The Ark I

 

Last Monday, during my bible study class, we discussed the Ark of the Covenant, introduced to the study in Revelation 11:19 (which immediately segues into the famous Woman clothed with sun in Revelation 12, which Catholic teaching regards as the Blessed Virgin Mary, the new Ark of the Covenant).

 

As a little extracurricular work, I decided to research the Ark itself. I am ashamed to admit most of what I know of it comes from Raiders of the Lost Ark, for the last time I read the Bible books that address the Ark it was sometime during the Wu Flu in 2020.

 

Anyway, I’m going to break up my simple research into three parts. This part will address what the Ark is. Part II will be what happened to the Ark in the Old Testament, and Part III will cover the speculative fate of the Ark.

 

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The Hebrew word, aron, used to describe the Ark, refers to something like a small wooden chest as opposed to a large construction, such as Noah’s Ark. Moses received instructions on how to build the Ark of the Covenant during his communion with God atop Mount Sinai during the Exodus. It was fashioned about a year after the Hebrews left Egypt by two highly skilled craftsmen, Bezalel and Oholiab.

 

Translating cubits to the English measuring system, the Ark was about 4 feet 4 inches long, 2 feet 7 inches wide, and 2 feet 7 inches deep. It was made with acacia wood, a durable and dense wood known for its strength and water resistance, having a rich coloration ranging from light brown to deep red. Over this was laid sheets of purest gold. A lid, called the Seat of Mercy or the Propitiatory, was laid atop it, and was likewise golden gilded. Two cherubin with outspread wings and facing each other were fastened onto the Seat of Mercy. When Moses communed with God before the Ark, the LORD would appear in a cloud between and above the cherubim. (This cloud is sometimes referred to as the shekinah.)

 

At each corner of the Ark a ring of gold was attached, into which staves of acacia overlaid with gold were to be inserted (and continually kept in place there) to carry the Ark. The length of the staves are not specified in the Bible. When the Hebrews were on the move, the Ark was carried about 3,000 feet in advance of the people when they marched. And when they camped, the Ark resided in the Tent of Meeting, inside the Tabernacle.

 

The Ark housed the tablets of the Ten Commandments, given to Moses atop Mount Sinai. Aaron’s rod, the staff which blossomed and budded, was also placed within it, along with a pot of manna, the bread-like substance supplied daily by God to the Hebrews in the desert during the 40-year wandering period. (Think of the Ark of the Covenant holding a pot of manna and compare that to the Blessed Virgin Mary with Christ in her womb…)

 

Some early commentators state that the books of the Law written by Moses were also placed within the Ark, but scripture does not explicitly state this.

 

The Ark of the Covenant is the name most familiar to Christians, but throughout the Bible it had other names:

 

   - The Ark of the Testimony (Exodus 25 and 26)

   - The Ark of the Testament (Exodus 30)

   - The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord (Numbers 10, Deuteronomy 10)

   - The Ark of God (1 Samuel 3)

   - The Ark of the LORD (1 Samuel 4)

 

The next post will be a summary of the Ark’s role in the Biblical story.

 

To Read History

 

I’ve come up with a new epigram:

 

HISTORIAM LEGERE EST TRISTE ESSE

 

In my native tongue, that translates to: “To read history is to be sad.”

And that’s my conclusion.

 

In the second third of my life I focused the majority of my reading in the field of history. Whereas it used to be science and math and philosophy and entertainment, since 2012 I’ve spent most of my nonfiction perusal in the Dewey Decimal 900s. “History.”

 

It began with the Civil War, then sidestepped to World War II (with a brief foray to the “Great War”). The Space Race, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, the Crusades, the Catholic Church, nations such as China and India, Napoleonic France and all the continental conflicts involving the little emperor, just to mention the more significant phases. Even the history of Baseball. I’m sure there were a couple other “History of …” books I’m forgetting.

 

I’m writing this not so much to brag as to lay a foundation for why I believe HISTORIAM LEGER EST TRISTE ESSE.

 

Consider:

 

We live in a fallen world. This is my view based on the teachings of Catholicism. Other religious beliefs offer comparable starting points.

