The Moses Stone
Page 33
Moses then went back up to Mount Sinai before later returning to his people to find that they'd already deviated from the path he'd laid out for them. He found that they had ignored the second Commandment, which forbade the construction of any kind of graven image for the purpose of worship. Moses' brother Aaron had made a Golden Calf and erected an altar in front of it. Moses flew into a violent rage and in his fury smashed both the tablets of the Covenant.
God then offered to personally carve a second, duplicate, set of tablets, and Moses went back up to Mount Sinai yet again to receive them, and it was these tablets that were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, the Ark should have more correctly been called the 'Ark of Testimony'.
This Ark vanished in about 586 BC when the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar. But there are no traditions relating to the tablets themselves, only to the Ark, to the box they were kept in. It's been assumed that when the Babylonians looted the Temple they took away the Ark and the Tablets of the Covenant, but there's nothing in the historical record to confirm this.
But it is a fact that the Ark itself had become an object of worship and veneration by this time, so it's at least possible that when Nebuchadnezzar and his hordes descended on Jerusalem, the tablets had already been taken to a place of safe keeping, just leaving the Ark in the Temple. Whatever actually happened then, the truth is that the Tablets of Testimony, the original Mosaic Covenant, simply disappeared into oblivion over two and a half thousand years ago.
What is almost certain is that, whatever happened to these tablets, they weren't lost. They were far too important to the Jewish religion to simply be mislaid. If they weren't seized by Nebuchadnezzar, then they were almost certainly hidden before the conflict began, and probably somewhere outside Jerusalem because the likelihood was that the city would be sacked and plundered by the invaders. Again, the oasis at Ein-Gedi would have been a possible, perhaps even a probable, hiding place for them.
At the end of the book I describe the Israelis hiding the Mosaic Covenant in a cavity behind the Wailing Wall. If this relic was ever found, and the political situation prevented them from announcing they'd recovered the object, I think this is exactly where they'd want to put it, to return the Covenant to the place closest to where the Ark of the Covenant originally stood.
And in doing so, they'd effectively be reuniting the Shechinah, the divine presence, with the earliest record of the Covenant between man and God.
James Becker
July, 2009
If you enjoyed The Moses Stone, we think you'll love
THE FIRST APOSTLE
BY JAMES BECKER
An Englishwoman is found dead in a house near Rome, her neck broken.
Her distraught husband enlists the help of his closest friend, policeman Chris Bronson, who discovers an ancient inscription on a slab of stone above their fireplace. It translates as 'Here Lie the Liars'.
But who are the liars? And what is it they are lying about to protect?
Pursued across Europe, Bronson uncovers a trail of clues that leads him back to the shadowy beginnings of Christianity; to a chalice decorated with mysterious symbols; to a secret code hidden with a scroll.
And to a deadly conspiracy which – if revealed – will rock the foundations of our modern would.
About the Author
James Becker spent over twenty years in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air arm and served during Falklands War . Throughout his career he has been involved in covert operations in many of the world's hotspots; places like Yemen, Northern Ireland and Russia. He is an accomplished combat pistol shot and has an abiding interest in ancient and medieval history.
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