Ark of the Covenant

Dagon and Ashera I recognise as Canaanite, or so-called Philistine deities, yes but they are present in the Bible they are referenced in the Bible, we hear that the Ark of the Covenant destroys Dagon in the city of Ashdod.

Journalism took me to Ethiopia, and in Ethiopia I heard that Ethiopia claims to possess the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

I became very interested in the Ark of the Covenant fascinating object the way that it's described in the book of Exodus, the blueprint for the construction of the Ark, the things that the ark then does subsequently during the conquest of the promised land sounds like a weapon of some of some kind.

What do you think the Ark of the Covenant was?

I'd like you to talk a little more about the technological aspects of the Ark of the Covenant, but also can you think of other objects in the Bible which maybe deserve a technological interpretation, rather than a spiritual interpretation?

We've spoken of the Ark of the Covenant as a technological object you've spoken of the kavod I'm recollecting a thing called the Shamir, sometimes described as a worm oh yes there is also the Shamir it sounds also technological can you talk a little bit about that?

When when you were a journalist for The Economist you encountered the Ark of the Covenant?

I encountered the Ark of the Covenant, yes I was the East Africa correspondent for The Economist, so I was based in Nairobi in Kenya and a number of neighboring countries were countries that I reported on regularly and one of those countries was Ethiopia and in Ethiopia, by chance, very shortly after I had watched the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford very soon after I had watched that I was on a research trip in Ethiopia and it came to my attention that the Ethiopians claim to possess this object well obviously I was interested this fascinating, powerful, mysterious object and it's hidden in the mountains of Ethiopia I had never heard that before so I began to investigate that particular claim now at that time, which was 1983, the early 1980's I didn't have any particular interest in history, or in pre-history, or in archeology my interests were much more in current affairs but I also had the sense that I think any journalist would have presented by this information that there was something going on here because although archaeologists were rejecting Ethiopia's claim they were saying there was nothing to it, it was a complete fantasy my own eyes showed me that it was central to Ethiopian culture it was fundamental to Ethiopian culture that there was a community of Ethiopian Jews they call themselves the Beta Israel, the House of Israel they are known in Ethiopia as the Falashas and they practice a very ancient form of Judaism they do not know—they only became acquainted with the Talmud as a result of missionary activity from Israel they did not have the Talmud, but they did have the Torah so they're a very old form of Judaism they practiced sacrifice of rams and this, I believe, is forbidden in Judaism since the destruction of the first temple yes they practiced sacrifice of rams, and they had a rich history that told how they had come to Ethiopia, and how they had brought the Ark of the Covenant with them.

It's a different story from the story that the Ethiopian National epic tells the Ethiopian National epic is called the Kebra Nagast, "The Glory of Kings" and in that they claim that the Queen of Sheba was an Ethiopian Queen she made her famous biblical visit to the court of Solomon she was made pregnant by Solomon, according to the Ethiopian version she returned to Ethiopia, she bore the child, his name was Menelik, it means "the son of the wise man" and the story is that at the age of about 20 or 21 he went back to Jerusalem, he was recognized by his father, and somehow after one year in the court of Solomon he contrived to steal the Ark of the Covenant this is written in the Kebra Nagast and he carried it off to Ethiopia and we are told in the Kebra Nagast that Solomon was okay with this because it meant that God wanted it to be in Ethiopia rather than somewhere else.

So they were really another kind of Jewish religion indeed so here we come to the interesting point where history connects with this story because that Jewish temple on the island of Elephantine is a fact it did exist there were communications between it and Jerusalem the temple had the same dimensions as the Temple of Solomon when I searched the Bible for an explanation for the construction of the temple, the only explanation I find is as a house of rest for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord it's a place in which the Ark of the Covenant is to be put and then suddenly while the first Temple still exists, we have another temple built in Egypt of the same dimensions those Ethiopian Jews say that their ancestors were driven out of that Island this also is true we know from the Egyptian history that this happened there was a Jewish community on that island and there was conflict with the Egyptian authorities because the island of Elephantine is dedicated to the Egyptian god Khnum, and Khnum is a ram-headed deity so the tension was caused by the sacrifice of rams that was taking place so the Falashas say, to cut a long story short, that their ancestors fled south they didn't go north through a hostile Egypt and back to Jerusalem they went south and they followed the Nile River system they followed the Blue Nile branch and they ended up in Lake Tana in Ethiopia and that's the heartland of Ethiopian Judaism Lake Tana, which is the source of the Blue Nile and suddenly I could see how this story made sense because how do you get the connection between Jerusalem and Ethiopia what connects them once you come into Egypt and into the Nile Valley, what connects them is the River Nile and it made perfect sense and Lake Tana was the place where the the Falashas had their homeland so once I learned all of this I began to feel that the Ethiopian story really deserved serious investigation and I looked into it in great depth and it was the moment where there was a transition in my life from investigating current affairs issues to investigating the past it put me on that path and the very first thing that I felt about the Ark of the Covenant as I was reading and I read all of the descriptions very very carefully is this thing sounds like a piece of technology it's constructed, it's carefully made, there's a blueprint, there's instructions on what to do, there's gold, there's wood, there's gold, there's these mysterious tablets that are placed inside it, whatever they are and it opened my eyes to the possibility that there might be a forgotten technological episode in the past of humanity and I would not have gone on to write my books about the possibility of a Lost Civilization if I had not first had that encounter with the mystery of the Ark of the Covenant personally I think the Ethiopian claim is rather strong for a lot of reasons but in a way its role in my life was to educate me as to the range of mysteries in the past that archaeologists completely ignore, and just scornfully dismiss they are not interested in myths, in traditions, any such thing they just they just dismiss it and in the process of doing so, as we say in English, they are throwing out the baby with the bath water they're missing important things in their desperate effort to be scientists so it was an important lesson for me there are mysteries in the past that are unexplained, which certainly are not explained by the present model of history, and that that model therefore must be questioned and that's what I've subsequently devoted my life to doing and often I think many mysteries are explained away too simply yeah, that's right, far too simple too simply of a way yeah, definitely but I think that your journey in Ethiopia was a great gift for us all thank you absolutely a great gift for us all thank you, it was an amazing adventure for me and it and it opened my eyes to problems and issues that I had been completely unaware of before and it set me on the track that I'm still that I'm still on today I think it's impossible to understand the human condition in the present if we have only a single view of the past we must have a diversity of views, we must be open to all of them and this is the main problem I have with archeology.