CHAPTER THREE

TALES FROM THE BIBLE

Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.

—Isaiah 19:1

Our main source for information on the Ark of the Covenant is the Old Testament of the Bible. The story of the Ark of the Covenant begins at the end of the Book of Exodus. The lethal powers of the Ark are mentioned in Leviticus, and much of Numbers deals with the preparations and journey from Sinai to the land of Moab, which, of course, involved the Ark. The Kingdom of Moab stretched along the east side of the Dead Sea, with the kingdoms of Edom to the south and Ammon to the northeast. The Promised Land of Canaan stretched to the west of Ammon, encompassing the northern tip of the Dead Sea, and straddling the River Jordan, which flowed from the north into the Sea.

The fabulous and mysterious city of Petra was in Edom. Other cities that seem to have been located there are the infamous towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the Torah, Sodom and Gomorrah were allied with the cities of Admah, Zeboim and Zoar. These five cities were known as the “cities of the plain” and this plain seems to be the Plain of Siddim extending from the Dead Sea to the south.

The boundary between Edom, which controlled the ports of Eilat and, later, Ezion-Geber—Solomon’s specially-built port for the journeys to the gold-laden land of Ophir—and Moab was the Wadi Zered. This extensive wadi runs east-west and is situated today in Jordan and ends at the southeastern end of the Dead Sea.

Though there is some confusion as to where the “cities of the plain” were located (Wikipedia says that it was at the northern end of the Dead Sea) general tradition places them at the southern end. The cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim were all destroyed in a spectacular hail of fire and brimstone, but the town of Zoar was spared because, as we shall see, it was the place Lot and his family were to take refuge. Zoar existed for many centuries hence, and biblical references to the town are found in Isaiah 15:5 and Jeremiah 48:34. The town is also mentioned in other sources dating from the Hellenistic Age to the Middle Ages. Most important in locating it is the mosaic map found on a church floor in Madaba, Jordan created around 560 AD; it shows Zoar slightly southeast of the Dead Sea.

The location of the cave where Lot and his daughters are said to have lived after fleeing to Zoar has also been a known quantity for quite some time. A Byzantine (5^th to 7^th centuries AD) monastic center was built outside a natural cave where Bronze Age artifacts have, in fact, been found. A museum of Lot’s cave artifacts has recently opened at the site, near the modern town of Safi, dubbed the “Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth” due to the area’s extreme elevation of 1,329 feet below sea level.

So there is pretty clear evidence of where Zoar was located. Could its sister cities have been far away? We will discuss the awesome destruction of those cities in a moment. But first we must mention that the area round the Dead Sea was also the home of giants.

The Land of the Rephaim

Also in the area lived the Rephaim (also known as Anakites or Anakim), giants who had inhabited areas around the Dead Sea since ancient times. The Israelites were instructed to exterminate all of the previous inhabitants of the area around Cannan and the Rephaim are listed among the tribes to be destroyed.

The Bible mentions the Rephaim in: Gen 14:5, 15:20; Numbers 13; Deut 2:10-11, 2:18-21, 3:11; Josh 12:4, 13:12, 15:8, 17:15, 18:16; 2 Sam 5:18, 5:22, 23:13; and 1 Chron 11:15, 14:9, 20:4. In Deuteronomy 3:11, it is implied that Og, the King of Bashan, was one of the last of the Rephaim. His bed was said to be nine cubits long in ordinary cubits. With an ordinary cubit being about 18 inches long, this would make his bed about 13 feet long. We might surmise that King Og was about 10 feet tall. He may have had an elongated cranium—as many royal persons did in those days—and this could give an extra foot to an already very tall person.

As we have seen, most of the area on the eastern side of the Dead Sea was known as Moab, and this was known as one of the lands of Rephaim. They also became known as Zamzummim by the Ammonites further north (Deuteronomy 2:18-2), which is a derivative of a Hebrew word that means “buzzing.” This apparently means that the Rephaim had an element of speech that evoked a buzzing sound. Southern Africa has a click speech, and the Rephaim may have had some sort of odd buzzing and clicking speech.

The Rephaim and the Anakim apparently lived on both the northern side of the Dead Sea (Canaan), and along the eastern side of that large body of water, the largest lake in the Levant by far. An area of northern Moab was called Ar, a region on the east side of the Jordan before the time of Moses, which was also considered the land of the giants. According to Deuteronomy 2:10:

A race of giants called the Emites had once lived in the area of Ar. They were as strong and numerous and tall as the Amorites, another race of giants.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, plus Admah and Zeboim, were apparently inhabited by the Rephaim until they were suddenly destroyed.

