None of the Theories of Ark Whereabouts Is True

Except the one that places the Ark of the Covenant in underground chapel on Temple Mount in 587 BC – 1118 AD; in Templar headquarters in Jerusalem in 1118 – 1187 AD and in an underground chapel in Paris since then.

There is no shortage of theories of current whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant; the four most prominent place it in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe (!), Rome or inside the Hill of Tara in Ireland.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches) claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant in Axum (city in Northern Ethiopia). The Ark is allegedly kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion and (of course) no one is allowed to see it.

How it ended up in Ethiopia? Tewahedo Church claims that the Ark was… well, stolen from the Jews (a replica was left in Solomon’s Temple) by allegedly first Ethiopian Emperor Menelik I and then brought to Ethiopia (after spending some time in Egypt). It was allegedly kept on the islands of Lake Tana in Ethiopia for about four hundred years and finally taken to Axum.

The Lemba tribe have claimed that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the “voice of God”, eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains (in Zimbabwe) – their spiritual home.

How it ended up in Zimbabwe? It is alleged that the Ark was taken to Arabia following the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by Babylonians in 587 BC, and then brought to Yemen. Later, it was taken across the sea to East Africa and had been taken inland at the time of Great Zimbabwe.

Another tale claims that the Ark was kept within the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by Alaric I Gaiseric but was eventually lost when the basilica burned in the 5th century. How it ended up in Rome? It was brought there by Romans who found the Ark of the Covenant in the Second Temple before razing it to the ground in 70 AD.

None of the above is true because there is not even a shred of even a shred of a circumstantial evidence that something like that ever happened (the Irish theory is a total fairy tale).

The Book of 2 Maccabees 2:4–10, written around 100 B.C. claims that the prophet Jeremiah, following “being warned by God” before the Babylonian invasion, took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and buried them in a cave, informing those of his followers who wished to find the place that it should remain unknown “until the time that God should gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy.”

Now this appears to be exactly what happened… only the authors of this book forgot to mention a little detail: the Ark of the Covenant was so vitally important that the High Priest of Jewish religion had been conducting rituals with the Ark of the Covenant non-stop even during Babylonian captivity of the Jews.

These rituals were so vitally important that stopping them (let alone moving the Ark of the Covenant from the territory of the Second Temple was out of the question completely).

Right until Roman legions stormed Jerusalem – and the Second Temple – on September 8th, 70 AD. Right before that date, the High Priest and his trusted associates sealed and disguised the entrance to the “Second Holy of Holies” under the Second Temple… and never returned.

No Jew returned, actually – the Ark was found by the ragtag team of knights-turned-archaeologists led by Hughes de Payens in 1118. It was held in a temporary hiding place until 1120 when Knights Templar got their permanent headquarters on Temple Mount.

The Ark of the Covenant was kept there (and used in the rituals of Ark Templar religion) until 1187 when the inevitable fall of Jerusalem to Saladin and his troops forced the templars to move it to their European headquarters in Paris.

There it was briefly used in Ark Templar rituals in the first nine months of 1307 – and after just about all Templars in France were arrested by the henchmen of King Philip IV, its location was lost… possibly forever.

Or until someone figures out the way to find and extract it.