Dru Johnson (00:00)
What if the Ark of the Covenant, that little golden box featured in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, that thing, what if it still exists out there somewhere? Well, today I’m talking to Dr. Chris McKinney, who is an archeologist and who stars in a documentary called Legends of the Lost Ark, where he goes through together with a bunch of colleagues and scholars and
considers the various options and the legends about where the Ark ended up,
from the burial place of Moses all the way down into the Sinai. Even I had not thought too much about what could have happened to the Ark, and I just kind of assumed it was destroyed in the Babylonian invasion in 586, but this documentary, which is high production value, and I can actually, for the first time, recommend a Bible documentary without any qualification whatsoever, this documentary goes in…
to the details about why Jeremiah might have rescued the ark and where it might have ended up.
If you like what we do here at The Biblical Mind, you can like and subscribe to this YouTube channel. You can also give to us at thebiblicalmind.org slash give.
Dru Johnson (01:17)
when you start, I can only imagine, but when you start talking about the Ark of the Covenant in public, whether that’s a church or a mixed company or an academic setting, what is the number one thing people wanna know?
Chris McKinny (01:22)
Mm-hmm.
Well, great question. And I’d say, maybe I’d caveat this by saying I never set out, I mean, I’m a fan of Indiana Jones, don’t get me wrong, but I never set out to ⁓ go look for the Ark or be an Ark Hunter. And I don’t really consider myself an Ark Hunter, but that is where most people’s minds immediately go to. And if it was just at Indiana Jones, that’d be great, because it’s an excellent film.
and it ⁓ well represents, for the most part, what biblical archaeology can be in Hollywood form. ⁓ So that’s one angle, but the bigger angle I often find is even vocabulary. What is an ark? And what most people think when I say I’m doing a movie about the ark is Noah’s ark. So that’s the ark encounter in Answers in Genesis, or that’s pseudo-archaeology of
Dru Johnson (02:19)
Right.
Right.
Chris McKinny (02:28)
the Ark is this formation in Turkey or it’s on Mount Ararat. And so I’m like, no, and I’ll use that as an opportunity to say you’re far more likely to find Noah’s Ark in the British Museum than you are anywhere in Turkey, because you can learn much more about the Mesopotamian flood story ⁓ there. And so once we’ve peeled back that layer, I’ll say, you know, the Noah’s Ark is mentioned 20 times in the Hebrew Bible. The Ark of the Covenant is mentioned 250 times. ⁓
Dru Johnson (02:45)
Mm.
Chris McKinny (02:56)
Noah’s Ark is mentioned in one biblical book, the Ark of the Covenant is mentioned ⁓ by name in 17 biblical books, over 700 years ⁓ of biblical history, so it’s a far more important piece. So even just kind of getting into the discussion of what is the Ark of the Covenant, what’s its background, immediately gets us into, wow, people just don’t have that framework. And quite frankly, I don’t think many scholars are willing to
approach this topic because of the cultural pseudo-archaeological baggage as well as apocalyptic eschatological baggage that come with it. related to that. sort of that’s like the first of just vocabulary. The second one is ⁓ the immediate response. And any time I do an interview or something on YouTube that’s more popular, it’s well, Ron Wyatt found it anyway. So why are you even looking for it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (03:30)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
I was gonna mention Ron Wyatt at some point here because I assume
lots of people have seen his videos.
Chris McKinny (03:57)
they have, and he has ⁓ really a cultural influence in the Christian world that ⁓ is not matched up with actual data or information. It’s ⁓ a harebrained theory on top of a harebrained theory, on top of a lot of personality and charisma, ⁓ but with nothing really under the surface. People will say all the time, well,
this real archaeologist is saying something Ron Wyatt already found. We know that the prime minister of Israel has it locked under key, and they’re just waiting for the moment for it to be revealed, and it’s like, all of this is certain, and it’s like, no, do you think archaeologists don’t want to find a real find and show that they just found something? Like, even if that’s the case, Ron Wyatt’s not a real archaeologist, because if he knew where this was, he would present it, he would publish it, he’d show actual photos that aren’t faked.
Dru Johnson (04:32)
of course.
Right.
Chris McKinny (04:54)
of the thing. So that’s, that’s the initial thing.
Dru Johnson (04:56)
Yeah. Well, in that blending of,
you call it pseudo-archaeology, which I never heard that term before, but that actually makes perfect sense, that quasi-archaeology turned into super, and then conspiracy theory is just going to couple right with it, right? And then of course it’s the Jews who are holding the secrets, right? It’s always the Jews. Yeah.
Chris McKinny (05:13)
Yeah, right. yeah, they got, you know, in the Protocols of Zion, you know,
they got them somewhere behind behind lock and key. And meanwhile, this is, they don’t realize they’re being anti-Semitic while also being supportive of the state of Israel because this is going to bring out the rapture and the destruction. and I’m not trying to ⁓ even diminish anyone’s view of premillennial, a-millennial, like it’s just…
Dru Johnson (05:30)
Right.