According to Deuteronomy 2:11, Anak was a patriarch or king of the Rephaim. In Numbers 13 we are told about giants who are the sons of Anak. These giants are then referred as the Anakim. Moses sends 12 spies—one from each of the 12 tribes—to scout out the land of Canaan, north of the Dead Sea, and give a full report upon their return. The spies enter from the Negev desert and journey northward through the Judaean hills until they arrive at the brook of Eshcol near Hebron, where reside Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the sons of Anak.

After the scouts have explored the entire land, they bring back samples of the fruit of the land, most notably a gigantic cluster of grapes which requires two men to carry it on a pole between them. The scouts then report to Moses and the congregation that “the land indeed is a land flowing with milk and honey,” but 10 of the 12 spies discourage the Israelites from even attempting to possess the land, for they report that the men were taller and stronger than the Israelites. Moreover, the sons of Anak dwell in the land, and they felt like grasshoppers in their presence. The Anakites are later mentioned briefly in the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges. In Joshua, Caleb, one of the 12 spies sent by Moses into Canaan, later drove out the descendants of Anak—his three sons— from Hebron, also called Kiriath Arba. It is thought that some of the giants found refuge with the Philistines where they survived up till the time of David. Goliath was a Philistine.

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

The Rephaim giants lived around the Dead Sea and were probably present when the four “cities of the plain” were utterly destroyed. Other strange and tall men also lived north of the Sea of Galilee and into Syria and Iraq. Possibly all of these “giants” and “angels” were tall men (some possibly with elongated heads). In Genesis 19:1-22 we read about two strange men who come up to the gate of Sodom where a man called Lot happens to be sitting on a bench nearby. Lot immediately recognizes these strange men as “angels” or perhaps more correctly, as servants of the Lord. He invites them to his house to spend the night but then local men, drunk, come to Lot’s house to demand to see the men—and have sex with them. Lot offers them his virgin daughters instead. Says Genesis 19:1-22:

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.

Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-inlaw to be jesting.

As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

Sodom is Destroyed in Sulfur and Fire from Above

Genesis 19:23-29 tells the rest of the story: that Lot travels overnight with his family to the small town of Zoar that is to be spared, and then the Lord, perhaps through his mysterious servants or “angels,” destroys the other four cities with brimstone and fire:

The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.

So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

While the Ark of the Covenant had tremendous power (it was said to have killed hundreds people at a time and was partly responsible for the destruction of the walls of Jericho), the torrent unleashed on upon these four cities was far more extraordinary than the power of the Ark of the Covenant. Yet, we might ask ourselves if there is not some possible relation here.

The sort of angels that visit Lot and his family do not seem like normal angels as we would ordinarily view them. They walk up to the gates of the city of Sodom, perhaps having come from the southern port of Eilat which was one of the major cities of Edom, a kingdom that bordered upon Moab at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Or perhaps they arrived outside the city by some sort of aircraft, a vimana perhaps, as mentioned in the Indian epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Indeed, these books are replete with stories of flying vehicles and of devastating weapons that destroy complete cities, just as the Bible describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Were some sort of ancient astronauts or high tech humans with advanced weapons and airships there to check out the wicked towns of Sodom and Gomorrah? Perhaps they knew of an impending natural catastrophe and were coming to check on the area before the event. And when they discovered, as perhaps they previously suspected, that travelers and strangers were not treated very well in these cities, they decided to destroy them—or allow them to be destroyed? It is like the cities were nuked with atomic weapons, or each hit with some very large conventional bomb similar to the large bombs in use today.

While the book of Genesis does not mention any flying vehicles, aerial ships are mentioned at other times in the Bible, such as in Ezekiel’s vision of a craft coming down from the sky. The Kebra Nagast also features the Ark of the Covenant in association with flying vehicles—as if the Ark was some sort of energy machine that could either power an aircraft or create some sort of anti-gravity effects.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Chas Berlin)

Indeed, it seems that the advanced cultures in India, China, Sumeria and Egypt apparently had electricity, geared machines, and power tools with diamond-tipped saws, grinders and drills. They had many metals, including bronze and iron, and they had a basic knowledge of electricity. With metal machines and electrical devices, a culture can create heavy machinery such as steashovels, as well as powered flight. The kind of advanced culture that can quarry 200-ton obelisks, move them many miles to other sites, and then erect them—as the Egyptians and Axumites were known to have done—would have knowledge of electricity, moving saws and even of explosives and other chemical reactions. Modern historians have still not figured out what chemicals were used in the Greek Fire spoken of in ancient texts over two thousand years ago. Greek Fire could burn underwater and was hurled at enemy ships from catapults as fireballs of burning pitch and secret chemicals.

