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  • From: MarianneLuban AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ark of the Covenant
  • Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:13:23 EDT

In a message dated 8/17/2004 1:14:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
mattfeld12 AT charter.net writes:


> Marianne Luban wrote :
>
> "Walter Mattfield--where are you? Don't
> you have a picture of a typical portable shrine somewhere online?"
>
> Yes, the following url will take the interested viewer to a number of
> proposals by various scholars.
>
> http://www.bibleorigins.net/illustrations.html
>
> Regards, Walter

Very good--thanks. More specifically

http://www.bibleorigins.net/AmonReportableThrone.html

There is another scene from the time of Ramesses II showing a portable shrine
that looks almostly exactly like that one, except it is carrying the cult
statue of the deified King Amenhotep I. I don't have a scanner or I would
put
that one online, too. It can be seen to good effect on page 167 of Ken
Kitchen's "Pharaoh Triumphant". The box, lions, and other details are about
the same.
It has four "cherubim"--the two small front ones and the two much larger
back ones forming the sides of throne for the cult figure. The "cherubim"
are
the hawk-god, Horus (Hrw) with the sun-disk on top of his head--since Horus
is
identified with the sun. Of course, the "cherubim" could be arranged
differently atop the Ark of the Covenant because there was not a cult image
that would
be perched there and nothing that looked anything like a "throne" would be
needed. Possibly, two winged goddesses could be substituted for images of
"Hrw".
The Israelites had just left Egypt. They could not invent a whole new
culture in such a short time. They didn't have time to invent prototypes,
either,
but would have built what they knew. A portable shrine was obviously needed
because they were on the move. And that is how portable shrines appeared,
just
as described in the Torah. What was in the Ark--the two stones of the Law.
In Egypt, there was a room called the "msxnt"--probably in a royal palace.
It
was vocalized "miskhana". It was the room in which the two "birthing stones"
were kept. Now, these two stones have been supposed to be either the stones
that supported the mother in labor--but an actual Egyptian story tells that
the newborn child was layed on them on a cushion. In Papyrus Anhai, one stone
is
called "Shai" and the other "Rennit". They are the "msxnti" (miskhanot)--the
"two stones", the determinative in the writing being two stones. If these
were bricks or actual stones is hard to say--but they are rectangular.




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