It is one of the most famous yet mysterious objects mentioned in the Hebrew Bible,

this special box that held the sacred 10 commandments written by God.

That was carried through the desert, taken to the promised land, captured by the Philistines,

reclaimed by the Israelites, placed in Jerusalem, before disappearing in the early 6th century BC.

It's the ancients on history hit.

I'm Tristan Hughes your host,

and today we're talking about the captivating object that was the arc of the covenant.

It is one of the most important objects in the Old Testament, and a name well known today.

You might remember it being the artifact searched for by Indiana Jones and his Nazi enemies in Raiders of the Lost Arc.

But what exactly was it? What stories are told about the arc and most intriguingly of all what happened to it?

Well today's episode is going to explore all of that.

Our guest is Dr. Dylan Johnson from the University of Cardiff.

Now that name may well sound familiar as Dylan he was the guest for our episode

about Moses and the Exodus, another of our episodes in our Old Testament mini-series.

Now in that episode Dylan and I we did our interview remotely.

This time around we had the delight of recording in person in Dylan's office at the University of Cardiff.

I really do hope you enjoy.

Dylan, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for inviting me.

You're more than welcome. In your office as well in Cardiff to talk about the

Ark of the Covenant. There's something about this object, whether it's because of Indiana Jones or other reasons, that it has just become a name that we've all heard of down to this present day.

It's a captivating object. Its history is extremely interesting,

both in the Bible but also in its reception afterwards.

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