Chris McKinny (05:41)
everything that we’re talking about is a fantasy. Like, it’s not real. Like, there is no evidence that Ron Wyatt ever found the Ark of the Covenant in the Garden Tomb, and more than that, the Garden Tomb, which the whole basis of, is supposedly the tomb of Jesus. It is not the tomb of Jesus. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the tomb of Jesus. And so, the whole… they will. They will. So, it’s just like…
Dru Johnson (05:59)
Yeah. Yeah. And the garden tomb people will, will say that now too as well. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris McKinny (06:10)
That’s why no one has made a movie that actually deals with the real arc of the covenant background and backstory, because inevitably you’re going to encounter people that have already got it figured out. And it’s not just Ron Wyatt that’s got it figured out. He’s maybe the most popular one. But then you have the Oak Island people who say, well, it somehow is an Oak Island because of the Templars, and I quite frankly haven’t quite figured that one out yet. But then you have the Ethiopia people.
Dru Johnson (06:30)
yeah.
Right.
Right, I was going to ask about that one. We know where it at. Yeah, there’s a guy walking around it today, right?
Chris McKinny (06:40)
the, the Graham Hancock. Yeah.
Yeah. But I, I, without in, in my ongoing research and discussions of this, plan on trying to do justice to all of these, ⁓ theories because they’re not, I use the word kind of theories and air quotes here because in many of these cases, there is a very interesting tradition that
underlies each of these ideas. ⁓ So even the Ron Wyatt idea is based on an ancient idea that we see reflected in rabbinic sources that’s actually one of the legends we discuss in the film. It’s just what he’s doing with it is totally off the reservation. It doesn’t match the ancient sources themselves, and the same is true for Ethiopia.
story of the Ark being taken to Ethiopia is incredibly interesting if we consider the Ethiopian Coptic Church. I mean, it was there at the latest in the 12th or 13th century and probably much earlier than that, and so if we consider that it’s still sacred today, it’s longer in Ethiopia as the heart of their faith than the actual Ark of the Covenant was in Jerusalem. And so, the richness of ⁓
Dru Johnson (07:49)
Mm.
Right. Right.
Chris McKinny (08:01)
the art can make these other traditions is part of what really draws me in ⁓ to the question. But I did want to, before I forget, want to say something about ⁓ pseudo-archaeology, and one is more of like a qualifier of, I think there are kind of two types. There is a secular pseudo-archaeology, and there is much, which is problematic, but then there is a kind of ⁓
religious Christian pseudo-archaeology that specifically targets people of faith to buy into this archaeological view with the specific reason of selling books or selling ⁓ a philosophy of end times ⁓ belief. And both are really… yeah, yeah, exactly. Both are extremely problematic, but what I think a lot of people miss is
Dru Johnson (08:45)
Right. It’s an industrial complex.
Chris McKinny (08:56)
the existence of those in the first place. And I think that this goes back to our just modern age of disenchantment. Like, why do people want to believe this stuff, whether it’s conspiracy theory or it’s supernatural? It’s because we don’t have a place in the modern world for the supernatural. And I don’t want to diminish the fact that the Ark of the Covenant, by definition, is a supernatural box in which God’s presence is embodied, in which
cherubim are somehow haunting it and guarding your… like, that is what it is. ⁓ And so, I want to, at the same time, talk about it in real terms and accept the possibility that not only do the ancients believe this to be true, but if we are people of faith that believe in this supernatural text, we need to believe it to be true in some way, and see ourselves as part of that ongoing story. And so, I… ⁓
Dru Johnson (09:30)
Mm-hmm.
Chris McKinny (09:54)
it’s easy to criticize things like Ron Wyatt, you know, but we don’t take that next step and say, well, we can reduce it down to nothing and say angels, demons, the supernatural world, we only need, you know, the resurrection and the virgin birth and everything else can be fine, we don’t need any of rest of the supernatural, whereas I think we really fail to have our own story and metanarrative and tie into something like the arc if we don’t
Dru Johnson (10:11)
Right.
Chris McKinny (10:23)
delve into this complexity of the supernatural.
Dru Johnson (10:28)
Yeah, and I don’t want to name any names here, but I’ve had a number of colleagues who like really, you they’ll say, well, what do you actually believe in? Right? Not, here where I’m teaching right now, but ⁓ in various places. And let’s say, well, I believe the resurrection is real. Right. That, had to happen. My faith. I’m like, well, do you believe Moses? Like that people were in Egypt and came out of Egypt. ⁓ Anybody. Right. And they go, wow, there’s not really a lot of evidence for that. I’m like, well,
It’s not really lot of evidence for Jesus’ outside of eyewitness evidence, but we take it differently. But it is this kind of general, like, I call it the fantastical imagination required to understand what’s going on in scripture more generally. And I mean that in the sense of you have to understand that they believe there was a world that was below the surface that was operative, in the same way that a quantum physicist believes that there’s a world below the surface and that that world matters and it makes things happen.
