10 Movies to Get to Know Me

Saw this going around on the Internet recently, and thought I might use it as a jump-start to overcome my negligent lack of posting this year.

 

10 Movies to Get to Know Me

 

(in order that they came to me…)

 

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Signs (2002)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Watership Down (1978)

Ben Hur (1959)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

Rear Window (1954)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

 

Not necessarily my favorites, but movies that I see myself in, movies that exemplify me in whole or just significant parts of me, in various ways, shapes, and/or forms. Find out their commonalities, and you have a nice Platonic ideal of your host here at the Hopper.

A nice exercise to try at home in your down time.

The Ark IV

 

Okay, last one.

 

Yesterday I went with some friends to their Baptist church to visit its “Good Friday Experience.”

 

Inside the church lobby there was a huge line which meandered over the course of an hour, until we reached the “Experience” entrance. Over the next hour we moved through darkened corridors from one room to another, each room holding museum-quality exhibitions describing some key events of the Passion: the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Cross and the instruments of torture, the cloth and perfumes to anoint His body. And this, the Ark of the Covenant:

 

Now, as we know, the Ark was lost to history in the year 586 BC. The Ark was included in the exhibition to show us how the curtain inside the Temple – the one that separated the Holy of Holies, the Ark, from the outer Temple – was torn in two, from top to bottom. I took this stealth pic, and in hindsight I should have also taken one closer up from a side angle so you could sense its height and depth. If I stood on the stage, my hips and lowered hands would be equal to the poles extending from the sides. The ark in this picture, to the best of my reasoning, had the same dimensions and same design as the historical Ark.

 

The exhibitions really triggered your tactile senses deep down. I held a replica of the whip which scourged Christ – felt its weight and heft, touched the barbs of bone and stone tied to leather straps that tore into His flesh. I tried lifting the surprisingly heavy Cross. In the Garden a cool night breeze touched our skin – and the soft hooting of owls and other wildlife echoed past. It was an intriguing and worthwhile experience, and something that really furthered my understanding of the Passion.

 

Would definitely recommend.

The Ark III

 

So what happened to the Ark of the Covenant? Where is it, and if we don’t know where it is, well, what was its fate?

 

The short answer is that it’s been long lost to history, around the time the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah in the year 587 BC. Though it is not specifically mentioned during the passages describing the fall of Jerusalem and the pillaging of the Temple artifacts, one can make a good case that the Ark was taken to Babylon.

 

That’s the first possibility. And in Babylon, it could either have been destroyed (if God allowed such a thing), hidden, or transferred somewhere else. The trail runs cold.

 

Second, perhaps King Josiah from the previous post hid the Ark yet again as the Babylonians advanced on Jerusalem. Maybe in the First Temple, or in a catacomb or some other underground chamber beneath it.

 

Third, there is a mention in the Book of Second Maccabees 2:4-10 that the Prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave on Mount Nebo, the mountain where Moses overlooked the promised land before he passed on.

 

Fourth, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims that the Ark is housed in the northern city of Axum in Ethiopia, at the Church of Out Lady Mary of Zion. No one is allowed inside to view it, so we have little choice but to take them at their word.

 

Fifth, the Lemba people in southern Africa state that they posses the actual Ark, and keep a replica in Zimbabwe. The Lembas trace their lineage back to Yemeni traders and do practice a form a semitic religion.

 

Finally, there is a Samaritan tradition the holds the Ark is kept at a sanctuary on Mount Gerizim, about 35 miles north of Bethlehem. (However, there is also a Samaritan tradition that Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Gerizim, when most biblical scholars believe the sacrifice was to take place on Mount Moriah).

 

So, in summary, the six most plausible (if such a word can describe the fate of a holy object lost nearly 2,600 years ago) locations for the Ark of the Covenant appear to be:

 

1)    1) The ruins of Babylon in Iraq

2)    2) Beneath the location of the First Temple in Jerusalem

3)    3) Mount Nebo in Jordan

4)    4) A church in Ethiopia

5)    5) A undisclosed location in southern Africa

6)    6) Mount Gerizim in Israel

 

But I’d like to think of a seventh possibility:

7)    7) A nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. …

 

(In all seriousness, my amateurish opinion probably lies with #2)