So, was the Ark of the Covenant some sort of electrical device that did more than just accumulate some static energy to occasionally shock those nearby? Some sort of battery and accumulator that charged over time and was capable of being turned on to “giant stun-gun mode” at the flip of a switch? Perhaps the cloud of energy was the signal to show that the device was sufficiently charged for a deadly discharge of volts, like a huge stun-gun, to be unleashed with the flick of a switch. Imagine a large Tesla coil arcing volts across two metallic rods.

The Ancient Book called the Pentateuch

To understand the basic information we have on the Ark of the Covenant we need to understand the first five books of the Bible: the Pentateuch. These books are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Ark of the Covenant is first mentioned in Exodus and most of the early strange tales of the Ark are told in Numbers.

Genesis begins with the story of Creation (Genesis 1–3) and the story of the Garden of Eden, and gives an account of Adam and Eve, as well as their descendants. We then have the story of Noah and the great flood (Genesis 3–9). Following this is an account of the Tower of Babel and the tale of Abraham’s covenant with God (Genesis 10–11). We are then told of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the life of Joseph (Genesis 12–50). The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah occurs and God gives the Patriarchs a promise that the land of Canaan shall be their land, but at the end of Genesis the sons of Jacob, because of famine, end up leaving the area north of the Dead Sea—Canaan—for Egypt.

Exodus is the story of Moses, raised as an Egyptian priest, who then leads the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt (Exodus 1–18) and tells them he will take them to the Promised Land. On the way, they camp at Mount Horeb (Sinai) where Moses meets with Yahweh and receives the Ten Commandments. Moses communicates Yahweh’s laws and covenant (Exodus 19–24) to the people of Israel. Then there is the violation of the commandment against idolatry as his brother Aaron took part in the construction of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32–34). Exodus concludes with the instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle (Exodus 25–31; 35–40).

Leviticus is all about rituals and how they should be performed. It begins with instructions to the Israelites on the proper use of the tabernacle, which they had just built (Leviticus 1–10). This is followed by rules concerning who is clean and unclean, and when (Leviticus 11–15), the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), and various moral and ritual laws (Leviticus 17–26).

Numbers starts with a census where the number of Israelites are counted (Numbers 1–3). The narratives tell how Israel consolidated itself as a community at Sinai (Numbers 1–9), set out from Sinai to move towards Canaan, and spied out the land (Numbers 10–13). Because of the people’s unbelief at various points (Numbers 14), the Israelites were condemned to wander for 40 years in the desert instead of immediately entering the Promised Land. Moses is even told by the glowing cloud that was Yahweh that he would not live to enter the Promised Land because of his many sins (Numbers 20). At the end of Numbers (Numbers 21–35) the host of Israel leaves the Sinai Desert and go around Edom and through Moab on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. Here two tribes, the Balak and Balaam oppose the Israelites (Numbers 22–24; 31:8, 15–16). They defeat two kings, Og and Sihon (Numbers 21), and so come to occupy some territory on the eastern side of the Jordan, within sight of the Promised Land, Canaan. The town of Jericho is within their sight.

Deuteronomy consists mainly of a series of speeches by Moses on the eastern side of the Jordan River opposite Jericho, exhorting Israel to obey Yahweh’s laws. At the very end (Deuteronomy 34), Moses climbs Mount Nebo and is allowed to see a vista of the Promised Land. However, he never makes it there, as he had been forewarned by the Lord. He died in Moab and was buried there, but the writer Deuteronomy notes that no one knew exactly where. Soon afterwards, Israel begins the conquest of Canaan.

Moses the Magician

We just don’t know who Moses was and what knowledge he had. He was raised in the pharaoh’s household, we are told, and he would therefore be a magician and presumably know about electric devices and other technology that may have been used in Egyptian temples of the time. He may have spent many of his missing years in Ethiopia, visiting Axum with its gigantic obelisks and going to Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. He probably got married there as well, as one of his wives was an Ethiopian. This may be significant as we will see in later chapters.