Chris McKinny (11:17)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (11:25)
⁓ I do want to get back to you. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Chris McKinny (11:26)
Can I comment just real quickly on that?
I think that that’s such a great point, and I’d say that I would draw a distinction between what we would call what we can know as historical in terms of historicity and by like just a blanket statement that this can’t exist, so therefore it cannot be historical. We cannot prove that the Israelites came out of Egypt. We have a lot of nice evidence surrounding it, but if you just on the surface say,
Dru Johnson (11:46)
Right.
Chris McKinny (11:56)
it cannot have existed because of the supernatural or some type of things that we can’t explain scientifically. That means it can’t be historical, and I think that that’s where most people end up, is none of this can be historical because it’s included with the supernatural, and yet that is the description of every text that we have until we get to the Enlightenment. So, none of it can be histori… like, anyway…
Dru Johnson (12:22)
Yeah, and there’s actually lots of philosophers who are not religious ⁓ who have argued recently that there’s lots of theory and science that basically operates in that exact same realm where there’s no way to prove it. It operates in kind of a religious dogmatic format. Okay, well we’ll get off the philosophy of religion for a while. ⁓ It would be worth making the connection very quickly. There’s an actual reason why people think of Noah’s Ark when you say,
and that’s because the Ark of the Covenant is actually called in Hebrew by the same term. And I wonder, you didn’t talk about that in the movie because I realized you can’t talk about everything, but I wonder what you think of that linguistic connection between those two.
Chris McKinny (13:00)
Yeah, 90 minutes.
Yeah, so this whole concept of Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant is a fascinating one. In Hebrew, the text for Noah’s Ark is connected also with the basket of Moses. It’s the Hebrew word ⁓ tevet. ⁓ And so, the Ark of the Covenant, actually, its predecessor—because there’s only a few arones ⁓ in the Hebrew Bible—
Dru Johnson (13:21)
Right. Right. Same thing. Yep.
Right.
Chris McKinny (13:34)
its predecessor is actually ⁓ the coffin of Joseph. And so that’s one of things I’m working on right now, and is the conception of the ark and these predecessors or seeds that feed into the story. And so it’s really clear that the interpreters of the Hebrew Bible in the Septuagint, where we have the same names that are used in Greek between Noah’s ark and… ⁓
Dru Johnson (13:40)
Hmm.
Chris McKinny (14:02)
the Ark the Covenant, as well as where we get the word ark in Latin, the Vulgate, where we have arca. You know, we don’t usually even use the word ark today. I always think that it just means chest, so right there you have the arctic ark as a great name for an ice chest, the arctic ark. But they saw them as closely connected, and one of things that I discuss in a book I’m writing now is how Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant have a lot of ⁓
Dru Johnson (14:14)
Right.
Chris McKinny (14:30)
I mean, they’re rectangular, they hold wholly important ⁓ objects. Of course, there’s even the idea that ⁓ Noah’s Ark is a kind of temple in some sense that’s discussed in various forms of literature. We have a covenant at the end given to Noah, just as we have the Sinai covenant. There is a lot of parallel, they both have to do with salvation by water. ⁓ And so there are a lot of really interesting
Dru Johnson (14:42)
Hmm.
Chris McKinny (15:00)
parallels between the two, but I do think that the Ark by its function is pretty distinct from those. And so I would actually tie Noah’s Ark and the Ark of Moses closely together, and more of a Mesopotamian, still Egyptian, but Mesopotamian storyline, whereas I… No, I think it does. I think it’s both of those things.
Dru Johnson (15:14)
Yes.
You don’t think the Horace narrative fits better? Okay. Okay.
The infant exposure motif, yeah.
Chris McKinny (15:29)
There’s a great
article on the Torah.com, ⁓ I think, I forget, maybe Angela Roskip Erisman, where she makes that point. And I think it has a lot of interesting parallels, but I don’t think that we just have to ignore the fact that the birth of Sargon has a lot of the same, I mean, look, you can go to Greece and you can find the same, yeah, it’s the same kind of…
Dru Johnson (15:54)
Romulus and Remus, yeah. Harry Potter,
Luke Skywalker, it’s the same story, yeah.
Chris McKinny (15:59)
Yeah, it’s
just a what it’s it speaks to an ontology of good story. ⁓ Yeah, so in any case, I do see them as having ⁓ parallels. And one of things I discuss in detail is how both of these also subvert the pre-existing narrative. So like in the Mesopotamian flood story, the whole thing is that gods are pernicious and have no kindness and justice. Well, that whole aspect is turned on its head.
Dru Johnson (16:04)
Yeah.
yeah.
Chris McKinny (16:28)
in Genesis. And the same as I would say is the case for the story of the ark. If, as we argue, the ark is ⁓ like a throne of Pharaoh or like a throne of the gods, this concept of actually Yahweh is supreme over the gods of Egypt, like Exodus 12-12 talks about, and He’s more powerful than Pharaoh, it’s turning this concept on its head. Pharaoh says, you who is Yahweh? Never heard of the guy. And
Dru Johnson (16:55)
Right.
