Leaking roof could lead to revealing of the Ark of the Covenant

There's no way that I'm going to make a post about this and not include a pic from my all-time very most favorite motion picture...

But if you thought that the Ark of the Covenant made its way to a warehouse in Area 51 (or a warehouse in Arlington, Virginia as one of my history professors said years before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), it's been the longstanding belief of many that the real Ark is here...

The Chapel of the Ark on the grounds of the St. Mary of Zion Church in Aksum, Ethiopia.

The story goes that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba produced a son together: Menelik. Years after the Queen's visit that was recorded in scripture, Menelik came to visit his father and it was at that time that Solomon let Menelik take the Ark of the Covenant to what is now Ethiopia. There the Ark was kept by Menelik's descendants and when Christianity arrived over a thousand years later, the Ark came into the custody of what today is the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia.

For the Christians of Ethiopia, the whereabouts of the Ark has been no real secret. It used to be brought out on certain religious occasions (always covered with a thick shroud) and kept in the St. Mary of Zion Church. Then in the 1960s the chapel that you see in the above photo was built and the Ark moved into it. Only one man is allowed to see the Ark of the Covenant itself: a "guardian of the treasure" who is appointed for life to keep the Ark safe from harm. Before the guardian dies, he chooses a young man to be the next to watch over the Ark. So it has gone for generations. The guardian never leaves the chapel, and no one else is allowed inside.

But now, the entire world might be about to see the Ark of the Covenant... all because of a leaking roof.

Rain water is now trickling into the Chapel of the Ark. A new temporary chapel is being built nearby to store the Ark while repairs are being made. And moving the Ark requires four men to pull it off. That's if the instructions found in the Bible are followed, anyway (which they should be, because both Bible and Hollywood warn about nasty things happening to those who would locate the Ark in anything but the prescribed manner).

There are two photographs of the Ark of the Covenant that I'm aware of. One of them was taken in the Fifties or Sixties and shows the Ark outside during a religious festival, completely covered. The other one shows a group of monks carrying a shrouded Ark with their backs turned toward it out of respect. There's something there, all right. And whatever it is, it might very well soon be all over CNN and YouTube.

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Oldest known illustrated Bible discovered in Ethiopia

I've long been fascinated by the history of Christianity in places like India and Ethiopia. There exist today in western India congregations of the faithful that claim - with some evidence - to have been founded by the apostle Thomas in the years following the earthly ministry of Jesus. And then there is Ethiopia: a land where Christianity is said to have arrived courtesy of the eunuch chronicled in the Book of Acts, chapter 8.

Add another page to the intriguing history of the faith in that land long known as Aksum: the world's oldest surviving illustrated Christian Bible has been found in an Ethiopian monastery. The Garima Gospels, printed on goatskin and written in the ancient Ge'ez language, is also said to be the oldest surviving book anywhere that still has the original binding.

So how old is this thing? The Garima Gospels have been dated back at around the Fourth Century A.D.

Sixteen hundred years old. And the illustrations - depicting the writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as the earliest known Christian rendering of a building (possibly the Temple of Jerusalem) - are still as vivid and colorful as when they were first drawn.

This is turning into quite an exciting time for biblical archaeology. Late last month the earliest known icons of Peter and Paul were announced as being discovered in the catacombs beneath Rome (they used lasers to uncover them: wicked kewl aye?), and now this. Unfortunately whether that alleged thingy on the slopes of Mount Ararat really is Noah's Ark is still anybody's guess. But hey: there should be some things we can't know for sure with just our physical senses...

...'cuz that's why it's called "faith" :-)

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Ark of the Covenant to be revealed tomorrow, sez Ethiopian patriarch

Abuna Pauolos, patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, has announced that tomorrow will finally see the revealing of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, which his church is said to have guarded for centuries.

According to those who adhere to the legend, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a son named Menelik I, who eventually came to Jerusalem as a young man and spirited the real Ark of the Covenant away (with Solomon's blessing).

It is there, in that land which in ancient times has been called Aksum and is today known as Ethiopia, where the very Ark of the Covenant which contains the Ten Commandments that G-d gave to Moses is said to be kept in this chapel, with a lone guardian tending to it night and day for as long as he lives...

(According to some reports, the Ark guardians don't live anywhere near a full span of life and have a tendency to developing cataracts, supposedly a testament of the Ark's awesome power.)

The patriarch has said that a museum is being built in Ethiopia where the Ark will be displayed for all to see.

If it is the real Ark of the Covenant, let us hope that these guys know what they are doing, and have read the instruction manual (namely the Old Testament) really meticulously.

Or else, who knows what might happen...

UPDATE 06/26/2009 9:20 p.m. EST: As many have noted, the announced time of today's "revealing" of the Ark of the Covenant has more than come and gone, with nothing to show for it. There are some allegations coming out of Ethiopia that Abuna Pauolos has a shady background. Here's WorldNetDaily's report on the failure of the patriarch to produce the goods.

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