The Ark of the Covenant Revealed

Verification of the Ark's weight using the corroborative evidence of the - Parashat Teruma. [¹]

1. According to the measurements the wooden base or body of the Ark including the gold cladding weighed between one hundred fifty and two hundred kilograms (150 kilos mean weight).
2 .The two stone tablets of the Law weighed forty "Se'ah" - each, or 1000 kilos for two.
3. The total weight of the solid gold lid with the gold Cherubim was equivalent to 15/100ths of a cubic meter of gold, giving a total weight of 2.847 tons or 2892.9 kilos. (Specific weight of Gold 19.29 grams per cubic centimetre)
Making the Total Weight of the Ark equal to = 1 + 2 + 3 = 4042.94 kilos or 4.0 tons.

The Bar-Ilan University raises some relevant questions regarding the Ark's extraordinary weight:-

The description of the measurements and contents of the ark, raises several questions: How could it have been possible for four men to carry the Ark on their shoulders, could they have possibly borne such a heavy burden? Moreover, how could it have been possible to lift the Ark by means of the poles? They would have broken the moment an attempt was made to lift the Ark. The rings would also have broken, since they were attached to very thin walls of gold. Consequently the ark could not have been lifted by natural means, and this must add factuality to the Talmudic saying: "The Ark bore its bearers and passed" (Sota 35a). [¹]

Additional evidence of the ark's levitation abilities are revealed in the book 'Legends of the Jews' .

The Ark was able to carry its carriers as well as itself: -

'Traveling at the head of the Israelite column, the sacred relic was borne on the shoulders of 'the Kohathites' (or 'sons of Kohath'), a sub-clan of the tribe of Levi to which both Moses and Aaron also belonged. According to several legends, and to rabbinical commentaries on the Old Testament, these bearers were occasionally killed by the 'sparks' which the Ark emitted and, in addition, were lifted bodily off the ground from time to time because 'the Ark [was] able to carry its carriers as well as itself.... A particularly striking Jewish legend reports an incident during which the priests attempting to carry the Ark were 'tossed by an invisible agency into the air and flung to the ground again and again. Another tradition describes an occasion when 'the Ark leaped of itself into the air'.

Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal [Quoting from Ginzburg, Legends of the Jews][²]

Further biblical evidence can be seen to reinforce the evidence of the 'Legends of the Jews', where the ark's powers divide the waters of the river Jordan, just before the battle of Jericho.

Confirmation of the Ark's powers are written in the Biblical book Joshua, where the Ark is seen to repulse the waters of the river Jordon. Explicitly revealing a repulsive force acting upon the waters surface, displacing the water downwards and sideways into a wave front or heap.
'It shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of Yahweh, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand in one heap'. (Joshua Ch3.13)

The Ark passes over the Jordan.

Comparing the above Biblical evidence with the Legends of the Jews.

'In the bed of the Jordan Joshua assembled the people around the Ark. A divine miracle caused the narrow space between its staves to contain the whole concourse. Joshua then proclaimed the conditions under which God would give Palestine to the Israelites, and he added, if these conditions were not accepted, the waters of the Jordan would descend straight upon them. Then they marched through the river. When the people arrived on the further shore, the holy Ark, which had all the while been standing in the bed of the river, set forward of itself, and, dragging the priests after it, overtook the people.'

The Legends of the Jews IV. Louis Ginzberg [³]

® Raiders of the Lost Ark ( 1981 ) ©LucasArts, LucasFilm and Paramount Pictures.

[ 1 ] Bar-Ilan University, Israel :- Measurements , Contents and Weight of the Ark in Rabbinical

Tradition.

[ 2 ] The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock ( 1993 ).

[ 3 ] Philologos.org :- The Legends of the Jews IV. Louis Ginzberg

The Holy Bible Source: King James Version.

Short Biography of Louis Ginzberg

Louis Ginzberg's landmark seven-volume The Legends of the Jews assembles the many elaborations and embellishments of Biblical stories that flourished in the centuries following the Bible's own creation. Ginzberg devoted most of his life to gathering these legends from their original sources - written in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, and Old Slavic - and reproducing them completely, accurately, and vividly. He presents them in their traditional Biblical sequence and reconciles the sometimes contradictory versions of the same stories found in different sources. In addition to four volumes of the legends themselves, The Legends of the Jews includes two indispensable volumes of notes, which provide the sources for every legend, as well as a comprehensive index to the people, places, and motifs found in the legends and their sources.