Ark Twain

In my previous article, I made some (hopefully) educated estimations that allowed me to calculate how heavy the fabled Ark of the Covenant would have been had it been constructed according to the instructions in Exodus chapter 25. That exercise clarified some issues for me.

His Ark is Bigger than is Right

First, my estimated weight of 165 kg (362 lbs) for the ark leads me to conclude it would have been too heavy to be carried by four men. While soldiers sometimes carry backpacks of over 100 lbs of equipment needed for special missions, that weight is being distributed across both shoulders. Levites carrying the ark would have all that weight coming down on one shoulder, greatly reducing the amount they could comfortably carry.

Second, the estimated weight of the chest and the lid are about equal, so the center of gravity would sit at the point where the lid meets the chest. This would be the most balanced place to locate the rings for the carrying poles, yet the instructions in Exodus state that the rings should be attached to the feet of the chest. Underneath the ark next to the feet would be the strongest area to place the poles but it would also make the ark top-heavy and prone to tipping over.

Third, the ark’s purpose was to hold the stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments. 1 Kings 8:9 insists that “There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb.” But the ark’s dimensions are much larger than needed to accomplish that goal.

One of the six pairs of tablet props made for 1956 film The Ten Commandments sold for $60,000 at an auction in 2012. The lettering is in an early Canaanite script practiced in the late Bronze Age.

Take Two Tablets…

The Bible does not provide us dimensions for the two stone tablets, but does tell us that Moses carried it “in his hand” as he climbed up and down the mountain of God (Sinai or Horeb, depending on the tradition). The size of the stone tablets would be limited to what Moses could comfortably carry while climbing a mountain.

The dimensions of the prop tablets from the classic movie The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston were 23.5 x 12 x 1.25”. The props were made of fiberglass. Had they been made of actual stone, they would have weighed something like 15 kg (32 lb) each.  Quite a load for poor old Moses to schlep up and down the mountain twice!

But even with such oversized tablets, there’s more than enough room in the ark with the dimensions given in Exodus 25 (2.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 cubits). You could lay the tablets side by side on the gold-covered floor of the ark and they would take up only half the floor space. And there would be 2.5 feet of wasted space above the tablets.

An ark properly built for such movie-size stone tablets would be much, much smaller. By stacking the tablets on top of each other, you could reduce the footprint to something like 27 x 14” (roughly, a half-cubit by quarter-cubit) and only 3” height. More reasonable dimensions for the stone tablets would yield an even-smaller ark.

A cedar and ebony chest (33 x 24 x 25") found in King Tut's tomb has similarities to the ark as described in Exodus 25. The width is roughly equal to the height, it has a cornice around its opening, and carrying poles slide through metal rings near the chest's feet. The poles are retractable!

The “Other” Ark

To these observations, we can mention that the source of Exodus 25 is the Priestly narrative (P), typically dated to the exilic period (6^th-5^th century BCE), after Jerusalem and its Temple had been destroyed. Many scholars have cited this as reason alone to doubt that the ark ever existed at all.

While it is definitely possible that the Ark and Tabernacle never existed, the detailed descriptions in Exodus could imply that the author was familiar with the items, knew they no longer existed, but wanted to preserve their memory so that one day they might be recreated. But even if we accept this as a possibility, it doesn’t mean that the ark from Exodus 25 originally existed in the form described.

The ark is also mentioned in other parts of the Bible outside of those attributed to the Priestly writer. Deuteronomy comes from a different source tradition. Signified as “D”, this source is typically dated towards the last years of the Kingdom of Judah (7^th-6^th century BCE). Moses says in Deut 10:1-3:

At that time Yhwh said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.” So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 

In this older tradition, the ark is a simple chest of acacia wood – no gold cladding, solid gold lid or angels.

But the purpose of the ark was not solely to store the tablets of the covenant, but also for religious processions. Many ancient (and modern) cultures carry sacred relics or images in religious procession. These images would be placed on or in a box that would be carried on poles. Not allowed to use graven images, the tablets of the covenant were a substitute for an image of Yahweh. Such an object intended for public display would be larger and more resplendent than a simple wooden chest.

Ark Evolution

Suggested only as a hypothesis, the early Israelites could have employed the concept of the portable shrine. If Levites had a semi-monopoly on cultic practices and if Levites hailed from Egypt, the portable shrine would have been built along the Egyptian models they were familiar with. Containing a statue or maybe even stone tablets, it probably would have been smaller than the ark described in Exodus. Built of wood, maybe covered in thin gold foil rather than sheets of gold plate.

Once all cultic practices were centralized in Jerusalem and there was no longer a need to keep the chest portable, a new container may have been built to take its place. Much as the Temple replaced the Tabernacle, a new golden ark would have replaced the old wooden book box. Perhaps the old, sacred chest may even have been placed inside of the golden ark.

If the golden ark as described in Exodus 25 really existed and held an older, smaller wooden ark, that would explain why it is so much larger than needed to hold two stone tablets. The extra size and weight would not be an issue if the golden ark was intended to have its permanent home in the Jerusalem temple and would never be moved.

