From Eden to Exile by Eric H. Cline

Author:Eric H. Cline [Cline, Eric H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4262-1224-6
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2012-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem has a large number of reservoirs and chambers underneath where the Temple of Solomon stood. Could the ark be buried here? (Illustration Credits 6.4)

Under the Temple Mount—One of the most popular hypotheses today is the one stating that the ark is presently in a secret chamber deep within the Temple Mount, underneath the present-day Dome of the Rock. Basing this claim on the references in II Chronicles, Jeremiah, II Maccabees, the Talmud, and the Mishneh Torah, devotees of the various versions of this theory believe that the ark was hidden either by Solomon immediately after moving it into the Temple in the tenth century B.C., by Josiah sometime during his reign toward the end of the seventh century B.C., or by Jeremiah immediately before the Neo-Babylonian destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C.

For example, the Temple Institute, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group based in Jerusalem that is dedicated to rebuilding the Temple, says Josiah hid the ark in a special place prepared by Solomon within the bowels of the Temple Mount. They say further, “This location is recorded in our sources, and today, there are those who know exactly where this chamber is. And we know that the ark is still there, undisturbed, and waiting for the day when it will be revealed.”

There are several stories circulating that claim digs have been conducted under the Temple Mount in search of the ark, and that the ark has been found there. The most famous story claims that during the excavations of the present Western Wall tunnel in the early 1980s, two rabbis noticed water seeping from a wall. Moving a stone, they found a vaulted chamber, and then a second, lower, chamber in which they either saw or expected to see the Ark of the Covenant, along with the Table of Shewbread and the seven-branched candelabra. Before they could remove the objects or even record their existence, however, the Islamic authorities sealed up the entrance to the chambers.

Of course, the story has never been fully documented or confirmed by official authorities. The closest that we can get to a semiofficial statement is along the lines of a mention that Leen Ritmeyer made in his book The Quest. Ritmeyer says, “In 1981 workers of the Religious Affairs Ministry carried out a dig under the Temple Mount in search of the Ark. However, when this caused disturbances among the Arab population, the project was aborted.” In his book Searching for the Ark of the Covenant, however, Randall Price provides details of an unofficial investigation that he conducted in the early 1990s, including interviews with several of the rabbis who were reportedly involved. Price’s interviews document that the rabbis differ in the details of their stories and also diverge on whether they did or did not actually see the ark during their excavations.

There is no problem with this theory in and of itself, as it is based on an interpretation of the textual sources. The problem lies with the fact

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