Chris McKinny (16:56)
the plagues are like, well, here he is, and he’s not only going to destroy Maat in your territory, but he’s also going to steal your throne. And so, it’s a really powerful, and I think really biblical, way of subverting expectations that we can see in these two and several other narratives.
Dru Johnson (17:16)
Yeah, I always say to my students that when you see a genre emerging in the text, it’s either going to follow the genre, the expectations are going to follow accordingly, or it’s going to break it in some way. Right? So look out and usually in the Bible, look out for the break. ⁓ cause that’s same thing with Jesus in parables, right? He always has that twist at the end, even in known parables. okay. So one theory. So we’re talking about this movie, the legends of the arc of the covenant. Is that correct?
Chris McKinny (17:26)
Yeah. Right.
Exactly.
Legends
of the Lost Ark.
Dru Johnson (17:46)
Legend of Lost Ark.
That actually is much smoother. I watched it last night with my wife. ⁓ I was kind of blown away. I’m not going to lie to you, even though we’re comrades, I did not have high expectations. Not from your side of it, but you know, ⁓ these kinds of things can go sideways or they can go 15 different ways. They can be very vanilla and they end up like saying nothing kind of at all or whatever.
or they’re not really giving you scholarly insights. They’re just giving you pop references. ⁓ But man, is, ⁓ you actually made me rethink, because my default is, and I want to know your input on this, my default was, the Ark gets cut up in the Babylonian ⁓ invasion. Didn’t even think for a second ever about like, yeah, Jeremiah was there to the end. yeah, Jeremiah might have felt concern for the throne of God, and he might have.
And then all of a sudden I’m entertaining all these ideas. So it was a great job even turning someone like me who really was kind of ambivalent towards this storyline. You had me hooked very early on and all the way through. And the actors in the kind of fictional elements that you, not fictional, the dramatic elements that you, are just beautiful. Like they’re visibly beautiful. In fact, me and my wife were debating is.
how much visual effects and AI were used in that because it looks so good.
Chris McKinny (19:16)
Yeah, lot there. I’d say I’ll start with the last question and say the only thing that’s AI, ⁓ or not AI, is animation is when the Ark at the very beginning gets taken up by aliens. That didn’t happen. We did an animation there. But the burning bush, I hate to say it, we just burned a very big bush and multiple ones. And yeah, I thought it was really powerful.
Dru Johnson (19:30)
So the burning bush was all like, okay.
Yeah.
Chris McKinny (19:45)
And there’s some kind of like, yeah, and I really appreciate that. And I just have to give credit not only to the effort that’s been done by our executive producer, Roy Brown and Doug Johnson at Gesher Media, but the stuff that I had a high standard for in terms of this has to meet scholarship and it has to meet a good story. And we need to really say something original, not just.
Dru Johnson (19:45)
Yeah, no, it’s visually stunning movie. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Chris McKinny (20:14)
rehashing what scholarship has already said, but really breathe new life into this topic and tread new ground, which is kind of rare that a film, before you even have a book, and the book’s ongoing, there’s going to be a book that accompanies this, but I’m still doing much more research here. But then even more than that, having the production and director with Rebecca Pett as the lead producer and Stephen Pettit as the director who had experienced
Dru Johnson (20:29)
Mm.
Chris McKinny (20:41)
⁓ time at Jerusalem University College. They knew what I was doing, but they also had chops in this world, especially Steven, to do a really high level. And so I think it was just ⁓ one of those moments where all the puzzle pieces fit and if we would have waited a couple years or we were going different directions, this thing doesn’t get made. ⁓ But I think it
Dru Johnson (20:43)
Okay. Yeah.
Mm.
Chris McKinny (21:08)
I really appreciate that because this was something that we had to do. We had to make it a high standard. We had all kinds of challenges of ⁓ COVID, of not being able to go to Israel because of October 7th, of not being able to film at these different locations, different ideas, the newness of this being our very first project like this. But the thing that was constant was that we were going to
be true to the scholarship. So this is the academia and we were going to entertain. So we call this epic academia where you ⁓ are entertaining while educating. And I just I’m super happy with the results. And I also need to shout out our Colombian team, John Hernandez. Well, that’s Colombia. That’s not Israel. The the reenactments, that’s ⁓ places that we scouted.
Dru Johnson (21:41)
Yeah. Yeah.
yeah, I noticed that. watched all the credits. I was like, who is involved with this? I saw there’s a team in Columbia. Yeah.
Really? In Colombia? Well, you know, I spent a lot of time in Colombia in the 90s, but not the work parts. Yeah, yeah, I did a lot of deployments down there for counter-narcotics, but not that part of Colombia.
Chris McKinny (22:06)
the country in South America is we did. you did. OK. Not.
