The Lost Ark, the Shroud of Turin, and Enough Rope to Hang Myself By James BeauSeigneur Editor's Note: The following is the first of several articles adapted by the author from his new novel, In His Image: Book One of The Christ Clone Trilogy, from Selective House Publishers. I am currently reading the book and can highly recommend it. It is by far the best end-times novel I've ever read. For ordering information, including a discount and autographed copies for PropheZine readers, see ordering information. Ray Gano, PropheZine There are a lot of theories and claims about where the Ark of the Covenant is. A few people claim to have actually seen it. Strangely, they all claim to have seen it in different places, so to such claimants I think it's prudent that we take a "put up or shut up" attitude. Me, I've got my own theory. And if you'll give me enough rope to hang myself (for the non-US readers, that's just an expression) I promise to raise some interesting questions, even if I don't convince you my theory is correct. The Bible doesn't mention the whereabouts of the Ark after the Temple was destroyed in the Babylonian invasion. It's generally assumed that when the Persians plundered the Temple they took the Ark with them. But the Bible says that when Ezra returned from Babylon to rebuild the Temple, he brought back what the Persians had taken.1 Some people have speculated that the Ark may have been taken from the Temple when it was destroyed by Titus in 70 A.D. and that it was either melted down or perhaps locked away and later hidden in some secret treasury room in the Vatican. However, there is some evidence to dispute that theory. In Rome there is an arch which was dedicated to Titus in honor of his successful siege of Jerusalem. Carved into the arch are scenes of the Roman destruction and looting of Jerusalem, including a detailed carving showing the treasures taken from the Temple. The Ark is NOT among the treasures depicted, even though, as the most highly valued item, it surely would have been included had Titus taken it. One possibility that I've never heard of anyone pursuing is based on II Maccabees, one of the apocryphal books appearing in the Catholic Bible. According to that text, the Prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave on Mount Nebo in Jordan to prevent the Persians from finding it.2 I think it may be somewhere in southern France. I never really gave it much thought until a few years ago when they announced the results of the carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin. "What does all this have to do with the Shroud?" you ask. It really isn't important to my faith whether it's real or not, but from a purely scientific point of view, I believe the Shroud is just too good to be a fake. Until recently though, the carbon 14 dating seemed conclusive. Then one day I was reading some of the writings of St. Jerome. Jerome lived in the fourth and early fifth century and was the person who first translated the Old Testament directly from Hebrew to Latin. In the piece I was reading, Jerome quotes from a book which he called the 'Gospel of the Hebrews,' a book which unfortunately either no longer exists or is lost. Jerome doesn't quote from it very extensively, but the small piece he does quote reveals a very interesting piece of information about the Shroud. Of course, there's no way of knowing how authentic this gospel really was. It may have been as spurious as some of the other apocryphal writings. But what it says is that after Jesus rose from the dead, he took his burial shroud and gave it to the servant of the High Priest.3 That's not very much, but it's the only record we have that indicates what happened to the Shroud following the resurrection. You may remember reading about the servant of the High Priest in the Bible. He's a rather minor character but he's mentioned in all four Gospels.4 We even know his name: Malchus. Malchus was among those who went to arrest Jesus on the night before his crucifixion. The Apostle Peter attempted to fend them off with a sword and in the scuffle he cut off Malchus' ear. Jesus told Peter to put his sword away, and then picked up the ear and placed it back on the side of Malchus' head and instantly healed it. This same Malchus would have been in the Temple on a daily basis and would have seen the curtain which separated the people from the Holy of Holies inexplicably torn in two after Jesus' crucifixion.5 (The Holy of Holies was the most sacred place in the Temple. According to I Cor. 15:6, when Jesus died, God himself tore the curtain from top to bottom, allowing ordinary men and women--not just the high priests--access to his holy presence.) And Malchus, like everyone else in Israel at the time, would have been very much aware of Jesusí miracles and especially the evidence of his resurrection. It seems reasonable to me to assume that Malchus, having experienced all this - especially the healing of his ear - may well have become a follower of Jesus himself. If so, it would explain Jesus' contact with him after the resurrection: the Bible says that Jesus appeared to more than five hundred people in and around Jerusalem after the resurrection.6 If Jesus did give the Shroud to Malchus it must have been to preserve the Shroud as evidence of the resurrection! I believe Jesus may have told Malchus to put the Shroud in the Ark of the Covenant. Why would he do that? It's a little complicated. As I said, we're pretty sure that the Ark wasn't in the Temple when it was plundered by the Romans in 70 A.D. So where was it? I believe it was hidden by the High Priest. Between the time of the Babylonians and the Romans there were several other times that bandits tried to rob the Temple. I think the priests probably developed an evacuation plan to hide the Ark whenever the Temple was threatened (much as the National Archives of the US protects the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence by lowering them into a vault below the building). Surely when the Romans conquered Israel, the priests realized that the Temple was once again an extremely attractive target for those seeking their fortune. Are there really tunnels and hidden passageways under the Temple where the Ark could have been hidden? Absolutely. In fact, not just tunnels, but large vaulted rooms. Most haven't been excavated but they have been identified by radar soundings.7 My theory is that the Ark was hidden somewhere in the tunnels beneath the Temple to protect it from the Romans. If so, very few people would have known about it, but certainly the High Priest would have known. And if the High Priest knew, it's likely that his servant--that