 

Strife and striving are the constant companions of men in specific and Man in general. Depending on who you consult as an authority, out of 5,000 years of recorded human history, there have only been around 300 years entirely free from major warfare. Thus, the history of Man is the history of War.

 

War necessitates suffering, and the more “civilized” we become, the more “innocents” suffer in conflict.

 

Since the Endarkenment, we have seen a receding of the influence of the teachings of Christ, Who offers the only true solution to Man’s fallen state of being. And that recession arguably has increased more and more, almost exponentially so, as the Western world actively seeks detachment from Christ and a return to a greater state of fallenness. A progression toward regression.

 

Thus any serious volume of history will necessarily document suffering.

 

Hence, to an inquirer with a heart, even a heart of stone, “to read history is to be sad.”

 

Quod Erat Demonstrandum. (Q.E.D.)

 

Now, I’m not certain that biography falls into this category. Strictly speaking I assume it does, but since it addresses the struggles of a specific individual, there could be a few drops of wisdom one can squeeze out to lessen one’s own battles. Perhaps I’m looking for a loophole, but for now biography sits in acceptable position for me, i.e., “to read the personal history of an individual does not necessarily necessitate sadness, but can provide personal enlightenment.”

 

I recognize such a loophole can be applied to my main argument. Hey, I’m just an armchair philosopher who may have too big an opinion of himself. (May?)

 

Anyway, the bottom line is I think it is time to switch my interest out of the Dewey Decimal 900s. I have some ideas where to channel my downtime so that it’s not depressing me. Perhaps in the near future I will elaborate. Now I’m going to exercise that loophole and read about Sinatra, a conflicted and often troubled man who attained highs and lows the average person could only dream about. (Or nightmare about, I suppose). After that, the dissertation on Tolkien. And after that …

 

Book Haul

  

Well, its been nearly two months since Christmas, and I was looking for a reward for my accomplishments this year. I’ve been to five bible study meetings so far (we have eleven scheduled, set to end right before Easter) and have learned a lot. I’ve kept with the meditation, having done my 57th sitting this morning, for a total of 14 hours and 20 minutes. I am noticing a “smoothening out” of my personal shortfalls. And there’s a third personal goal that I’m also making progress on, a big, tough one, which falls outside the purview of this blog.

 

So when I want to reward myself, nine times out of ten it’s treating myself with new (used) books. In this case, I went to the local book shop and scored these two awesome finds:

 

 

I’ve been looking for a good biography on Frank for a couple of months now. This one, Frank: The Voice, starts at the very beginning and ends around the time of his Best Supporting Actor award in 1954 or soon thereafter. The follow-up, Frank: The Chairman, takes it from then to his death in 1998. If you google “best biography of Frank Sinatra” these books by Kaplan will come up, so I considered myself quite lucky to find it.

 

Over the past few years I’ve been reading more and more musician biographies. Geddy Lee and Led Zeppelin last year, Mozart in 2024, a book on various classical music composers in 2023, biographies of the bands Yes and The Rolling Stones the years before that. I do remember way, way back in those hazy days a quarter of a century ago living in Maryland of starting a Sinatra biography, but never finishing it. I’ve been listening to a lot of Frank these past few months, so I’m looking for a greater understanding of the man and his music.

 

The other, Mount Doom: The Prophecy of Tolkien Revealed, found me completely by accident. It looks self-published (or at least published by a minor house), but it’s a dense, 562-page dissertation on the Tolkien mythos with lots of mention of Thomistic philosophy and, I’m hoping, a challenge to post-modernism (yuck). There’s charts, diagrams, mentions of the neurology of the brain, the harmonic series in music (maybe also in math), and what they promise to be something like a revisionist explanation of The Lord of the Rings.

 

This has me almost, but not quite, frothing at the mouth.

 

I’ve made two abortive attempts to re-read Tolkien in the past two years, from the Silmarillion to the twelfth volume of Christopher Tolkien’s edited The History of Middle-earth. Perhaps, hopefully, this will jump start that desire and I can notch my sixth reading of Tolkien. Last time was in 2021, right before we moved down to Texas, so its kinda overdue.

 

The dilemma now is which one to start once I’m finished with the English Civil War book …

 

Anyway, happy reading all!