Moses may also have been a “conehead.” Various royal Egyptians during the period of his lifetime, circa 1000 to 1500 BC, were coneheads in the sense that they had elongated skulls, known in science as a “dolichocephalic” head. It is known that many members of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty possessed such skulls, including Nefertiti and her famous husband Akhenaten, plus Tutankhamun, Meritaten, Meketaten and others. Egyptologists have largely ignored this feature of some royal Egyptians, at first because some thought that depicting the head with this unusual shape was just a feature of stylized art. Others suggested that it was a rare disease brought on by incest among the royal families (although Nefertiti was not an Egyptian, but from Mittani, which was in central Turkey). We now know that the practice of cranial deformation was widespread around the planet (an enigma in itself) and was practiced in Egypt, Hungary, Malta, Turkey, Kurdistan, China, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Vanuatu and other places. See my book, coauthored by Brien Foerster, The Enigma of Cranial Deformation.²²

So the question we are asking here is, was Moses possibly a person with a misshapen and elongated skull? It is not particularly important to the story, but it is very much a possibility, which is fascinating! In Exodus 34:35 we learn that Moses wore a veil over his face after his initial meeting with Yaweh on Mount Sinai. Why did he have to hide his face? Was it burned or misshapen after getting the Tablets of the Law, “inscribed by the finger of God” and seeing the Lord’s incredible power? According to Exodus 34:29, “And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.”

He was disfigured at this time and therefore wore a veil to cover his face for the rest of his life. So, remember this bit of oddity whenever you read about Moses in this book or others, and see how Moses is depicted in movies and television. In reality, no one saw his face after he came down from Mount Sinai. He did have several wives, though we do not know much about their personal relationships.

The story of Moses begins in Exodus, a book that is arguably the most important book of the collection of books known as the Bible. Exodus lays the foundation for the books that are to come and it contains epic history—a history that includes a deadly weapon that the Israelites call the Ark of the Covenant.

According to Exodus, Moses was born around the month of February/March circa 1391 BC (or some think 1593 BC) and lived to be about 120 years old. He was the youngest of three children, a brother, Aaron, being three years older and a sister, Miriam, being about three to six years older than Aaron. The Hebrews were slaves in Egypt at this time and the pharaoh had ordered that all newborn Hebrew males be drowned in the Nile, fearing that they were growing in population. Moses’ mother, Jochebed, hid him in a basket by the side of the River Nile for three months. When she cold no longer hide the child she cast the basket into the waters of the Nile, abandoning the baby Moses to God’s protection.

The basket was not observed until it reached the place where a daughter of the pharaoh was bathing. While not named in the Bible, Josephus says her name was Thermuthis, while others think that her name may have been Bithiah. A daughter named Bithiah is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4:18, but it is unclear whether she is a later pharaoh’s daughter. There are a number of them, including a wife of King Solomon, and the Egyptian-Hebrew princess Scota who brought the Ark to Ireland and Scotland according to Celtic legend (to be discussed later).

The princess saw the basket and asked her maidens to fetch it for her, and so acquired the baby Moses and raised him as her own son.

The word “mose(s)” derives from the Egyptian meaning “born of” so therefore Tutmoses was “born of the god Tut or Thoth.” Other pharaohs of this time include Ahmose I and Kamose, who disappeared from history after a three-year reign. The biblical Moses must have had a pre-name such as Tut, Ah, or Ka, but this was dropped after the Exodus. We are never told what his full name was. However, he was trained as an Egyptian military general and a powerful Egyptian priest-magician.

While a powerful Egyptian prince at the age of 40, on a trip in the countryside, he saw an Egyptian slave master killing a Hebrew and lost his temper—killing the Egyptian slave master. Knowing that he would be punished severely for his actions Moses fled to the land of Midian, generally thought to be located along the northern coast of the Red Sea, south of Eilat and Aqaba. Today this area is part of Saudi Arabia.

This area also contains the mysterious Jabal al-Lawz, a mountain located in northwest Saudi Arabia near the Jordan border, whose name means mountain of almonds. This is the tallest mountain in the area and has been proposed as an alternative to Mount Sinai in the Sinai penninsula because it is the only partially active volcano around. In his book The Gold of Exodus, Howard Blum asserts the Mount Sinai described in Exodus would seem to be a volcano.¹¹

Rather, the mountain of the burning bush, Mount Horeb, may have been Jabal al-Lawz, located in the northern part of Midian. Theoretically, a burning bush would have been something that one might conceivably find near its summit during one of its frequent eruptions.