Right, yeah.
Yeah, because the Ark that you see is real. In fact, ⁓ it’s on its way, as we speak, to Museum of the Bible ⁓ for an exhibit there and a screening of the film ⁓ that’s completely ⁓ made from archaeological research and then working with artists.
Dru Johnson (22:27)
nice.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, no, thought as I was watching it, OK, I’m not hyping this. I’m actually giving my genuine reaction. If I were making a YouTube video, like reacting to this movie, ⁓ I genuinely felt like this is a new genre of documentary that I have not quite seen before, where both the scholarly side was and I knew the scholars, so I knew they were good. And, you know, I trusted the scholarship, ⁓ which I don’t think you can even always do. And I’ve worked on some docu.
documentary series before that didn’t quite meet these standards and the acting and those dramatic reenactments I mean, let’s just be honest. They’re usually really cheesy, right? And they’re not dressed properly and you know, they’re all like Irish guys trying to play Middle Eastern or whatever. So, ⁓ you know, I thought it worked really well together. Even the dramatic elements I thought were moving. ⁓ I was really impressed as you can tell. just last month was on a filming trip doing trying to do a five minute
video in Europe and Israel. ⁓ And I also realize how much work every single shot is. yeah. ⁓
Chris McKinny (23:38)
Mm-hmm.
It’s enormous.
It’s a lot of fun. There’s nothing like being on a film set, but it is a lot of work and time and energy. ⁓
Dru Johnson (23:52)
Like, go
walk over there for 50 paces. Do it again now. Look up to the left. Now do it again and think about someone you love. Right? Yeah. yeah, it is a lot of work. OK. So I want to come back to this idea that I don’t think you talk about in the film, or maybe you mention it. But what I would consider the most parsimonious reading of what happens to the Ark is the Ark stays in the temple where the
Chris McKinny (23:59)
Yeah, exactly.
Dru Johnson (24:21)
maybe they’re thinking there’s gonna be some kind of a last stand. And then Second Kings just says, everything in the temple was cut up except for the dishes, which there’s a whole story to be told about the dishes, because they show up again in Daniel in this position of prominence, and then they show up again in Ezra and Nehemiah. So why not just say, yeah, it probably just got burned and melted down for the gold.
Chris McKinny (24:24)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel.
Well, I am not saying that that didn’t happen. didn’t have to use a double negative there. That’s certainly a possibility. ⁓ And so there’s a number of ways we could approach this. And if, you know, I had the book open, could say, here’s the chart of all the different options. And one of the options is that it’s plundered and it’s taken to Babylon. And that’s ⁓ a real possibility. But on the other hand, if you read all of the texts involved,
Dru Johnson (24:52)
Okay, so that’s a live possibility for you.
Okay.
Chris McKinny (25:16)
It is particularly striking that the main story device, I mean, I really think that the Ark, like, if you were comparing the Ark of the Cov- or the Hebrew Bible to fantasy literature or epic literature, and you were to say, we’re not going to call it the Bible anymore, we’re going to call it the Lord of something or the Chronicles of something, the only thing that really qualifies, unless you’re using God’s name Himself, is the Ark. It’s the thing that ties the whole story together.
Dru Johnson (25:29)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Chris McKinny (25:45)
both in terms of the guard of Eden with the cherubim and Sinai where it’s made, God’s presence comes back into the tabernacle. People say, the tabernacle is important. The tabernacle doesn’t matter without the ark. is the… ⁓ one reference is the ⁓ edut of the tabernacle, or the ⁓ tabernacle of the testimony, which is another word for the ark. And so, it’s this incredibly important ⁓ object
Dru Johnson (25:49)
Yeah.
Right, right.
Chris McKinny (26:15)
that gets included in all of these stories, and I’d say the two most important ones to remember are Exodus 40, where God’s presence fills the tabernacle and rests above the ark, and then also when we have the glory cloud once more in 1 Kings, 1 Kings chapter 8, where the priests bring it into the temple and it fills this house of Yahweh ⁓ that Solomon has been building, and it’s these moments of like, wow,
this is God’s presence right here. And then a lot of nothing. After 1 Kings 8, yeah. Yeah, so all of this is backdroped. We can get to the… it’s important to note this stuff before you get to where, why. Go ahead.
Dru Johnson (26:49)
Yeah, let’s talk about that. so.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think that’s right. And it’s a great reminder because I do the same thing I point out. Look, cherubim on earth, there’s only two places we find it, right? is in the Ark and at the Garden of Eden. ⁓ So that point of continuity is a really good one I had not fully appreciated. It is striking, though. The Ark of the Covenant, and the Ark seems to be separable from the Tabernacle, or at least David separates it from the Tabernacle, which you guys did a great job of covering that story.
Chris McKinny (27:07)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s
Dru Johnson (27:28)
And so now I’m realizing that wasn’t filmed in the Valley
Chris McKinny (27:29)
complicated story.
