Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and its Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the Old Vault, and this time
Speaker 1: I'm being lashed by tongues of flame. That's right. This
Speaker 1: is going to be the first episode of our two
Speaker 1: part look at the Ark of the Covenant. Uh. This
Speaker 1: was a fun pair of episodes. I remember we were
Speaker 1: exploring some very strange historical hypotheses, trying to to explain
Speaker 1: the myth of the Great Arc that would strike people
Speaker 1: dead with blasts of fire or lightning. Uh. This was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, so we hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And it originally aired in December of And the Philistines
Speaker 1: took the Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer
Speaker 1: unto ash DoD. When the Philistines took the Ark of God,
Speaker 1: they brought it into the house of Dagon and set
Speaker 1: it by Daygon. And when they of ash DoD arose
Speaker 1: early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his
Speaker 1: face to the earth before the Ark of the Lord.
Speaker 1: And they took Dagon and set him in his place again.
Speaker 1: And when they arose early on the morrow, morning. Behold,
Speaker 1: Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before
Speaker 1: the ark of the Lord and the head of Dagon,
Speaker 1: and both the palms of his hands were cut off
Speaker 1: upon the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left
Speaker 1: to him. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon, nor any
Speaker 1: that come into Dagon's house tread on the threshold of
Speaker 1: Dagon and Ashdad unto this day. But the hand of
Speaker 1: the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he
Speaker 1: destroyed them and smote them with immrods, even Ashdod and
Speaker 1: the coast thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw
Speaker 1: that it was so, they said, the ark of the
Speaker 1: God of Israel shall not abide with us, for his
Speaker 1: hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our God.
Speaker 1: They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the
Speaker 1: Philistines unto them, and said, what shall we do with
Speaker 1: the ark of the God of Israel. And they answered
Speaker 1: a letter, the Ark of the God of Israel be
Speaker 1: carried about unto God. And they carried the Ark of
Speaker 1: the God of Israel about thither. And it was so
Speaker 1: that after they had carried it about, the hand of
Speaker 1: the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction,
Speaker 1: and he smote the men of the city, both small
Speaker 1: and great. And they had immerrods in their secret parts,
Speaker 1: Immerrods in their secret parts, Immads in their secret parts,
Speaker 1: emmerrods in their secret parts, Emmerads and their secret parts.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Scuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And if you couldn't guess by that opening, obviously we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about the Ark of the Cove today. Robert.
Speaker 1: I think it was when I came back from Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: break that you were like, we're doing the Ark of
Speaker 1: the Covenant on the show, and I was like, what
Speaker 1: the heck are you talking about? Now? You know, I'm
Speaker 1: always up for an exploration of some kind of weird
Speaker 1: ancient artifactor or something like that. So so we're we're
Speaker 1: good to go. But why did you want to talk
Speaker 1: about the arc on this show, Robert, Well, it's like
Speaker 1: nothing we've gone after before. Jeah. I was like, um no,
Speaker 1: that the arc is. I guess it basically comes down
Speaker 1: to the arc has along fascinated me. I grew up
Speaker 1: watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Indiana Jones movie.
Speaker 1: I had it on VHS and I would sit there
Speaker 1: and watch segments of it in slow motion. Pretty Much
Speaker 1: every special effect in the film I would watch in
Speaker 1: slow motion, from the melting of Nazis to just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, more practical stuff as well. Uh. And you
Speaker 1: like sit your parents down and your grandparents into a
Speaker 1: frame by frame face melting analysis, that sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just it always fascinated me. And then if you're
Speaker 1: setting in church, and I grew up attending church, you
Speaker 1: you pick up the Bible and you flip around, you
Speaker 1: look at you read the interesting passages, and certainly the
Speaker 1: passages about the Ark of the Covenant are some of
Speaker 1: the more fascinating. Uh. This just there's just they just
Speaker 1: resonate with mystery and like what is this about? And
Speaker 1: so I feel like throughout my life I have come
Speaker 1: back to it, and uh, in each time I've I've
Speaker 1: looked at it with new eyes. And more recently I've
Speaker 1: been thinking, uh, you know what, what are some scientific,
Speaker 1: possible scientific explanations, even if they're a bit fringey in
Speaker 1: places regarding the arc surely they exist, and lo and
Speaker 1: behold they do well. The way that the ARC connects
Speaker 1: to a lot of scientific topics is very interesting. Generally,
Speaker 1: it tends to connect to them and kind of uh yeah,
Speaker 1: like you say, fringy often kind of like uh pseudo
