The Ark of the Covenant : The True Story of the Greatest Relic of Antiquity

by Roderick Grierson, Stuart Christopher Munro-Hay

There are so many imaginative rewrites of religious history and archaeology these days--most of them full of factual inaccuracies and hop-skip-and-jumps of logic--that it's a delight to read one which is sound and scholarly. The authors of The Ark of the Covenant are academics specialising in the history of Africa, particularly Ethiopia.

The Ark is nothing to do with Noah's Ark. It was the most sacred object in ancient Judaism: the casket in which the Tablets of the Law which God gave to Moses--the Ten Commandments--were kept. The Ark led the Israelites to battle but it was always carefully shielded from view; anyone who saw it or even came too near would be killed by its awesome power. Initially it was kept in a tent or Tabernacle but when Solomon built his famous temple it was housed in the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctuary. The historical books of the Old Testament are full of references to the Ark--but after that it is barely mentioned again, as if it has vanished completely. Was it destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked in 587B.C.? Was it stolen, hidden or spirited away to safety?

Grierson and Munro-Hay discuss in detail an ancient Ethiopian epic called The Glory of Kings which claims that the Ark was taken from Jerusalem to Ethiopia by the son of Solomon and his most famous lover, the Queen of Sheba. They visit a shrine in Ethiopia which even today claims to house it, and examine the peculiarly Jewish nature of Ethiopian Christianity. But unlike Graham Hancock, whose book The Sign and the Seal they describe as a "sensational account", they make no wild claims. This is an historical study by scholars, and a very sensible and readable work. --David V Barrett

Genres: History, Reference, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

Reviews

[Jim S · Rating 2 out of 5]

The tag line for this book is "The True Story of the Greatest Relic of Antiquity" But this idea of there being one unique Ark is continually undermined.

First of all there's the controversy of what exactly is the Ark. Is it the dwelling of the Almighty that will kill anyone who approach it the wrong way? Is it a weapon of conquest that the Children of Israel carried with them causing their enemies to flee before them? Or is it the reliquary for the Tablets of the Law that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai? The bible supports all three views.

Also the nomenclature isn't consistent. The Bible speaks of the Ark, the Temple and the Tabernacle and some times it seems like they are talking about the same thing, some times not.

And then there's the problem of provenance - this is the real bogey for me.

The Ark was built by Moses according to a design received from God in the book of Exodus. This is the Ark. I will accept no substitutes.

This same object traveled around but was eventually retrieved by David and placed in the Temple in Jerusalem by Solomon. However the Temple was sacked by the Babylonians and after that the Bible is silent about the location of the Ark. So where do we look now?

The authors have no shortage of places. They switch to Islamic holy sites, i.e. Mecca, Medina and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, trace the history of the architecture of these places and find similarities to the Ark. They also unearth the accounts of various "Indiana Jones" types characters (you knew that name had to come up) like Carl Raswan, Johann Burkhardt and Charles Doughty who went on Muslim pilgrimages and saw various Ark-like structures all with different names (again the nomenclature issue) being hauled on the backs of camels. The authors admit that there now may be several Arks, but can any of them be cleared linked to the original one of Exodus? Again, this is the problem of provenance.

And where is the Ark today? The authors seem to come to rest on the Ark in the Church of Mary of Zion in Aksum, Ethiopia but by the time they reached that conclusion I had lost the plot.

The authors seem to have done a lot of research but in the end I get the feeling that, in their search for the True Ark, they are grasping at straws. Also it strikes me as strange that they quote from the Bible extensively but never state the chapter and verse. And another thing : you don't help yourself by mentioning Pseudo-Archaeologist Graham Hancock in the introduction.

[Melodie Wendel-Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like how ties in biblical passages with history, and discussing ark...to discussing a tablet in New Testament passages, and if they're one-in-same.
I've just been interested since seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, so this was satisfying read on mythological object that is possibly real...hidden somewhere.

[TheBibleWithTina]

The Ark Of The Covenant
Video Length: 59 seconds
https://youtu.be/UoAVfkgU1HY

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't mind a little Biblical scholarship, this book provides a fascinating insight into the facts and myths surrounding the object that inspired Spielberg's first Indiana Jones film. The authors also examine sources other than the Christian Bible, including Hebrew religious writings, sacred Ethiopian texts, and even the Koran. A well-written, well-researched book.