Dru Johnson (27:30)
of Elah, because I was looking at it going like, wow, that actually kind of looks like the Valley, or not the Valley of Elah, but… ⁓
Chris McKinny (27:35)
Yeah,
on the way from Kiryat-e-Reem to… Or the 1 Samuel 6 is in the Sourik Valley, the Bayt-Shimif.
Dru Johnson (27:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, down, down into… ⁓
Sauric Valley, thank you.
Yes, based on the supposedly sauric that’s being grown there. Right. Saural, yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a good job. I was sitting there staring at it, again thinking, I wonder if they did that green screen thing or that wraparound, because that kind of looks like you just added wheat in there. Yeah. Yeah. That’s expensive.
Chris McKinny (27:48)
Well, we, you I’ve lived there and we tried to match it as close as possible. Yeah.
No, all around. We talked about a volume wall, an LED wall, but we ended up not doing it. It is,
it is.
Dru Johnson (28:07)
Okay, so ⁓ you did a great job with that, but then you do get up to First Kings 8, and that’s the last time the ark is ever mentioned at all. And… Okay, go for it.
Chris McKinny (28:17)
Yes and no. Yes and no.
So this is where actually Indiana Jones Raiders of Lost Ark starts. So the central conceit in Indy is Indy telling the two government agents, whoop, whoop, it’s gone. It’s in Solomon’s Temple. Sheeshak took it. It’s at Tanis, the of, you know, the, ⁓ what does it call it? The Well of Souls and so on. And it’s a great film. But
Dru Johnson (28:43)
that’s right.
Chris McKinny (28:44)
The ark is not… a ron is not mentioned, but we do find the ark in the most important ⁓ event ⁓ maybe in the entire Hebrew Bible. ⁓ In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 6, we have ⁓ Isaiah approaching the temple. Maybe he’s a priest, and he sees the ⁓ hem of the robe of Yahweh of hosts, and his seraph flies out, touches his lips from this.
It doesn’t mention cherubim or aron, an ark, but it says the Lord is enthroned. And this same scene, the same location in Isaiah 6 comes back at the culmination of, again, some people call it first Isaiah, I’ll just call it Isaiah, and towards the end of the story when Hezekiah is surrounded on all sides by Sennacherib and he goes with a prayer and it says,
Dru Johnson (29:32)
Right.
Chris McKinny (29:41)
you who are enthroned above the cherubim, and he’s looking from the holy place to the holy of holies, looking right at the ark, and it’s at this moment, this revelatory moment, that God tells him Isaiah is going to come to you with a message. And it’s this concept that I think is so central that I don’t know if I’ve stumbled upon or just tried to put together in ways that I think most of what we talk about in terms of revelation with prophets from
Dru Johnson (29:44)
Mmm.
Chris McKinny (30:09)
all the way to Paul when he’s describing his experience after he’s arrested. He says, I was in the temple and I saw a vision of Jesus saying, to the Gentiles, all the way to Samuel as a seer asleep inside of the temple, that there’s this special connection to God’s speaking from the ark that goes really back to Moses, right, in numbers that I will communicate with you. And so, that’s in 701 BC when Hezekiah sees this.
Dru Johnson (30:18)
Right.
Hmm. Yeah.
Right.
Chris McKinny (30:39)
It’s
referenced there, and Isaiah tells him, you know, the king of Assyria is not going to come into the city, he’s not going shoot an arrow here. And so that confirms that it’s there. And so that background of the Ark as what I would call a real Palladium, but that’s a conversation for another time, ⁓ something that protects the city, like the Palladium protected Troy, this is that last phase of the Ark where it is the secret weapon.
that is held inside of the Jerusalem temple that withstood the ultimate conflict, Sennacherib and his forces, that when Jeremiah bursts onto the scene, and people are walking around the street saying, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, who cares? New, you know, new Babylonian king? We’re fine. Maybe there’ll be problems. Israel’s gone. Damascus is gone. The Philistines have trouble. But we have the temple of the Lord, and
Dru Johnson (31:13)
Right.
Chris McKinny (31:33)
that is code, in my view, for this presence that’s here, God’s presence in the ark in the temple, it is going to protect us regardless of what we do. And so, this is the background, in my view, to how Jeremiah is saying it’s not going to be the same story. It’s going to… God is abandoning your temple. He is abandoning His footstool, like it says in Lamentations, and that is connected with Ezekiel, Ezekiel 1, who’s seeing it
Dru Johnson (31:46)
Right.
Right.
Chris McKinny (32:03)
the same perspective, from the same time, but just from Tel Aviv, the one in the Kibar Canal. And so, that to me tells us that even though Aron, Ark of the Covenant, is not mentioned by name, it’s because it’s understood to be inside of the temple as its palladium, or what I call its retirement phase of its life before it dies. And these features are
Dru Johnson (32:07)
Right.