Speaker 1: pseudo scientific kind of ways, but gives you a good,
Speaker 1: mysterious jumping off point to talk about real science. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we want to talk about the myth to we want
Speaker 1: to talk about some weird fringe and pseudoscience believes people
Speaker 1: have had about the arc and how that connects to
Speaker 1: weird ideas about ancient technology, to talk about real science
Speaker 1: and technology potential in the ancient world. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Now, I
Speaker 1: have to admit it. As much as I love the
Speaker 1: discussion module our Facebook group, it is associated with stuff
Speaker 1: to build your Mind. I actually checked in with the
Speaker 1: Movie Crushers this is the group associated with Chuck Bryant's
Speaker 1: Movie Crush podcast, because I was curious what is what
Speaker 1: it was, what it is like a to have never
Speaker 1: seen Raiders of the Level Lost Arc, and also what
Speaker 1: it is like to have seen Raiders of the Lost
Speaker 1: Arc but with some sort of underlying understanding, pre existing
Speaker 1: understanding of the Ark of the Covenant, because I can
Speaker 1: relate to to neither of those, like the Ark of
Speaker 1: the Covenant as it's revealed, and Raiders of the Lost
Speaker 1: Arc has pretty much always been there in my life. Essentially,
Speaker 1: Raiders is a book of the Bible in a way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really Like I saw that, and then later on I
Speaker 1: learned how to read and came back into and learned
Speaker 1: what the Bible had to say about it. But you know,
Speaker 1: in Sunday School, we just never got the m Rod's.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they left the mrods out. I
Speaker 1: would have loved that when I was seven. Well we'll
Speaker 1: get we'll get to this. But I think one of
Speaker 1: the issues, of course his translation. In some translations they're
Speaker 1: referred to as tumors. I think that's where I encountered
Speaker 1: the first time, and I was like, whoa, back up,
Speaker 1: The Ark of the Covenant is giving the enemies of
Speaker 1: God tumors, uh, And that's what that's one of This
Speaker 1: was post Raiders, but then I was but then I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm really hooked now, Like this is
Speaker 1: this is even more uh, you know, Eldric Harror heaped
Speaker 1: upon the mystery of the arc. It makes you want
Speaker 1: to imagine an alternate universe in which Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Ark was not made by Spielberg and Lucas, but
Speaker 1: was made by David Cronenberg. And so when they opened
Speaker 1: the arc, it's kind of like the tumor gun from Videodrome. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I think that. Again, that's one of the things about
Speaker 1: about The Ark of the Covenant is is it's just
Speaker 1: so weird, and we're going to keep touching in on
Speaker 1: that weirdness, and we're also going to keep referring to
Speaker 1: Raid is the Lost Arc throughout this episode because this
Speaker 1: episode more than anything that we've covered before, because it's
Speaker 1: just free license to talk about that movie ad nausea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fascinating stuff just in the original
Speaker 1: arc mythology, but the the Indiana Jones treatment of the
Speaker 1: story partially merges it with something kind of like Pandora's Box,
Speaker 1: Like it becomes just a container of unknown and unutterable mystery,
Speaker 1: where there isn't quite so much that feeling in the
Speaker 1: Bible stories, though it is a strange and sacred object
Speaker 1: of profound power. Now, two of the big questions that
Speaker 1: are generally mold over concerning the Arc. Uh, first of all,
Speaker 1: what was it? And then secondly where is it now? Now,
Speaker 1: we're mostly going to ruminate over the first question, because
Speaker 1: the second is one of those questions that tends to
Speaker 1: lead to one of two places. Either the fact that
Speaker 1: it's simply lost to history, likely destroyed in some prior age,
Speaker 1: or or hidden away and lost, assuming that there was
Speaker 1: such an object, and that's the other possibility is that
Speaker 1: it simply did not exist um or it leads one
Speaker 1: to various speculative or even downright conspiracy theories involving you know,
Speaker 1: the Knights Templars perhaps, Or there's the notion that it's
Speaker 1: it's currently hidden out of sight in the chapel of
Speaker 1: the Tablet in northern Epethiopia, which is possible, but there's
Speaker 1: no no proof or that it was taken to Heaven,
Speaker 1: an answer that requires more of a speculative lead than
Speaker 1: the notion that the Arc, like so many treasures of history,
Speaker 1: simply failed to survive history. Now, one of the main
Speaker 1: things that we're going to be exploring in this look
Speaker 1: at the Arc is that the Ark of the Covenant
Speaker 1: is yet another one of these ancient stories, these objects
Speaker 1: of ancient myth, which there have been great efforts by
Speaker 1: modern writers to ground the myth and what we now
Speaker 1: know about science and technology, reimagining what the ancients believe
Speaker 1: to be magic as some kind of lost powerful science
Speaker 1: or technology. And we've discussed before some of the risks
Speaker 1: of technologizing the myth. Uh, it's not necessarily always wrong,
