Posted on 01/25/2012 9:26:36 AM PST by marshmallow
There are many worthy pilgrimage sites all over the world, but none can boast of anything approaching the Church of Ethiopia’s singular claim to fame: the Ark of the Covenant. Ethiopian Christians maintain that the Ark, the portable shrine holding the stone tablets of the original Ten Commandments that were written atop Mount Sinai by the Finger of God, and bearing (according to numerous Old Testament accounts) the Presence and Power of God, was brought to Ethiopia in 950 B.C. Menelik, son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, is said to have taken it there, and it is now housed in a modest chapel next door to the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum, a city in northern Ethiopia.
However, before you book a flight to Addis Ababa and flag down the next land rover for a lift to Axum, be aware that while Ethiopians insist that the Ark is there, no one is actually allowed to see it. No one, that is, except the High Priest of Axum, an aged monk who is charged with protecting the Ark and is expected to spend his days doing nothing else. Indeed, he can’t do anything else, for he is confined to the chapel that houses the Ark, and a small yard outside.
On his deathbed he is charged with designating his own successor, who may be forgiven for taking the duty as a dubious blessing: the Ethiopians remember and take very seriously all the Old Testament prohibitions on touching the Ark, and the accounts of its fearsome holy power. One British explorer who tried to get permission to see the Ark recounted what the monks told him, sounding as if he were reading from the script of the next Indiana Jones movie:
If I approached the Ark.........
(Excerpt) Read more at crisismagazine.com ...
“There aren’t too many places outside the USA that I would like to see...”
I know exactly how you feel. I’ve had the pleasure and priveledge of visiting 50 of the 57 US states, and am looking forward to visiting the other 7 states as soon as I can find them on a map. ;>)
Good point. Pelosi looks like she already opened the Ark and melted her own face off. How bad could it be to do it a second time?
Agreed. Lanciano is high on my list someday when time and funds allow. Amazing.
But shhhhh, it’s a secret. Like the half million that march for life every year in D.C. Very secret.
“—Seems to me that if God wanted us to have the Ark we would have it now.—”
“Why?”
For one thing the Ark of the Covenant belongs to the 12 tribes of Israel not the USA. If it belongs anywhere it probably should be in Israel.
What we need here is an appropriate quote from Ann Coulter......................
“stone tablets of the original Ten Commandments that were written atop Mount Sinai by the Finger of God”
The “finger of God” tablets were smashed into pieces by an enraged Moses at the base of the golden calf. Moses later went up onto a mountain and had to rewrite the laws onto tablets in his own hand, though still receiving the laws from God. So which tablets would be in the Ark...the broken fragments and/or the ones written in Moses’ own hand?
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