Ark of the Covenant

Jewish tradition on location today

The Talmud in Yoma suggests that the Ark was removed from the Temple towards the end of the era of the First Temple and the Second Temple never housed it. According to one view, it was taken to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 587 BC, exiling King Jeconiah along with the upper classes.

Another perspective proposes that Josiah, king of Judah, hid the Ark in anticipation of the Temple's destruction. Where it was hidden remains uncertain. One account in the Talmud mentions a priest's suspicion of a tampered stone in a chamber designated for wood storage, hinting at the Ark's concealment.

Alternatively, it has been suggested that the Ark remained underground in the Holy of Holies. Some of the Chazal, including the Radak and Maimonides, propose that Solomon designed tunnels beneath the Temple to safeguard the Ark that Josiah later used. Attempts to excavate this area have yielded little due to political sensitivities.

An opinion found in the II Maccabees 2:4-10, asserts that Jeremiah hid the Ark and other sacred items in a cave on Mount Nebo (now in Jordan), anticipating the Neo-Babylonian invasion.

Archaeology and historical context

Archaeological evidence shows strong cultic activity at Kiriath-Jearim in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, well after the ark was supposedly removed from there to Jerusalem. In particular, archaeologists found a large elevated podium, associated with the Northern Kingdom and not the Southern Kingdom, which may have been a shrine. Thomas Römer suggests that this may indicate that the ark was not moved to Jerusalem until much later, possibly during the reign of King Josiah (reigned c. 640–609 BC). He notes that this might explain why the ark featured prominently in the history before Solomon, but not after. Additionally, 2 Chronicles 35:3 indicates that it was moved during King Josiah's reign. However, Yigal Levin argues that there is no evidence that Kiriath-Jearim was a cultic center in the monarchical era or that it ever housed any "temple of the Ark".

K. L. Sparks believes the story of the Ark was written independently around the 8th century BC in a text referred to as the "Ark Narrative" and then incorporated into the main biblical narrative just before the Babylonian exile.

Römer also suggests that the ark may have carried sacred stones "of the kind found in the chests of pre-Islamic Bedouins" and speculates that these may have been either a statue of Yahweh or a pair of statues depicting both Yahweh and his companion goddess Asherah. In contrast, Scott Noegel has argued that the parallels between the ark and these practices remain "unconvincing" in part because the Bedouin objects lack the ark's distinctive structure, function, and mode of transportation. Unlike the ark, the Bedouin chests "contained no box, no lid, and no poles," they did not serve as the throne or footstool of a god, they were not overlaid with gold, did not have kerubim figures upon them, there were no restrictions on who could touch them, and they were transported on horses or camels.

Noegel suggests that the ancient Egyptian Solar barque is a more plausible model for the Israelite ark, since Egyptian barques had all the features just mentioned. He adds that the Egyptians also were known to place written covenants beneath the feet of statues, proving a further parallel to the placement of the covenantal tablets inside the ark.

Levin holds that some biblical texts suggest that the Ark of the Covenant was only one among many other different arks at regional shrines prior to the centralization of worship in Jerusalem, although Raanan Eichler disagrees. While Clifford Mark McCormick has questioned whether the Ark ever existed, other scholars such as Eichler, David A. Falk, Roger D. Isaacs, and Adam R. Hemmings have defended its historicity and antiquity based on linguistic evidence and significant parallels with similar artifacts from New Kingdom Egypt.

References in Abrahamic religions

Tanakh

The Ark is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus and then numerous times in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Psalms, and Jeremiah.

In the Book of Jeremiah, it is referenced by Jeremiah, who, speaking in the days of Josiah, prophesied a future time, possibly the end of days, when the Ark will no longer be talked about or be made use of again:

And it shall be that when you multiply and become fruitful in the land, in those days—the word of the LORD—they will no longer say, 'The Ark of the Covenant of the LORD' and it will not come to mind; they will not mention it, and will not recall it, and it will not be used any more.

Rashi comments on this verse that "The entire people will be so imbued with the spirit of sanctity that God's Presence will rest upon them collectively, as if the congregation itself was the Ark of the Covenant."

