The Grail, the Templars, in those areas I'm definitely out on a limb," Hancock says today. "The speculation about what the ark may actually be is entirely personal. But the area of the book I feel strongest about is the argument about how the ark got to Aksum. The evidence for it is strong, makes sense, and explains a lot of anomalies."
But is it? Or is Hancock's theory a hodgepodge of conjectures fed by a vacuum of evidence and by superficial historic coincidences, inexpertly appraised?
My own quest for the truth of Hancock's version this day has brought me to Aksum, standing in front of the stone chapel of St. Mary of Zion Church, to be informed by a monk that, like Hancock, I am not permitted to view the ark. (But I am solemnly assured that it's the real thing.)
So, my quest must take me elsewhere: first to an interview with one of the preeminent experts on Ethiopia and the Bible, Professor of Ethiopian Studies Edward Ullendorff of the University of London, now retired to Oxford.
The Copper Scroll Project site
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