is, Malchus--would have known as well. Okay, now let's move ahead in time about eleven hundred years, during the time of the first Crusade. Not many people realize that the Crusaders, who were mostly French, were quite successful in their first attempts to take the Holy Land from the Muslims. They even succeeded in capturing and holding the city of Jerusalem and establishing a French-born king (who claimed to be a descendant of David) over the city. Shortly after that, an order of knights known as the Knights Templar was formed in Jerusalem. The stated purpose of the Knights Templar was to protect Jerusalem and to aid European pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. This was a rather unrealistic undertaking, since originally there were only six or seven members in the order. And they were very poor. Ironically, poverty was one of their vows. I say "ironically" because somehow over the next hundred years, this small group of knights not only grew in number, but grew unbelievably in wealth. In fact, these men became the first international bankers, loaning money to kings and nobles throughout Europe. How they acquired their immense wealth has been the subject of great speculation. The headquarters for the Knights Templar was in the Mosque of Omar, that is, the Dome of the Rock, which sits on the site of the old Temple. It has been suggested that the knights excavated the tunnels beneath the Mosque and found the treasures of Solomon's Temple and that was the source of their wealth. But how does the Shroud of Turin fit into all this? One of the reasons God had Moses build the Ark was to act as a container for certain sacred objects: the stone tablets on which God wrote the ten commandments; the first five books of the Bible written by Moses; a container of manna, which God caused to fall from the sky each morning for the Hebrews to eat while they were in the desert; and one other thing, Aaron's staff, which God had miraculously caused to sprout, bud, and bear almonds.8 Those things were placed in the Ark as a witness to later generations of God's covenant with Israel. But something always struck me as odd about that list of items. Stone tablets will last forever. Protected in the Ark, the parchment that Moses used to write the first five books of the Bible might last for thousands of years. But the container of manna, under normal conditions, would turn to dust within just a matter of months. And Aaron's staff - though it might survive the centuries as a simple wooden staff - without the budding and the almonds, would not be much of a witness of God's covenant or of His power. That's when it occurred to me that perhaps the power of the Ark is greater and quite different than we may have realized. For instance, think about the staff for a minute. How tall do you imagine Aaron's staff would have been? Shepherding hasn't changed much over the centuries, and if you visit the Middle East you'll still see most shepherds' staffs are about six or seven feet long. So when you think about Aaron's staff, with the limbs and sprouts and almonds growing from it, it would have had quite a large diameter. But, based on a standard 18 inch cubit, the absolute longest that staff could have been and still have fit in the Ark is four feet, nine inches, and that's without any branches. The only way that a six to seven foot shepherd's staff could have fit into the Ark is if the inside dimensions of the Ark are not limited by the outside dimensions. Now, for the container of manna and Aaron's staff to have been a witness to future generations, there must also be some miraculous, preservative power to the Ark - something which prevents deterioration of items that are placed inside of it. What I'm suggesting is that perhaps inside the Ark there is a total absence of dimensions: no length, width or height (which would explain how Aaron's staff could fit); and no time (which explains how the manna and the staff could be preserved)! Further, I'm suggesting that the servant of the High Priest put the Shroud in the Ark to preserve it, and there it remained until it was taken out, over a thousand years later, by the Knights Templar when they discovered the Temple treasures! Of course, it's mostly just conjecture - but it does offer a unified theory that would provide a consistent explanation for a number of unanswered questions. Besides, it makes sense that the Shroud - the only physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection and the consummation of God's new covenant with his people - would be kept in the Ark of the Covenant together with the evidence of God's old covenant. That's why the Shroud flunked the carbon 14 dating. For over a thousand years it totally escaped all deterioration and aging while it was inside the Ark! But what about the Knights Templar? Is there any connection between them and the Shroud of Turin? As far back as it can be traced, the first person who we can positively prove had the Shroud was a man in France named Geoffrey de Charney. Some years later his family gave the Shroud to the House of Savoy, who later moved it to Turin, Italy. So is there a link between de Charney and the Knights Templar? I'm glad you asked. As a matter of fact, there is. As I said earlier, the Knights Templar became very powerful throughout Europe. But then the King of France decided he no longer wanted them around. He accused their members of hideous sins and atrocities. They were arrested and tortured to force them to confess to his trumped up charges. Those who confessed were locked away in prisons; those who refused were tortured to death or burned at the stake. Two of the last to be executed in this way were Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy. That Geoffrey de Charney apparently was the uncle of the later Geoffrey de Charney, who was the first person that we can positively determine had possession of the Shroud. Additionally, one of the things the king accused the knights of doing was worshipping the image of a man. The Shroud of Turin! What I'm proposing is that the Shroud, the Ark, and the other Temple treasures were taken from Israel and hidden in southern France by the Knights Templar. If so, many of the treasures and the Ark may still be there, hidden away. In fact, there is a secret society in France called the Prieure de Sion, which traces its origins to the Knights Templar. The head of the society has been quoted as saying that he knows where the Temple treasures are and that they will be returned to Jerusalem "when the time is right."9 So there you have it - my theory. The rope is in your hands.

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