Second Book of Maccabees

According to Second Maccabees, at the beginning of chapter 2:

The records show that it was the prophet Jeremiah who [...] prompted by a divine message [...] gave orders that the Tent of Meeting and the ark should go with him. Then he went away to the mountain from the top of which Moses saw God's promised land. When he reached the mountain, Jeremiah found a cave-dwelling; he carried the tent, the ark, and the incense-altar into it, then blocked up the entrance. Some of his companions came to mark out the way, but were unable to find it. When Jeremiah learnt of this he reprimanded them. "The place shall remain unknown", he said, "until God finally gathers his people together and shows mercy to them. The Lord will bring these things to light again, and the glory of the Lord will appear with the cloud, as it was seen both in the time of Moses and when Solomon prayed that the shrine might be worthily consecrated."

The "mountain from the top of which Moses saw God's promised land" would be Mount Nebo, located in what is now Jordan.

Samaritan tradition

Samaritan tradition claims that the Ark of the Covenant had been kept at a sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim.

New Testament

The physical ark of the Old Testament

In the New Testament, the Ark is mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation to St. John. Hebrews 9:4 states that the Ark contained "the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant." Revelation 11:19 says the prophet saw God's temple in heaven opened, "and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple."

The Blessed Virgin Mary as the “New Ark”

In the Gospel of Luke, the author's accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation are constructed using eight points of literary parallelism to compare Mary to the Ark.

The contents of the ark were seen by Church Fathers including Thomas Aquinas as symbolic of the attributes of Jesus Christ: the manna as the Holy Eucharist; Aaron's rod as Jesus' eternal priestly authority; and the tablets of the Law, as the Lawgiver himself. Thomas Aquinas compared the two types of materials of the ark to the two natures of Christ in the hypostatic union (Jesus having human and divine natures). He wrote, "The Ark, wherein were the Law and the manna, signified Christ, who is 'the living bread that came down from Heaven' and 'the fulfillment of the Law'. Moreover, the wood overlaid with gold signifies that Christ was true man and true God."

Catholic scholars connect the pregnant, birthing Woman of the Apocalypse from Revelation 12:1-2, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom they identify as the "Ark of the New Covenant." Carrying the saviour of mankind within her, she herself became the Holy of Holies. This is the interpretation given in the third century by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in the fourth century by Saint Ambrose, Saint Ephraem of Syria and Saint Augustine. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Mary is a metaphorical version of the ark: "Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is 'the dwelling of God [...] with men."

Saint Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, is credited with writing about the connections between the Ark and the Virgin Mary: "O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O (Ark of the) Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which Divinity resides" (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin).

Quran

The Ark is referred to in the Quran (Surah Al-Baqara: 248):

Their prophet further told them, “The sign of Saul’s kingship is that the Ark will come to you—containing reassurance from your Lord and relics of the family of Moses and the family of Aaron, which will be carried by the angels. Surely in this is a sign for you, if you ˹truly˺ believe."

The Ark in other faiths

According to Uri Rubin, the Ark of the Covenant has a religious basis in Islam (and the Baháʼí Faith), which gives it special significance.

Claims of current status

According to the Book of Maccabees

The Book of 2 Maccabees 2:4–10, written around 100 B.C. claims that the prophet Jeremiah, following “being warned by God" before the Babylonian invasion, took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and buried them in a cave, informing those of his followers who wished to find the place that it should remain unknown "until the time that God should gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy."

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant in Axum. The Ark is kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Replicas of the tablets within the Ark, or tabots, are kept in every Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Each tabot is kept in its own holy of holies, each with its own dedication to a particular saint; the most popular of these include Saint Mary, Saint George and Saint Michael.

The Kebra Nagast is often said to have been composed to legitimise the Solomonic dynasty, which ruled the Ethiopian Empire following its establishment in 1270, but this is not the case. It was originally composed in some other language (Coptic or Greek), then translated into Arabic, and translated into Geʽez in 1321. It narrates how the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I with divine assistance, while a forgery was left in the Temple in Jerusalem. Although the Kebra Nagast is the best-known account of this belief, the belief predates the document. Abu al-Makarim, writing in the last quarter of the twelfth century, makes one early reference to this belief that they possessed the Ark. "The Abyssinians possess also the Ark of the Covenant", he wrote, and, after a description of the object, describes how the liturgy is celebrated upon the Ark four times a year, "on the feast of the great nativity, on the feast of the glorious Baptism, on the feast of the holy Resurrection, and on the feast of the illuminating Cross."