The Real Temptations of Christ

Temptations are funny things. Some things that are irresistible enticements for one person don’t even merit a second thought for another. For an ordinary mortal, turning a stone into bread isn’t a temptation, it’s an impossibility. Yet it is these sort of “temptations” that confront Jesus immediately after his baptism in Matthew and Luke.

The Synoptic Temptations

Mark’s account of the temptation in the desert is terse:

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. (Mk 1:12-13)

Both Matthew (4:1-11) and Luke (4:1-13) expand upon this brief statement with three specific temptations of the devil, and Jesus dismisses each temptation with a quote from Deuteronomy:

1. Turn stones into bread. – “one does not live by bread alone” (Deut 8:3)
2. Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple. – “you shall not tempt the Lord” (Deut 6:16)
3. Worship me and gain the kingdoms of the world. – “you shall worship the Lord” (Deut 6:13)

The fact that Matthew and Luke cite both the same temptations and OT quotes is strong evidence that each drew from a common tradition that was unknown to Mark. Biblical scholars call this hypothetical collection of sayings the Q document.

The major difference between Matthew and Luke in this episode is that Luke reverses the order of temptations #2 and #3 so that the climax occurs at the pinnacle of the Temple. So which order was original in Q? Most commentators think Matthew retains the original order as the devil raises the stakes – as well as the altitude – throughout and the Deuteronomy quotes appear in reverse order. As we have seen in the discussion on the infancy narrative, Luke has a fascination with the Temple and Jerusalem, beginning and ending his gospel in the Temple. A significant chunk of his gospel (9:51-19:27) is dedicating to describing Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, a feature unique to Luke.

If Matthew is closer to the Q source, Luke modifies it in an effort to make the temptations more believable. In Matthew, the devil asks the hungry Jesus to turn all the stones into bread. Not wishing to turn the desert into a bakery, Luke’s devil suggests he only transform one stone. Similarly, Matthew’s devil takes Jesus to a “very high mountain” to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Perhaps knowing that no mountain is tall enough to see the entire world, Luke’s devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in an instant.

The variation on the order of the temptations is a good sign that we’re not dealing on the level of history, but of theology. The point of the desert temptation scene seems to be that Jesus is recapitulating the history of Israel with his forty days representing Israel’s forty years wandering in the desert. In the context of the citations from Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the Israelites of how, during those forty years, they were humbled by hunger, tested God, and tempted to follow foreign gods. But, unlike Israel, Jesus did not succumb to these temptations.

Opting more for Iago or Emperor Palpatine, contemporary liturgical painter Eric Armusik foregoes a more devilish look for Satan in his The Temptation of Christ (2011).

Temptations in the Fourth Gospel

Both Matthew and Luke retain Mark’s chronology with the temptation in the desert serving as the conclusion of Jesus’ preparation for his public ministry. The Fourth Gospel does not present a similar episode. In John’s gospel, as we previously saw, there is no explicit baptism by John and Jesus gathers his first disciples on his return to Galilee before returning to Judea to begin his own brief baptizing ministry. Although there is no dramatic scene of the devil tempting Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, we do see echoes of the temptation episode scattered in chapters 6 and 7 of John.

1. John 6:1-15 is John’s version of the feeding of the multitude, the only miracle of Jesus that appears in all four gospels. Mk 6:45 (paralleled by Mt 14: 22) says that immediately after the miracle, Jesus made his disciples leave in a boat while he dismissed the crowd. John provides the reason: When Jesus realized that the crowd was about to “take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (v. 15). This attempt to make Jesus a political leader is thematically similar to temptation #3 above where the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world.

2. The feeding of the multitude in Mark, Matthew and John – but not Luke – is immediately followed by the miracle of Jesus walking on water. The next day, the crowds follow Jesus to the other side of the sea. Thus begins (6:26-34) the Bread of Life discourse in John. The crowd asks Jesus for a sign, saying that Moses gave them manna in the desert. Jesus in the Fourth Gospel does not quote Deut 8:3, but his response is similar to his dismissal of temptation #1 that it is not earthly bread that gives life, but that which comes down from heaven.

3. After completion of the Bread of Life discourse in John 6, the brothers of Jesus suggest that he travel to Jerusalem for the festival of Tabernacles to work his signs and show himself to the world (7:1-9). Jesus rebuffs their suggestion because his “time has not yet come.” The similarity here is the enticement in temptation #2 to become a spectacle by performing a public act of power in Jerusalem.

The parallels between the three Q temptations and those presented in John are quite interesting. For the modern reader, the temptations as presented in John are more believable than the dramatic temptations presented in Matthew and Luke. But the gospels were not written as biographies of Jesus. They were written to present Jesus’ message of salvation. In such a document, presenting a confrontation between the devil and Jesus gets the theological point across more efficiently than describing three separate occasions in the life of Jesus wherein he was tempted to perform miracles for his own benefit or to gain political power.

Or, as I learned from Spider-Man: “With great power there must also come great responsibility.”