disclaimer: so this post is going to have some top quality christian propaganda in it; in my opinion that makes it all the better, but you can feel as you willi found myself reading last evening, and i came across a section of text that made me think. basically, the story goes that moses was leading the hebrews out of egypt to the promised land and made a pit stop at mount sinai along the way. while they were all there, god decided to change the course of society as we know it and gave them all these rules to live by and that kind of thing. amidst a whole bunch of moral stuff, we find that they were given specific directions about how they should go about building a sort of tent-like dwelling that would hold the ark of the covenant (which in turn held the tablets with the original ten commanadments on them) and a few other various items specified by god. while some may find interest in what the exact specifications of the tent were and others might enjoy other “important” portions of this sequence, i personally was enthralled by the ark. kind of. not really the ark itself or the idea of the ark but by the concept of “why?”.the ark of the covenant, much like the holy grail, has become an item of legend and intrigue in modern times. many people are interested, and often engrossed, in theories of where it went, what it was like, and how come it simply vanished into time. depictions of this concept for both the ark of the covenant and the holy grail can be seen in the indiana jones movies made by steven spielberg and george lucas. of course, these are slightly exaggerated with the fact that the ancient artifacts are actually found, but that is certainly besides the point. ark and grail hunters have and will continue to search for ideas and clues about the lost history of these things, maybe forever.and now i backtrack to my own question. the thing that really interested me about the ark was that it was somehow selected alone and put on this grand pedestal for all to know about it. like i said before, god made a point to specify the inclusion of several different items in the tent. these included a very lovely table and an equally nice lampstand. but ask people about the table and lampstand and most would have no idea. ask them about the ark and many more will know at least something about it. and so i was intrigued. why was the ark so cool? why aren’t all the great archaeologists in search of the “lampstand of the covenant” instead? of course, the ark did hold the tablets and was put into a super special part of the tent that most people probably wouldn’t even dare breathing near, but still, that lampstand was gold-plated. it must have been pretty cool in its own right. basically, in my opinion, it got the history shaft. everybody loves the ark. nobody likes the lampstand. if it hadn’t been gone for thousands of years, i think i would go give it a hug.adding a video in with the post, i think, adds an extra little kick that i like. so i think i’ll do it again for this one. this is the scene from “raiders of the lost ark” where indy is explaining all about the lovely ark in all its splendor. please note that the lampstand of the covenant is mentioned a grand total of zero times in this scene. you’d think that hitler would have wanted to get his hands on anything that was in the that tent, but no. just the ark. who knows, maybe the lampstand will make an important appearance in the fourth indiana jones movie that they’re supposedly going to make. “indiana jones and the curse of the forgotten lampstand”. sounds pretty awesome to me.
shawn said,
October 17, 2006 @ 11:22 pm
i was thinking, the plot of the fourth installment of the series might be centered around the quest for the ark of the stud. that, of course, is the chest in which the hebrews carried the very studly pieces of han solo after he had been frozen in carbonite and shattered (in a hurried and poorly planned escape attempt, chewbacca dropped him and he broke into lots of little pieces. at this point, the pieces were gathered and thrown into a large-enough container which was shipped to the hebrews aboard the millenium falcon, piloted by an inconsolable chewbacca.)
the screenplay writers could take a great deal of artistic license in saying that the hebrews – not knowing what exactly to do with the frozen and shattered (yet still very, very studly) pieces of a man from a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away – decided to bring han solo to the wizard of oz.
(this is the big artistic license part:)
true to form, the wizard would be hiding in some obscure place (aka promised land), but the hebrews were going there regardless because egypt was downright awful. plus they had a stud to save. however, the hebrews were interrupted along the way at mount sinai when god told moses “a whole bunch of moral stuff” that seemed much more important than han solo (i know, it’s hard to believe that divine intervention could possibly be more important than him). regardless, the aforementioned hebrews were then very interested in burying han solo’s ark of the stud under mount sinai and eager to continue onward to jerusalem. from there, it’s quite obvious why anyone would want to find the ark of the stud… do carbonite-frozen man pieces melt when they’re buried in a desert for thousands of years? to use two fantastic cliches, it is a pinnacle of knowledge, ripe for the picking. evil villain seeking ultimate knowledge finds the ark of the stud, indy has to save the day, indy kills evil villain, returns ark to rightful place in desert. hooray!
so that’s the story; talk about intrigue… they should probably leave out hitler, though. a more modern mass-terror-inflicting villain (a la saddam hussein or darth vader) would be more appropriate for the part. actually, darth vader isn’t modern. forget it, scrap the whole idea – without vader, the story just doesn’t make any sense…