In his controversial 1992 book The Sign and the Seal, British writer Graham Hancock reports on the Ethiopian belief that the ark spent several years in Egypt before it came to Ethiopia via the Nile River, where it was kept on the islands of Lake Tana for about four hundred years and finally taken to Axum. Archaeologist John Holladay of the University of Toronto called Hancock's theory "garbage and hogwash"; Edward Ullendorff, a former professor of Ethiopian Studies at the University of London, said he "wasted a lot of time reading it." In a 1992 interview, Ullendorff says that he examined the ark held in the church in Axum in 1941. Describing the ark there, he says, "They have a wooden box, but it's empty. Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc."

On 25 June 2009, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, Abune Paulos, said he would announce to the world the next day the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, which he said had been kept safe and secure in a church in Axum. The following day, he announced that he would not unveil the Ark after all, but that instead he could attest to its current status.

Southern Africa

The Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe have claimed that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the ngoma lungundu "voice of God", eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains, their spiritual home.

On 14 April 2008, in a UK Channel 4 documentary, Tudor Parfitt, taking a literalist approach to the Biblical story, described his research into this claim. He says that the object described by the Lemba has attributes similar to the Ark. It was of similar size, was carried on poles by priests, was not allowed to touch the ground, was revered as a voice of their God, and was used as a weapon of great power, sweeping enemies aside.

In his book The Lost Ark of the Covenant (2008), Parfitt also suggests that the Ark was taken to Arabia following the events depicted in the Second Book of Maccabees, and cites Arabic sources which maintain it was brought in distant times to Yemen. Genetic Y-DNA analyses in the 2000s have established a partially Middle-Eastern origin for a portion of the male Lemba population but no specific Jewish connection. Lemba tradition maintains that the Ark spent some time in a place called Sena, which might be Sena, Yemen. Later, it was taken across the sea to East Africa and may have been taken inland at the time of Great Zimbabwe. According to their oral traditions, it self-destructed sometime after the Lemba's arrival with the Ark. Using a core from the original, the Lemba priests constructed a new one. This replica was discovered in a cave by a Swedish-German missionary named Harald Philip Hans von Sicard in the 1940s and eventually found its way to the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare.

Europe

Rome

The 2nd century Rabbi Eliezer ben Jose claimed that he saw somewhere in Rome the mercy-seat lid of the ark. According to his account, a bloodstain was present and was told that it was a stain from the blood which the Jewish high priest sprinkled thereon on the Day of Atonement."

Accordingly, another tale claims that the Ark was kept within the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by King of the Visigoths Alaric I and King of the Vandals Gaiseric but was eventually lost when the basilica burned in the fifth century.

Ireland

Between 1899 and 1902, the British-Israel Association of London carried out limited excavations of the Hill of Tara in Ireland looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Irish nationalists, including Maud Gonne and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI), campaigned successfully to have them stopped before they destroyed the hill. A non-invasive survey by archaeologist Conor Newman carried out from 1992 until 1995 found no evidence of the Ark.

The British Israelites believed that the Ark was located at the grave of the Egyptian princess Tea Tephi, who according to Irish legend came to Ireland in the 6th century BC and married Irish King Érimón. Because of the historical importance of Tara, Irish nationalists like Douglas Hyde and W. B. Yeats voiced their protests in newspapers, and in 1902 Maud Gonne led a campaign against the excavations at the site.

Malaita Island

Many Malaitans claim that the ark of covenant is buried somewhere deep in the jungle of their island. They have a family tradition that they are a lost Jewish tribe from Zedekiah the high priest of Israel. And that he came there in the year 66 AD to bury it. This idea has been recently presented in the article “Ark of Covenant Location Discovered!” by Mike Edery. In the article, he argues that a Torah code from the Baal Shem Tov reveals its current location on Malaita island.

Additionally in the year 2013, a journalist by the name of Mathew Fishbane had visited the island in the hopes of finding the ark on Malaita island. He interviewed several Malaitans who gave the story of how the ark ended up there. Although he was unable to find it, the legend still lives on today.

In literature and the arts

Philip Kaufman conceived of the Ark of the Covenant as the main plot device of Steven Spielberg's 1981 adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it is found by Indiana Jones in the Egyptian city of Tanis in 1936.

In the Danish family film The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar from 2006, the main part of the treasure found in the end is the Ark of the Covenant. The power of the Ark comes from static electricity stored in separated metal plates like a giant Leyden jar.

In Harry Turtledove's novel Alpha and Omega (2019) the ark is found by archeologists, and the characters have to deal with the proven existence of God.

The Ark has been depicted many times in art for two thousand years, some examples are in the article above, a few more are here.

Yom HaAliyah

Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) (Hebrew: יום העלייה) is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the Land of Israel while carrying the Ark of the Covenant.