While in Midian Moses saved seven beautiful daughters of a Midian priest named Jethro (also Reuel or Hobab) from a group of shepherds who would like to have had their way with them. Jethro adopted Moses as his son and married him off to his daughter, Zipporah. Moses stayed in Midian for 40 years as the head shepherd for Hobab. Reuel-Hobab is the spiritual and ancestral founder of the mysterious Druze sect.

It would seem that during this time Moses made a journey across the Red Sea to the Axumite port of Adulis and then to Axum in Ethiopia. The great obelisk at Axum was probably standing at the time, and Moses could well have visited Lake Tana and other areas of the country. During this time he probably married an Ethiopian woman, though while she is mentioned in Genesis she is not named. The best we can learn is that he has a wife named Zipporah (of Midian), another wife who is Ethiopian, and two sons by Zipporah named Gershom and Eliezer.

The Roman historian Josephus says that Moses married a woman named Tharbis as a general in his early adult life. Moses had led the Egyptians in a campaign against invading Nubians and defeated them. Moses then besieged the Nubian city of Meru, where from the ramparts Tharbis watched him lead the Egyptian army. She fell in love with him and agreed to marry Moses and deliver the city into his power. She and Moses married, but Moses eventually returned to Egypt and exile. The Ethiopian woman mentioned in Numbers 12:1 would be another woman entirely it would seem.

One day when he was around the age of 80 in Midian, Moses was leading his flock to Mount Horeb (Jabal al-Lawz?), and he came across a burning bush. Coming closer to it, Moses realized a voice was coming from it. Moses believed that God spoke to him from the burning bush and the voice identified itself as Yahweh.

Moses said that Yahweh instructed him to return to Egypt and free the Hebrews from their bondage. Moses, with his brother Aaron, had learned certain tricks of sorcery, such as how to transform a staff into a serpent (hypnotism?) and also to inflict—and heal—the sores of leprosy. Yahweh also gifted Moses with the power to change river water to blood and other forms of sorcery. Moses went back to the pharaoh’s court, where much time had passed and the pharaoh of the oppression was now dead, as were many of the royal court of that time. A new pharaoh had come to power and he challenged Moses to defeat his magicians. Moses and Aaron had their staffs turned into snakes and fought against the staffs-turned-snakes of the Egyptian priests.

Moses and Aaron then saw that ten plagues were visited on Egypt: 1) the fish and other water life were killed off; 2) frogs from the Nile overran the countryside; 3) Egypt was invaded by lice; 4) Egypt was invaded by flies; 5) disease infected the livestock; 6) incurable boils broke out among the people; 7) thunderstorms and hail destroyed crops and buildings; 8) locusts covered the countryside; 9) the land was enveloped by total darkness; and 10) the firstborn male of every Egyptian family died.

When the pharaoh lost his firstborn son he told the Hebrews to leave Egypt. All the ten plagues affected only the Egyptians and passed over the Hebrews, and they now celebrate these events in a seven-day holiday known as Passover.

The Hebrew host left in haste; instead of letting the bread they would need for sustenance rise, they took unleavened bread (as is served at Passover). As the Israelites neared the northern part of the Red Sea, an area of marshes, the pharaoh had changed his mind and ordered his army to give chase. With the Egyptian army bearing down upon them the Israelites reached the sea, and Moses lifted up his rod and the water parted, allowing the Hebrews to pass. Once they had reached the other side, Moses lifted up his staff again and the path closed, drowning the pharaoh’s army.

Some biblical scholars suggest that a strong wind had been blowing in the marshy area of the northern Red Sea which pushed the water back into a wind-driven low tide that came flooding back into the marshes when the wind suddenly stopped. A number of historians have suggested that the entire set of plagues may have been a series of ecological disasters caused by the volcanic explosion of Thera in the Aegean Sea circa 1500 BC.

The Creation of the Ark of the Covenant

And so we have a prelude to the building of the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle, the Urim, Thummin and other artifacts. The Israelites continued into the deserts of Sinai and apparently western Saudi Arabia, as Moses was familiar with that area. When they reached a place called Marah, people complained that the water was very bitter so Moses cast a tree into the water, making it turn sweet.

After several days, they complained that they were running short of food and started cursing Moses that they had been better off in Egypt. At this point Moses was told that Yahweh would solve the problem by providing manna as food in the morning and flocks of quail in the evening.

