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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: "Brian Roberts" <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Stone slab replacing the Ark of the Covenant
  • Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 16:03:31 +0100

Good reasoning. But one thing I note is that whenever the Ark was not
in Isreal's possession the tanakh closely accounts this and follows its
movements and tells us about the plagues suffered by those holding it.

The fact that the book of kings makes no more mention of other kingdoms
taking hold of the ark suggests that the ark was still in their possession
up to the babylonian conquest.
Jeremiah's prophecy combined with the Maccabean tradition seem to indicate
that it was hidden by Jeremiah in accordance with Yah's will.
The fact that Josiah would command that the ark be taken into the temple
shows that he believed it was there. And a lack of an explanation as to why
they didn't obey would be very strange.


-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Brian Roberts
Sent: Tue 8/2/2005 3:37 PM
To: Alexander Oldernes
Cc: b-hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Stone slab replacing the Ark of the Covenant

Interesting that you should bring this up, Alexander. There is reason to
believe that this order to reinstall the Ark was not carried out.

Around 622 BCE, major renovations on the Temple of Solomon were
undertaken. In the process, a scroll called "the Book of the Law" was
found in the Temple (II Kings 22: 8-10).
It was brought before Josiah and read, and the king was so shocked to
hear its contents that he tore his robes in penitence (II Kings 22: 11).
He then made a proclamation to his High officials:
"Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah
about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the
LORD's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed
the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that
is written there concerning us" (II Kings 22: 13).
Josiah deserves a tremendous amount of credit for effectively ruling
during a time of national reconstruction. Such periods of rethinking and
reflection do not historically add glory to a monarch's name, as do
those which are marked by military and political conquest. There was a
lot of work to be done, with little to show for it, save the
satisfaction of pleasing YAHWEH. Pleasing the deity was Josiah's motive
for his whole program of religious cleansing, as evinced by the zeal
with which he undertook his reforms.
Therefore, anything he could do to repair, rebuild, and sanctify the
physical edifices which would bring such honor to YAHWEH would have been
done with much flair and color, as is displayed in the Passover
observation (II Chronicles 35: 1-19). The writer of Chronicles was so
impressed by the celebration that he wrote that "The Passover had not
been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel;
and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as
did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites, and all Judah and Israel who
were there with the people of Jerusalem" (II Chronicles 35: 18).
In the midst of the preparations for the grandest Passover celebration
in several centuries, Josiah made this statement to the Levites:
"Put the sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son of David king of
Israel built. It is not to be carried about on your shoulders. Now serve
the LORD your God and his people Israel" (II Chronicles 35: 3).
The preparations of the sacrificial animals goes on (II Chronicles 35:
5-7), with a total of thirty thousand goats and sheep being offered from
the king's personal stock (II Chronicles 35: 7). There is no indication
from the text that the Levites ever actually followed the king's orders
to reinstall the Ark back in the debir of the Temple. The Passover
celebration continues with the account of the actual service, where "The
Passover lambs were slaughtered, and the priests sprinkled the blood
handed to them, while the Levites skinned the animals" (II Chronicles
35: 11). Great care was taken by the writer to tell exactly what was
done in the rituals and how, yet the Ark is nowhere to be found. We can
be forgiven for expecting to read of a grand procession leading to the
Temple Precincts, similar to the one in David's time, when the king
danced before the Ark during its conveyance to Jerusalem (II Samuel 6:
1-23).
Yet, there is none of that. In fact, the Ark is conspicuous in its
absence from this most Holy celebration. Are we to assume, then, that
the precious Ark, still important enough to warrant the attention of
Josiah, was simply brought into the Temple through the back way? Or
perhaps it was taken in at some wee hour that would not have been
conducive to public spectacle?
Neither option is plausible. Josiah didn't treat other Temple objects
with such casual regard. Take for example the aforementioned "Book of
the Law" (II Kings 22: 8-13). It is important to take note of the
tremendous value placed upon the document. A public reading was
performed (II Kings 23: 1-3), and the covenant between Israel and YAHWEH
was renewed (ibid). The concept of covenant renewal stems from the
original renewal dating back to Joshua's time, when the Covenant was
renewed at Mount Ebal:

Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the LORD, the God of
Israel, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the Israelites.
He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses
-an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it
they offered to the LORD burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship
offerings. There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua copied on
stones the Law of Moses, which he had written. All Israel, aliens and
citizens alike, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing
on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the LORD, facing those who
carried it - the priests, who were Levites. Half of the people stood in
front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses
the servant of the LORD had formerly commanded when he gave instructions
to bless the people of Israel.
Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the Law - the blessings and the
curses - just as it is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a
word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the
whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the
aliens who lived among them (Joshua 8: 30- 35).

