{"id":824,"date":"2009-06-26T19:16:47","date_gmt":"2009-06-26T19:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia--or-not.html"},"modified":"2009-06-26T19:16:47","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T19:16:47","slug":"the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia&#8212; or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not for the first time and undoubtedly not for the last, the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia is claiming it has the original Ark of the Covenant spoken of in the Bible, and made famous all over again by Indiana Jones.&nbsp; What is new about all this is that the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church says he will be unveiling it for all the world to see soon and very soon. &nbsp; Here is a link to the story<br \/>http:\/\/weeklyworldnews.com\/headlines\/9322\/ark-of-the-covenant-revealed\/<\/p>\n<p>I must confess that I am more than just a tad skeptical that this ark has anything to do with the original ark of the covenant.&nbsp; Why not? Well, lets start with the fact that according to Orthodox tradition the ark was brought to Ethiopia by Menilik I who was supposedly Solomon&#8217;s son which he had with the Queen of Sheba (who knew?). This claim is not based in any ancient sources known to date prior to the time of Jesus.&nbsp; What the Bible says is that Solomon&#8217;s son was Rehoboam, and no sexual dalliance, never mind marriage to the Queen of Sheba is mentioned in the Bible. 1 Kngs 10.13 refers to Solomon giving the Queen various goods, in a reciprocity exchange meant to cement a positive relationship between the two peoples.&nbsp; When Solomon is said to have had sexual relationships with foreign women, the text is quite explicit and names the countries from which they came ( 1 Kngs. 11.1ff.) Neither the Queen of Sheba, nor anyone else from Sheba is mentioned. <\/p>\n<p>But besides this fact, there is no good reason whatsoever why any son of Solomon would cart the ark off to Ethiopia. Judea was not under attack by any of the neighboring super powers such as Egypt during the reign of the son of Solomon and the Temple had of course been built in Jerusalem in part to house the ark of the covenant in the first place.&nbsp; Furthermore, the evidence as far as it goes suggests that Sheba (or Saba) was the country known as Yemen on the east side of the Red Sea, not Ethiopia which is on the west side of that sea, though this matter is debated, and some think Saba included territory on both sides of the sea. <\/p>\n<p>Here below you will find a picture of the little shrine in Ethiopia where the ark is now housed.<br \/><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/ark_of_the_covenant2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ark_of_the_covenant2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/137\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/ark_of_the_covenant2-thumb-600x450-6040.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n<div>Stay tuned for more &#8216;revelations&#8217;, but as my granny once said&#8212; &#8220;Don&#8217;t be so open minded that your brains fall out&#8221;.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not for the first time and undoubtedly not for the last, the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia is claiming it has the original Ark of the Covenant spoken of in the Bible, and made famous all over again by Indiana Jones.&nbsp; What is new about all this is that the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia- or Not - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia- or Not - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not for the first time and undoubtedly not for the last, the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia is claiming it has the original Ark of the Covenant spoken of in the Bible, and made famous all over again by Indiana Jones.&nbsp; What is new about all this is that the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-26T19:16:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/ark_of_the_covenant2-thumb-600x450-6040.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia- or Not - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia- or Not - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"Not for the first time and undoubtedly not for the last, the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia is claiming it has the original Ark of the Covenant spoken of in the Bible, and made famous all over again by Indiana Jones.&nbsp; What is new about all this is that the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2009-06-26T19:16:47+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/ark_of_the_covenant2-thumb-600x450-6040.jpg"}],"author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html","name":"The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia- or Not - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/ark_of_the_covenant2-thumb-600x450-6040.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-26T19:16:47+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-26T19:16:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/ark_of_the_covenant2-thumb-600x450-6040.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/ark_of_the_covenant2-thumb-600x450-6040.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2009\/06\/the-ark-of-the-covenant-in-ethiopia-or-not.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia&#8212; or Not"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&amp;E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}