AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That could work until there was something you had that she wanted,” Lia said. “Then you’d be toast.”
“Adam, don’t romanticize Kitsune. Actually, she’d hate that. Okay, people, let’s set up the secure videocon with Ben so he can give us a rundown of the history behind the Ark of the Covenant and the staff of Moses. We all need to be on the same page.”
Adam tapped on his computer for a moment, then Ben’s face filled the video screen.
Louisa said, “Hey, Ben, bet you were sitting there, all down in the mouth, just waiting around for us to call, right? Hey, do you know your hair isn’t as red from thirty-five thousand feet?”
Lia laughed. “You said the last time you raced Ben, Louisa, you lost only because you had a sprained ankle and his hair blinded you.”
More laughter, then Nicholas said, “Ben, tell us about the Ark and the staff. Start at the beginning.”
“I’m going to give you the CliffsNotes version. After God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, he instructed Moses and his brother, Aaron, to craft the Ark of the Covenant to hold the tablets. God also gave Moses a jar of manna to keep in the ark, then instructed him to leave his staff in the Ark as well.”
“Wait, what’s manna?” Adam asked.
“It’s a special kind of bread. I guess you’d have to say it’s magic because it never runs out, always perpetuates itself, which means no matter how much you take, it replenishes instantly.”
“Now there’s a bread with colossal mojo,” Mike said.
“Good one, Mike. Okay, the count on the Israelites escaping from Egypt is more than six hundred thousand people. A jar of manna would feed this many people—in what time frame? Never mind, let’s stick with the myth and the magic and drop the logic. So while they wandered around in the desert, it’s written the manna is what kept them alive.
“And they carried the Ark, which was basically an acacia wood box that had all this incredible ornate gold work on it—cherubs and sundials and the like. It was more than a talisman to them, it literally held the power of God. The Israelites went into battle with it, and always won. Interesting factoid: in 1070 BC, the Philistines stole the Ark and took it to their territories. Soon after, they suffered an attack of what they called the ‘golden rats.’?”
Louisa said, “The plague, most likely.”
Ben nodded. “They wrote that anyone who got near the Ark got sick and died. They lost battles, lost lands, lost crops. They finally decided the Ark wasn’t worth all the misery, so they tied it to a cart and sent it back.
“Now here’s the best part. There’s an Ark prophecy that clearly states that only members of Moses’s family—the Kohaths, also called the Levites—can handle the Ark without dying. The Kohaths are the direct descendants of Moses.”
“So where is the Ark supposed to be?” Mike asked.
“Good question. There are long stretches of history when there is no mention of the Ark. It’s last known address was Solomon’s Temple. King David—of David-and-Goliath fame—is said to have brought it to Jerusalem, and it resided in the temple for many years. Jerusalem was sacked in 892 BC, and the Ark vanished. Many historians believe the Egyptians got their hands on it, but no one really knows.”
Lia said, “But wouldn’t the Egyptians have had the golden rats show up and kill them?”
“Good point. I don’t know,” Ben said.
Adam said, “Why is it called an Ark? Wasn’t that Noah’s boat?”
Ben said, “Just a second, let me check that out.” He typed for a minute, then said, “Says here an ark is technically anything that holds something. A box or a ship, an ark is essentially a container. This ark contained something holy.”
Nicholas said, “Calling it the Box of the Covenant just didn’t have the same ring to it.”
A few groans. Mike threw a pencil at him. Nicholas caught it, tucked it behind his ear. “Okay, Ben, tell us about the staff.”
“Moses received the staff directly from God. Moses and his brother, Aaron, used it to perform the miracles that ended in the Jews’ exodus. They used it to turn rocks into water, although how that would work I can’t imagine, and one legend has the staff devouring snakes. But the staff, too, was lost as well as the Ark.”
“Now we get to move to the modern era. As I said, the Ark was in Solomon’s Temple, the last place it was ever seen. In 1519, when the sultan Selim conquered Egypt, he supposedly got his hands only on the staff of Moses and took it back to Istanbul, where it stayed in the Topkapi Palace until they put it on display with the Holy Relics thirty years ago.”
“It didn’t start a plague there, either?” Adam asked.
“Evidently not.”
Mike said, “Does any reputable historian believe it’s real, Ben?”
“Of course the Turks claim it is. They don’t have an explanation why it would be separated from the Ark, though. Is it the real deal?” Ben shrugged.
Louisa said, “Tell us about the museum where the staff has been all this time.”
