>>
>> Zimbabwean ?Lost Ark? Redeems Israel?
>>
>> (Conspiracy Nation, 05/13/08) ? What is essentially the Biblical Ark
>> of the Covenant may have been found in Zimbabwe in March of 2007. Soon
>> thereafter, a bitter political struggle between Robert Mugabe and
>> Morgan Tsvangirai reflected a fierce battle in that African land. If
>> the purported sacred relic somehow made its way back to Israel, there
>> are hopes the fledgling nation might be redeemed.
>>
>> Tudor Parfitt is not some character having ?secret sources? who reveal
>> all. The author of ?The Lost Ark Of The Covenant? (HarperCollins,
>> 2008) is professor of Jewish studies at London's School of Oriental
>> and African studies and a fellow of the Oxford Centre of Hebrew and
>> Jewish studies. He has spent a lifetime tracking the ?Lost Ark.? His
>> book makes a strong case the Ark has been found ?in the storeroom of
>> the Harare Museum of Human Science in March 2007...?
>>
>> In July of 2004, Conspiracy Nation delved into Graham Hancock's
>> pursuit of the Ark. He was convinced it had been removed from the
>> Jerusalem Temple during the reign of the Jewish monarch Manasseh (687
>> ? 642 B.C.). Hancock theorized the Ark went to Egypt, then down the
>> Nile River to Ethiopia. (?Israel Wants Ark Back??
>>
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Ark.htm)
>>
>> But Professor Parfitt traces a different route, south through Arabia,
>> to Yemen eventually, and from there to what is now Zimbabwe. Parfitt
>> is no armchair theorist: he has lived and explored in the
>> abovementioned regions.
>>
>> Parfitt began his search by first narrowing down, ?What exactly am I
>> looking for?? Data concerning the Ark come from different sources and
>> periods. It was in form a rectangular box or chest, measuring about 45
>> inches by 27 inches by 27 inches, and made of acacia or shittim wood.
>> However, ?later generations embellished descriptions of it in their
>> traditions, seeing it as overlaid with gold both within and
>> without.? (Oxford Companion to the Bible)
>>
>> A key breakthrough in Parfitt's quest came when it was discovered a
>> sub-clan within the African Lemba tribe carried a particular
>> polymorphism on the Y chromosome known as the Cohen modal haplotype.
>> The Buba priestly sub-clan shares this ?Cohen modal haplotype? with
>> one other group: Jewish priests, descendants of the Biblical Aaron.
>> When the Lemba ancestors came to what is now Zimbabwe, bringing with
>> them the Ark, they intermarried with local African women. Over time,
>> their descendants began to appear indistinguishable from typical
>> Africans. However they clung to many of their original Jewish
>> traditions.
>>
>> After years of patient searching, Parfitt at last found what may be,
>> essentially, the Ark of the Covenant, in a Zimbabwean museum, on a
>> dusty shelf in a storeroom. Radio-carbon dating establishes the
>> artifact as having been made circa 1350 A.D. The original Ark, by
>> then, had disintegrated and a replacement was made, Parfitt theorizes.
>>
>> Assisting Parfitt in his search through the years was a close friend,
>> ?Reuven?, connected in some way with the Mossad. Reuven had said,
>> writes Professor Parfitt in the book's Epilogue, ?The redemption of
>> Israel will be brought ever closer by the discovery of the Ark.? Such
>> a discovery might justify rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple, even to
>> Muslims. A passage from the Koran suggests that, were the Ark to be
>> found, then Israel might be redeemed: ?The sign of his kingship is
>> that the Ark of the Covenant will be restored to you... this should be
>> a convincing sign for you, if you are really believers.? (qtd. in
>> Parfitt, op. cit.) If the ?symbolic authority [of the Ark] can be used
>> to force out [Robert] Mugabe, one of the most cynical dictators the
>> world has seen,? concludes Parfitt, it might even presage the coming
>> of the Jewish Messiah and the final redemption of the Jewish people.
>>
>> Conspiracy Nation
>>
>>
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html