The Israelites arrived at the mountain of God, where Moses’ father-in-law Jethro visited the host. At Jethro’s suggestion Moses appointed judges over Israel.

Then in Exodus 19 it says that Yahweh would come to the mountain and show himself to the Israelites if they agree to be his people. The people accept this and then gather at the foot of the mountain. They are told not to touch anything or advance any further up the mountain or they will be harmed by the power of Yahweh.

In Exodus 19:12-13 Moses is warned:

And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.

Moses then goes down to the Israelites to prepare them for the meeting with Yahweh, who descends onto the mountain like a spaceship landing at a spaceport. We are told in Exodus 19:16-22:

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them.

After this, Moses and Aaron are told by a voice to ascend the mountain. Yahweh gives them the Ten Commandments and supposedly the entire host of Israelites can hear it. Moses goes up the mountain alone into the presence of Yahweh, who pronounces the Covenant Code (a detailed code of ritual and civil law), and promises Canaan to them if they obey. Moses comes down the mountain and writes down Yahweh’s words and the people agree to keep them.

An old print of the Israeliites watching the display of lights on Mount Sinai.

Yahweh calls Moses up the mountain with Aaron and the elders of Israel, and they feast in the presence of Yahweh, though only Moses can approach Yahweh and speak with him. Finally, Yahweh calls Moses up the mountain to receive a set of stone tablets containing the law, and he and Joshua go up, leaving Aaron below. Aaron unfortunately allows an idolatrous golden calf statue to be made which infuriates Moses, and he breaks the tablets written by the finger of Yahweh. Moses returns to the summit of the mountain and makes a new set of tablets with the Ten Commandments on them.

From this time on Moses wears a veil because his face is radiant. Shortly after that he returns to the mountain and is told to build the Ark of the Covenant, which he does.

So the stage is set for our investigation into the Ark of the Covenant. Yahweh and his angels seem to be very active all over the Middle East around this time, sending emissaries to Sodom to see what sort of people are living there—and then deciding to allow the cities to be destroyed.

These “angels” of the Old Testament seem to be a lot like normal people. Though Lot recognizes them as angels, or “servants of the Lord,” others in the town do not recognize them as some sort of beings different from them, but rather as attractive humans whom they want to have sex with. The homosexual rape of these visitors was not something that Yahweh or his servants were willing to tolerate.

An old print of Moses with the Ten Commandments, his face hidden by a veil.

Now, a renegade Egyptian priest named Moses was starting a new religion, perhaps based on the Atonist religion of Egypt. Did he bring some high tech artifacts with him from Egypt? Did his god have an airship, flying saucer or vimana that he flew around in? Perhaps with some clever prior arrangement Moses met up with a group of people who had an airship and would meet him at Mount Sinai or anyplace they chose. With the flash and fanfare of an airship landing, Moses and Aaron would talk with the occupants of the airship—probably people they had already met—and then convey their messages to the Israeli host of thousands of people as if God was speaking to them and giving them commandments, which were essentially Eastern concepts of karma and harmless living.

With great sound and fury the airship comes and goes, and as we shall see, returns to fly through the air and guide the people through the night, similar to the Star of Bethlehem.

And why did Moses wear a veil after his encounters with Yahweh? His face was radiant—perhaps partially burnt from being around the flash and thunder of this noisy craft of Yahweh and his friends.

It would seem that this craft was probably a real nuts-and-bolts machine that had more than one occupant. It may have been a full-blown ancient alien space craft capable of going to other planets, or perhaps it was just a primitive ancient airship made by humans with the best of the technology available in 3000 BC or even 15,000 BC—perhaps a primitive gas-filled zeppelin-balloon or an advanced propeller or gyro craft with a full electric control room. Perhaps they were airships of the Anunnaki, or from the Rama Empire of ancient India. We can only guess.

But for now, let us go back to the future—back to a time of giants, electric death rays and wars of extermination and conquest. A time when great civilizations were collapsing and the Earth was wracked by earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. Later, more large armies such as the Babylonians would attack Jerusalem and Egypt in even larger conflicts.

But that was hundreds of years away. For now, Moses and the Israelites needed to move all of their people to the plains of Moab and then to the land of Canaan where they would destroy the city of Jericho. They brought the Ark before them in their conquests—a terrible and destructive weapon.

An artist’s conception of the Ark of the Covenant in the temple.