If the Ark had been in Judah in the time of King Josiah, then there
would have been no logical reason why the people would have become so
divorced from their religious traditions, because the Levites would have
had access to the original tablets of the Law.
It is additionally possible that another copy of the Laws contained in
the Book of the Law - that inscribed by Joshua - was contained inside
the Ark itself, which would have made it possible to renew the covenant
without the original book that Josiah discovered. Thus it would seem
logical to expect an equal or greater ceremony accompanying the
reinstallation of the Ark into the Temple. There is a formulaic lapse
here as well. The usual biblical pattern upon the receipt of orders is
for the writer to record the order, and then to record the carrying out
of the order, to show the respect and obedience of God's people. Well,
obedience would certainly not have been lacking on the part of Josiah.
This lack of natural follow-up in the account of Josiah's reform actions
regarding the Ark, as well as the complete lack of mention of the
installation of the Ark back into the Temple, lead me to conclude that
the Ark was not in Jerusalem during the time of Josiah; indeed, it is
further likely that it had not been there for perhaps as long as two
centuries prior, based on the like absence of the Ark from the Temple
during Joash's cleansing and repairs (II Kings 12: 1-18).

So, then, that leaves us with your question about a stone slab, which
may have been a simple platform upon which the Ark could have raised
above the gaze of the High Priest, forcing him to direct his look upward
in a move of humility and reverence to the deity. If anyone writes about
this stone, it's not any of the canon texts. You're going to have to
look elsewhere. I would suggest the later Rabbinic traditions.



On Tuesday, August 2, 2005, at 06:56 AM, Alexander Oldernes wrote:

> Maybe your expertise can help me with this question...
>
> I have read somewhere that when the curtain covering the entrance to the
> Most Holy was torn in two, in the first century CE, the Most Holy was
> exposed containing no Ark of the Covenant. In place of the Ark was a
> stone
> slab upon which the high priest sprinkled the blood on the Day of
> Atonement.
>
> I know the last mention of the Ark of the Covenant is in 2. Chronicles
> 35:5,
> saying:
> He said to the Levites, who instructed all Israel and who had been
> consecrated to YHWH: "Put the sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son
> of
> David king of Israel built. It is not to be carried about on your
> shoulders."
>
> This happened around 642 (?) BCE.
>
> And now the question...
> Do we know that the Ark of the Covenant was replaced by a stone slab?
>
> If so...
> Who writes about it?
> Do we know when this was done?
> Do we know what the stone slab looked like?
>
> ----
>
> Alexander Oldernes
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>
>
Best Salaams,

R. Brian Roberts
Amateur Researcher in Biblical Archaeology
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>From dwashbur AT nyx.net Tue Aug 2 11:09:08 2005
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Subject: [b-hebrew] Josiah's book of the Law
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The recent discussion that included Josiah and the discovery during his day
triggered a memory of something I read a long time ago, and I want to toss it
out for discussion if nobody minds.

Merrill F. Unger, in his book "Archaeology and the Old Testament" (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1954) p. 281 says in part that "it was customary in
ancient times to place documents in the foundations of buildings as is done
even to the present day [1954, at least]." He suggests that the Book of the
Law that Josiah's priests discovered had been placed in the cornerstone of
the Temple by Solomon, and that during the extensive repairs to the Temple
that Josiah directed, the stone masons and carpenters came across this
deposit and reported it to the priests. Hence the rediscovery of the Book of
the Law. Unger also notes that Nabonidus, around the 6th century BC (BCE if
you prefer) liked to dig into foundations of buildings to see what sorts of
documents were cached away therein.

I'm wondering what folks here think of this idea as an explanation of the
discovery during Josiah's reign.

--
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Well, if I'd wanted a safe life, I guess I wouldn't have
married a man who studies rocks." - Betty Armstrong (Fay Masterson)




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