The Ark on Mount Nebo?

Ideas that the ark of the covenant is located somewhere in Israel are based upon the fact that 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52 each give a detailed account of what the Babylonians took away with them when they captured Jerusalem, but no reference is made to the items from the holy and most holy places of the tabernacle, including the ark.

The apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees has the following account:

". . . the prophet [Jeremiah], being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain, where Moses climbed up [Mount Nebo], and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremy came thither, he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it. Which when Jeremy perceived, he blamed them, saying, As for that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy" (2:4-7).

This book was written well after the time of Jeremiah. The flaw in what it says is that one would have thought that the return from captivity, and the rebuilding of the temple, would have been the time for God to have revealed where the ark was so that it could be put into the newly built temple. However, the Scriptures are silent on this.

In 1981 an American called Tom Crotser went to look for the ark in the area of Mount Nebo. He claimed to have found a tunnel on Mount Pisgah leading to a rock-hewn crypt in which was the ark along with its carrying poles. He managed to get his 'discovery' internationally syndicated as a news report, and claimed to have photographs which supported his story. However, one archaeologist who looked at these found only one to be at all clear, and that depicted a yellow box, which appeared to be made of brass, and which had a very modern-looking nail protruding from one corner. There are, of course, a number of charlatans around claiming sensational discoveries, and any story of the discovery of a Bible artefact needs to be treated with considerable caution.

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