Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>]

Stephen;

Can you provide us with an image of the Karnak inscription that you say 
depicts the Ark of the Covenant?


On Tuesday, August 2, 2005, at 03:21  PM, Stephen Segall wrote:

> What happened to the Ark of the Covenant? After the death of King 
> Solomon
> his son Rehoboam became king. The 10 northern tribes revolted against
> Rehoboam and formed their own separate kingdom. Rehoboam's troops 
> refused
> to fight against their fellow Israelites, so Rehoboam was left with a
> small fraction of the population and a fraction of the land of Solomon's
> original kingdom.
>
> This was a tempting target for the king of Egypt who attacked and 
> overran
> the truncated Kingdom of Judah. To prevent a siege of Jerusalem, 
> Rehoboam
> agreed to let the Egyptians loot Jerusalem and leave without a fight. 
> This
> Egyptian victory was commemorated on a temple wall at Karnak. The wall
> carving shows Egyptian soldiers carrying away the Ark of the Covenant.
>
> While some may argue that just because the ark being taken away by the
> Egyptians exactly matches the Ark described in the Torah, it might just 
> be
> a chest with carrying rails. This is highly unlikely, since the 
> magnitude
> of the Egyptian victory could best be demonstrated by showing that they
> were carrying off the Judeans most prize possession. It is like saying
> that the menorah being carried away by Roman soldiers on the arch of 
> Titus
> could have been any menorah and not the one from the Second Temple.
>
> Rehoboam and the Temple priests tried to hide the loss of the Ark from 
> the
> population, since admitting the Egyptians had taken the Ark was 
> tantamount
> to admitting that God had abandoned the Kingdom of Judah. The secret 
> could
> be kept for generations since only the Hign Priest was allowed to enter
> the Holy of Holies in the Temple.
>
> The phrase in the Book of Kings about Josiah ordering the Levites to
> return the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple appears to be an
> embellishment to the story of the Passover celebration ordered by 
> Josiah,
> since no action was taken to execute this command.
>
> On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, 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
> >
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Best Salaams,

R. Brian Roberts
Amateur Researcher in Biblical Archaeology