WATCH: Archaeologists Hunt For Ark Of The Covenant In Israel
The dig site at Tel Shiloh, Israel. Image by Vimeo
By Ari Feldman July 17, 2017
Archaeologists funded by Christian organizations are taking a shovel — again — to Tel Shiloh, an archaeological site that was a major center of worship for ancient Israelites.
They’re looking for the ark of the covenant, the holy chest containing the two stone tablets on which Moses is said to have written the Ten Commandments, which was stationed at the ancient city of Shiloh for 400 years.
“We’re taking the Bible as a serious historical document,” Dr. Scott Stripling, the leader of this dig, told Times of Israel. Stripling was a pastor for twenty years before becoming an archaeologist.
“There are some who say the Bible is unreliable,” he added. “We have found it to be very reliable.”
Stripling falls in the biblical narrative camp of archaeology, as opposed to those who say that only evidence in the ground can tell the story of ancient Israel.
“The story of the ark is fascinating; but it can teach us mainly about the world of the authors,” said Dr. Israel Finkelstein, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University and leader of the last major dig at Shiloh, in the 1980s.
Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