Chris McKinny (32:31)
all in the background of the actual story from the first temple period, but they also get picked up in in the legends because then it’s like okay, Jeremiah is last person who talks about it. He’s the one who does something with it. And there’s a lot of other things that I’m exploring now and even in terms of, you was the ark brought out at different times of the year like in an Akitu festival of some type, which is what some scholars have suggested. I think there’s a lot of really interesting things to think through there, but
Dru Johnson (32:53)
Mm-hmm.
Chris McKinny (33:00)
That would be my argument in a brief time of trying to show how the ark is certainly present in these last phases. I’d also say, and I haven’t really talked about this anywhere, but it’s something I’m really thinking lot about now, it might also explain how we have such a good description of the ark of the covenant itself in the biblical text, because it was known
and because, again, Exodus, depending on how you date it, many people date it to a latter part of the Iron Age. So, if it’s something that was visible, active, brought out, they could accurately describe something that was much more ancient, something that has parallels with ancient Egypt, even though it was written down and recorded later. But maybe that’s too much to go into, but anyway, a lot of thoughts there.
Dru Johnson (33:42)
Right.
Yeah,
well, and ⁓ I have lots of questions about Egyptian artifacts and that kind of later in the Egyptian culture, the ability to confirm things artifactually that happened a thousand years earlier is slightly different than what you get in Israel. ⁓ That’s helpful. And I think the issue and even the assumption that
Chris McKinny (34:07)
Yeah, sure.
⁓
we didn’t deal with the whole point of this was what happens to it, right? That’s the, that was the whole, were asking me. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:20)
Yeah, but I do want to mention the
assumption that the Ark is like our secret nuclear option ⁓ is exactly what’s depicted in first Samuel four, like bring the Ark up to the front, right? It’s like we’re employing the nuclear option. He’s going to defend us no matter where we are. yeah. And you do a good job portraying that as well.
Chris McKinny (34:25)
Yeah.
Yeah,
exactly. It’s the kind of… like, it is a secret weapon if you follow the proper methods that are recorded inside the Ten Commandments and the Torah Scroll, then God will protect you. But if not, good luck.
Dru Johnson (34:44)
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Which I, and so I do want to talk about the destruction of the temple, the first temple, the coming from the book of Kings, the scroll of the Kings. You do see this kind of like, God is not super impressed with the temple or, you you get this in first Sam or second Samuel seven. Did I complain that I was in a tent? Sounds very Jewish, right? Like, did you ever hear me complaining that I was in a tent? Right. ⁓ and then you, ⁓
Chris McKinny (35:12)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Dru Johnson (35:20)
And then you see God saying, you he says, okay, I’m commissioning this temple and God doesn’t say anything positive. He just says, if you will keep my commandments and walk in my ways, right. It’s very Deuteronomic, like do these things and then we can be okay. Right. And. Okay. So now we get to the idea that people had access to the art. Maybe you could physically see it. You’re thinking you suggesting even maybe like an arc opening ceremony that’s happening to where people could see it as well.
Chris McKinny (35:33)
Yeah.
I don’t know about
an ark opening ceremony. What I mean is we have texts like Psalm 24 who says they come through the gates. Who is this King of Glory? Like, what is that even imagining? Like, I mean, is it just imagining God’s Spirit moving or is this an actual New Year’s festival, whether that’s in Nissan or Tishrei for debate, or Psalm 99 or Psalm 132? These Psalms that are
Dru Johnson (35:57)
Right. Right.
Chris McKinny (36:15)
really about God’s presence and the ark story, the ark cycle as we have it in, you know, the text that you referred to in 1 Samuel 4 through 6 and 2 Samuel 6 sometimes is added to that, that are reflected in these psalms. I do wonder, and I’m not the first to do that, Richard Elliott Friedman and others have made similar suggestions, that maybe there is evidence of this being part of
the covenant and religious life, and this may underlie what we have in the last actual reference from a historical book to the Ark in 2 Chronicles, I believe it’s 36, or I don’t remember exactly, but with Josiah when it says, the Ark and no longer carry it, leave it in the Temple of Solomon, which is sort of a weird passage if we assume they never take it out.
Dru Johnson (37:01)
Hmm.
⁓ okay. Yeah.
Chris McKinny (37:11)
So, I’m not saying that there’s like a lot of specificity to that. And by the way, the rabbinic concept of what happens to the ark, if you read the rabbis from the Mishnah and Talmud onward, it’s all connected with that text. ⁓ Josiah having a special place that Solomon prepared that he hid the ark underneath ⁓ the Temple Mount, which is where we get Getz looking forward in the 1980s, even probably Montague Parkers.
