Dr Paul Allen

What was the ark of the covenant? You’ve heard of it. You’ve read of it. Maybe you even saw it in Raiders of the Lost  Ark,  but  what was it really? What did it look like? And why was it so important? In the desert, after the Exodus from Egypt, the Lord told Moses to make a ceremonial ark or aron – a wooden chest – as a sign of the covenant made at Mount Sinai.[1] The ark was made of acacia wood—a box within a box within a box—a metre long, and overlaid with gold.[2] On top was a solid-gold cover called the kapporet , where two golden keruvim or ‘cherubim’ faced each other, wing-tips touching. WHAT IS A KERUV? The keruv or cherub is a being whose general type is well known to us from ancient eastern iconography. It was not a winged man; much less a little flying putto or baby boy . Rather it was a being combining human characteristics with those of fierce animals and birds, and representing a solar or stellar deity. The best-known example is the great man-headed lion t...

We’ve answered the question, “ What was the ark of the covenant? ” The next question we must ask is “What happened to the ark of the covenant?” Specifically, what happened to it from the time it was made until the time it disappeared. As we have seen, from the day of its construction, the ark was the central object of Israel’s faith. The second commandment prohibited Israel from having images of the deity, as other nations had. Instead, Israel had the ark, the invisible deity’s footstool. But what was its story in Israel’s national life? And what happened to the ark of the covenant in the end? FROM TABERNACLE TO ZION TENT Where the ark went, the Lord went (Num. 10.34); its presence ensured his (1 Sam. 4.3). He spoke from between the keruvim on the ark, amidst a glowing cloud (Exod. 25.22; 30.6; 40.35). The honour due him was paid to the ark. When the ark appeared in public, sacrifices were offered before it, people bowed to it and cried on every side, Yehovah Ts’vaot! Yehovah Ts’vaot!...

What happened to the ark of the covenant? There are theories galore. Here’s a quick rundown.  Let’s start with Egypt. After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king, and Pharaoh Shishak invaded Jerusalem. He carried off treasures from the temple (1 Kings 14). That theory, of course, lies behind Raiders of the Lost Ark. Others think that when King Jehoash from the northern kingdom invaded Jerusalem and plundered the temple treasury, he took the ark as spoils of war (2 Kings 14). Both theories run into a snag. There is evidence that the ark was restored to (or still present in) Jerusalem generations later during the reign of Josiah ( 2 Chronicles 35:3). That brings us to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Nebuchadnezzar razed the temple and carried many sacred objects away to Babylon. Some think the ark was destroyed then or taken into exile. Here’s the problem: Jeremiah 52, which we read today in Bible in One Year, gives a long inventory of temple items taken by th...

 

 

 

Dick Harfield writes answers to theological questions on Quora. As a self-declared atheist, his responses follow a recognisable pattern: vague where precision is needed, occasionally accurate, but consistently thin on detail. He habitually invokes the phrase "most theologians today believe" without attribution, and on the rare occasions he does cite sources, they tend to be liberal, non-believing scholars who share his sceptical presuppositions — a kind of circular credentialing. His approach to engagement is equally revealing. He disables debate on his answers, insulating himself from challenge, and his followers tend to reinforce rather than interrogate his conclusions, often using his answers as a platform to sneer at orthodox Christianity rather than examine it seriously. The question below is a good illustration. It is a genuinely interesting theological question — but Harfield misreads its context entirely, arriving at a confident conclusion while missing the point th...

Why does the KJV Bible contain references to such mythological creatures as the ‘unicorn’ (Num. 23:22) and the ‘satyr’ (Isa. 13:21)? How can such allusions be harmonised with the claim that the Bible is the infallible word of God? The “Unicorn” of the Bible The term “unicorn” is found nine times in the King James Version of the Bible (Num. 23:22; 24:8; Dt. 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psa. 22:21; 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7). However, unicorn does not appear at all in the American Standard Version, nor in most other modern versions. This should be a signal that the “problem” is one of translation, rather than a problem with the original, biblical text. In ancient mythological literature, the unicorn was a horse-like animal with a prominent horn protruding from the centre of its forehead. There is no evidence that this creature is alluded to in the scriptures. In the Hebrew Old Testament, the word that is found in the texts referenced above is re’em, which is translated “wild ox” in the later version...

In 1976, Carl F.H. Henry published God, Revelation, and Authority, one of the most significant works of theology in the twentieth century. Five years later, Gordon Clark released A Christian View of Men and Things. In the same tradition, David Noebel’s magisterial Understanding the Times covered 10 different areas to which a worldview speaks, from theology and philosophy to economics, ethics, sociology, and history. And all on his own, the late Christian philosopher Ron Nash covered almost every other conceivable topic from a Christian worldview.   Missing in the long line of Christian worldview books is one that would have been especially helpful last week when the Pentagon released a slew of documents, some of which were formerly classified.  The Christian view of UFOs, Aliens, and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (or UAP) remains to be written. NPR described this move by the Trump administration, “In all, the Pentagon released more than 160 records, citing President Tr...

Sinful acts always have their origin in some form of unbelief. Behind every sin is a lie. The root of all our behaviour and emotions is the heart—what it trusts and what it treasures. And people are given over to sinful desires because “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:24–25):  Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (Eph. 4:17–19)  Humanity’s problem is futile thinking, darkened understanding, and ignorant hearts. We sin because we believe the lie that we are better off without God—that his rule is oppressive, we will be free without him, and sin offers more than God. This is true of every sin.  We can often identify...