The Ark of the Covenant

Post Reply New Topic

The Ark of the Covenant is a symbol of values (among other meanings).

So why was there no money in the Ark?

The Ark of the Covenant represented God's direct presence among the Israelites.

No money? Well, you can look at that from various perspectives. Obviously human currency wasn't considered that important. But then considering the precious metal and workmanship that went into building the Ark, you could argue that the Ark was literally covered in money (gold).

I think that the section of the bible devoted to describing the designing, building, transporting, and subsequent loss of the ark is a metaphor for the process which individuals, ( and perhaps societies ) go through of thinking that given enough time and/or money, etc, ie. exactly the right resources, ( incl attention, dedication, precision, etc ), they can create a model of life/the world which completely describes and contains the "one reality" ( which being a model can be/is carried within our heads ) ... only to discover that no model can or does ever do that, ( as it disintegrates, gets lost, is taken from them by new data/theories, etc ).

Why would it have contained money?
.

Last edited by ouinon on 29 Jul 2010, 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AngelRho wrote: The Ark of the Covenant represented God's direct presence among the Israelites.

No money? Well, you can look at that from various perspectives. Obviously human currency wasn't considered that important. But then considering the precious metal and workmanship that went into building the Ark, you could argue that the Ark was literally covered in money (gold).

---

Agree. To me it sounds like the Ark of the Covenant was a kind of jewelry box, gold cedar chest, a (hollowed out) bar of pure gold.

As I recall, the Ark of the Covenant contained three (or more objects).

Also, I have also heard that Orthodox Judaism has said that God literally lived inside the Ark of the Covenant.

---

Where is the actual Ark of the Covenant located today?

- http://www.templeinstitute.org/
- Raider of the Lost Ark (movie)

How so?

---

Musings...

If you were to put a piece of paper (a statement of your life values) in a glass jar with a lid on top, what would be on the piece of paper?

What items were actually in the large gold box known as the Ark of the Covenant - Agreement - Oath - Vow?

What was actually in the Ark of the Covenant?

Perhaps 4 or 5 items:

1. The first set of broken stone (Town Hall values) 10 Commandments
2. A bowl of manna (food from God) from the desert
3. The almond blossom rod of Aaron, Moses' brother and politician (religious politics)
4. God himself lived in the Ark of the Covenant (Orthodox Judaism) - my understanding - (well, then we can measure how big God is if he lived in the Ark of the Covenant box)
5. A scroll copy of the Book of the Law (IRS rules, Code of Hammurabi, luncheon tickets to dine with Moses at the White House so to speak)

---

Vision - Mission - Goals - Values

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_of_purpose

---

X-reference: The Masons and their symbolic interpretation of the idea of a Holy Bible/a holy book

Jesus Christ (added a 11th Commandment) and may have written on a piece of paper:

a) Love the God of Judaism

and

b) Love your neighbor as yourself

and placed that message inside a glass jar with a lid on the top.

---

Symbolism

Proverbs

Poetry

Storytelling

Values

---

In The Lord of the Rings (movies), everything revolves around a ring which has great power for the wearer of the ring.

The Ark of the Covenant is a gold box which contains great, symbolic ideas within it.

If one obeys the 10 Commandments, God will provide food (manna) as well as benevolent religious leadership (rod of Aaron). Details are contained in the Book of the Law. And, by the way, God literally lives in the gold box of the Ark of the Covenant so even the Christians will have a difficult time surpassing that idea unless they steal the Egyptian religion idea of eating God in the form of bread baked in the sun in Cairo, Egypt which is what some did.

---

leejosepho - So what do you think? What are your ideas on the topic of the Ark of the Covenant? - pgd

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3KV4fLSNoU[/youtube]

---

Nice picture expressing what I seem to interpret as shock.

I know of very few persons who can interpret Scriptures/the Bible correctly all the time.

The two exceptions may be the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_the_Great (side-effect of a sugar-donut fortified diet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Flanders (Christian perspective)

Just kidding a little.

The Orthodox do not believe G-D is confined in space.

ruveyn

I believe you might have it confused as being some kind of casket, a decorated box for holding treasured items. But for sure, it definitely was/is more than any mere coffin.

One the basis of the biblical description, it is a wood box inlaid with precious metals containing some artifacts of significance to the Jewish people. Sorry, God does not live in the box. He never did.

ruveyn

Agreed. Extend that to the temple, as well. There seems to have been mild controversy with building the temple on the basis that it is not possible for man to build something that can contain God. Nevertheless, the temple was God's earthly "house," in a manner of speaking, and the Ark was His earthly "seat" or "footstool."

In my reading, I'm nearing the end of Jeremiah, and there are references to God leaving or abandoning the temple. They believed that as long as God was in the temple, Judah and Jerusalem would be protected from the Babylonians. What Jeremiah tried, and failed, to persuade the Jews was that God had abandoned the temple on account of His faithless people and that the Babylonians were acting within the will of God to take them into captivity. By not resisting the Babylonians and going into exile, they'd be in compliance with God's will and given better treatment. The Babylonians apparently left a remnant of the poor, disenfranchised Jews to stay in Judah and Benjamin under Babylonian governance. But even those who were allowed to retain their homeland decided to take matters in their own hands and try to escape. Such is the plight of those fitting God into some kind of box in which God is made to serve OUR purpose rather than the opposite.

Addendum to above: It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the Ark really was located in Axum as it is rumored to be. However, I don't personally believe that the ark retains any temporal significance. My personal belief on this is that the human body is the temple and the soul is the seat of God's Spirit. There need not be any holy relic to maintain an impersonal deity when it is God's intention that all human beings know Him.

On a much less reverent note, anyone familiar with the "Baghdad Battery"? I can't find a youtube link, but this was featured prominently on "Mythbusters" as a possible explanation for death incurred by mishandling the Ark. The myth was busted as there was no way in that period of time any kind of battery they could have made would have released enough electrical power to cause pain much less kill someone. The experiment involved reconstructing a model of the ark complete with golden cherubim, and it took a modern electric fence transformer to actually get any results, though the results were (of course) non-lethal.

It's still an interesting idea, though, and quite creative!

---

Ark of the Covenant: Ancient Battery? | Drudge Retort
Jun 10, 2006 ... From Exodus to Indiana Jones, the Ark of the Covenant has been described as possessing awesome destructive powers but how did it work?
www.drudge.com/archive/.../ark-covenant-ancient-battery - Cached - Similar

Ark of the Covenant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A late 19th-century artist's conception of the Ark of the Covenant, ..... Ark of the Covenant in popular culture · Baghdad Battery · Rastafari movement ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant - Cached - Similar

(Google)

---

I've walked on the linoleum floor to the refrigerator section of a large supermarket and been slightly shocked/zapped with static electricity when opening one of the glass doors to get a box of eggs.

Does this mean that the Ark of the Covenant may be stored there in the back of the refrigerator section?

Or does Indiana Jones know the true location of the Ark?

- Raiders of the Lost Ark (movie)

(...Just kidding a little...)

...

Actually, I have no idea where the Ark of the Covenant may be hidden (if it still exists).

Apparently there were a number of clashes where the Ark may have been captured and melted down/destroyed. That's my understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K10C:_Kids ... mmandments

...

There's an online tour at:

http://www.gwmemorial.org/

which presents various themes from the Bible as well as a replica of the Ark of the Covenant.

http://www.gwmemorial.org/index.php

Has someone here suggested otherwise? If so, I missed it.