expedition in the 1910s where that’s a whole other interesting story of a seance and a code in Ezekiel and things like this. But the actual earlier ⁓ sources, the legends that we discuss, are all based on second temple ideas about what happened to the ark. So one idea is it’s gone, right? And this is something we do see in one text. But the earliest datable sources from the second century
a lost history of the Jews written in the second century by ⁓ his name is Epulimonis or Epulihomas, I forget his name, describes Jeremiah hiding the ark. This gets picked up in Second Maccabees and the ark gets hidden in the tomb of Moses. And these other two legends in the pseudepigrapha, ⁓ we find it hidden ⁓ in this place called the rock and this other place that is, of course, connected with the temple. But those all seem to be ideas
that are either based on something, or they’re just expectations and hopes of maybe Jeremiah did ⁓ something with it. ⁓ But so they’re easy to kind of say, as you said earlier, well, it just makes sense that the Babylonians would ⁓ destroy it, and that’s a possibility. But why in the biblical text all throughout, ⁓ when we talk about the things that they bring back? Like, if the Babylonians destroy
Why talk about the Yachin and Boaz? Why talk about all these other features when the whole story until now, like imagine getting from Mordor and the ring isn’t part of the story. what, what, ⁓ okay. Okay. I gotcha. I gotcha. ⁓ but like it should be mentioned. I gotcha. I gotcha. But you, you, you’re aware of the reference. You’re aware of the reference. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, exactly. So.
Dru Johnson (39:21)
I’ve never read those books, so I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not that kind of a Christian.
I’m aware that there are rings and lords, yes.
Chris McKinny (39:39)
That’s where it is. And so, really, it’s a question of what are the Judeans living in a new temple age, the second temple, how are they grappling with the fact that their temple does not have its beating heart, the Ark of the Covenant, and that God’s presence, according to Ezekiel, has left in some way. And so, if you read Ezra 2, okay, they build it and
Dru Johnson (39:57)
Right.
Chris McKinny (40:06)
Where’s the noise? Where’s the cloud? If you read, you know, Maccabees, they get to the point where, okay, the Hasmoneans kicked out the Seleucids, ⁓ but we can’t have the ark because it was hidden. We don’t know really where it is, but we still need to have God’s presence in some way. We could go all the way to the Pentecost and say ⁓ they’re all gathered there at Shavuot, know, the moment when the law is given, which is connected also with, you know, the Tower of Babel, when it’s a moment of expectation.
And is the ark going to be returned? Or no, it’s actually God’s Spirit returning to people. So all these concepts are rooted in this tragedy of the first temple’s destruction and the loss of God’s Spirit in some way.
Dru Johnson (40:43)
Hmm.
Yeah, I think it’s a great example of how you can take one central feature that we kind of just, again, I think Indiana Jones did both a service and a disservice probably to our thinking about the Ark in some ways. But we just think, yeah, that’s the box, the magical box or whatever. ⁓ And then once you start using that as a lens, you see, you start learning more about the Bible in general by using that as a lens of exploring this one problem. ⁓
Where can people see this movie? it going to be like Amazon or Netflix?
Chris McKinny (41:20)
It’s actually in theaters.
There are three times to see it. April 12th, ⁓ it’s in a thousand screens. April 14th and 15th. There is going to be a screening, not confirmed completely yet, but probably in early April at Museum of the Bible. And we might do other screenings around, but it will be in theaters ⁓ those three dates. And if you want there to be more movies ⁓ like
Dru Johnson (41:36)
Okay.
Chris McKinny (41:49)
this, ⁓ you listeners of Dru’s podcast, go see it because that is exactly how we are able ⁓ to not only be successful and get this out to streaming services like wherever it will be, but it’s also how it can give investors confidence that there is an appetite and an audience for this.
Dru Johnson (42:11)
Yeah, I can ⁓ almost guarantee that anybody of the 5,000 or so people that download these episodes, I can guarantee that 99 % of you are going to want to see this in the theaters. Actually, I kind of wish I’d seen it. I watched it on my laptop, and I was like, I should have watched this on a big screen. I just couldn’t figure out how to get it to my bigger TV. But yeah, I think these are exactly the kinds of things that we want, because it does exactly what we’re trying to do, which is make.
Chris McKinny (42:30)
It looks good on a big screen. ⁓
Dru Johnson (42:41)
top scholarship accessible and understandable. And it does so in a beautiful way on top of it. ⁓ Well, Chris, thanks for working through these issues with us. Thanks for producing this movie and letting us kind of join in on this research that you’re doing. And then we get to hear new research. Maybe a couple of years from now, we get to hear where you’ve landed on some things, I guess, or where you are at that point, I guess we could say.
Chris McKinny (42:47)
Yeah.
Right. Well, thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, I really appreciate your work as well and reading your book lately. It’s a great book. I just love that we’re, I feel like we’re in an age kind of of ⁓ new scholarship, looking at things slightly differently. And it’s, know, that Ted Lasso, be curious, not judgmental mentality that I think is in a generation of scholars. And I hope that this film kind of fits that. And of course your work does as well. Thank you for having me on.
Dru Johnson (43:19)
Mm.
Mm-mm.
⁓ The film definitely
slaps as the kids say or they used to say a couple of years ago. Alright, thanks Chris.
Chris McKinny (43:37)
Yep.