Speaker 1: but it's an impulse, that's not all. It's also not
Speaker 1: always justified. There's a sort of naive way of reading
Speaker 1: ancient texts that says, Okay, let's take what they say
Speaker 1: happened basically at face value, but posit a different explanation
Speaker 1: for it than they would have. And while this can
Speaker 1: be a fun exercise, I love doing it, I personally
Speaker 1: enjoy we shall always remember not to start feeling like
Speaker 1: this is a necessary and especially not like it's a
Speaker 1: parsimonious exercise, when in reality, ancient histories of all kinds,
Speaker 1: religious texts, myths, and so forth are likely to be
Speaker 1: full of narratives that are the result of creative imagination
Speaker 1: and things like exaggeration across time and retellings. In other words,
Speaker 1: there's no event that you necessarily have to explain because
Speaker 1: the events described in these ancient stories often just didn't
Speaker 1: take place. Right, We can't treat a description of the
Speaker 1: arc in uh in the whole Testament as being the
Speaker 1: same as say, you know, fossil evidence or a or
Speaker 1: a crater, right right, We we just don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it might be based on something that actually happened, but
Speaker 1: we don't know. But if we take the route of saying, well, okay,
Speaker 1: if these stories are based on something people saw, are
Speaker 1: based on something that actually happened. When we look at
Speaker 1: history that way, ancient history with a bit of science
Speaker 1: under the belt, there is this insatiable itch the retro
Speaker 1: sci fi hermonutic, which I've been looking for a concise
Speaker 1: name for, and I think I just realized the perfect
Speaker 1: one for for this era of that which I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start calling bronze punk. Yeah, so you've got yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got steampunk for the Victorian era, You've got adam
Speaker 1: punk for the atomic age. And I think we should
Speaker 1: have bronze punk as the name for this retroactive technologizing
Speaker 1: of the time period of classical civilizations in the ancient
Speaker 1: Near East, including the Hebrew Bible and its contemporary civilizations
Speaker 1: and texts. So with those important caveats, I think we
Speaker 1: should begin a bronze punk adventure into the Ark. Bronze
Speaker 1: Bronze Punk does have a lot of of of opportunity here.
Speaker 1: It gives us a chance to bring back uh Talus,
Speaker 1: the Bronze automaton. Oh, that's a classic example we would
Speaker 1: tell us. I think they'd be bronze Punk. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be too rigid about the time period that
Speaker 1: applies to either, because a lot of the stuff we're
Speaker 1: talking about here I think would technically be bridging Bronze
Speaker 1: Age and Iron Age and the regions that are affected.
Speaker 1: But all that aside, yeah, anything, it doesn't need to
Speaker 1: stand in the way of tall Us battling the Ark
Speaker 1: of the Covenant. I would say, well, before we get
Speaker 1: into all these supposed Bronze punk explanations of what the
Speaker 1: arc might have been if it existed, and if some
Speaker 1: of the stories about it are based on things people saw,
Speaker 1: we should just explore the myth, like what is the
Speaker 1: story of the arc and what do the text say
Speaker 1: about it? All? Right? Yeah, well we're talking here about
Speaker 1: the airon Hobart, the Arc of God, the Arc of testimony,
Speaker 1: the Arc of the Covenant, just a few names that
Speaker 1: we used to describe it. Here a gold plated wooden
Speaker 1: chest used by the ancient Hebrews to house the two
Speaker 1: stone tablets of law given to Moses by God, and
Speaker 1: it was also said to contain a couple of other
Speaker 1: holy relics, such as Aaron's rod, a magical item used
Speaker 1: by Moses brother, as well as a pot of man,
Speaker 1: the supernatural food stuff that fell from the heavens to
Speaker 1: feed the Israelites in the desert. Now, in addition to
Speaker 1: being made of gold, to the other decorative element that
Speaker 1: is a signature of the art are the two cherubim
Speaker 1: that are depicted atop it. Now I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: why this has happened, but in modern English usage cherubs
Speaker 1: or cherubim that has come to mean naked baby angels
Speaker 1: like you would see on those cards or the creepy
Speaker 1: little statues people put on their dressers. But cherubim are
Speaker 1: not naked cute baby angels, right right, even though, like
Speaker 1: if we describe something as bearing cherubic today, we're we're
Speaker 1: describing so it's got like a baby with fat cheeks,
Speaker 1: or maybe an adult with a fat with fat cheeks
Speaker 1: and kind of a baby's face. But really it should
Speaker 1: be a horrifying adjective to to heap on something. It
Speaker 1: should mean that it is an object or personification of
Speaker 1: just holy wrath. Right. Classical example would be angels stationed
Speaker 1: outside the Garden of Eden with a flaming sword to
Speaker 1: keep people out. That's right. I mean that that is
Speaker 1: a chair of the true chair of forget the Renaissance
Speaker 1: art here that they're kind of like God's supernatural heavies.
Speaker 1: But as with any sort of mythological creature, you do
Speaker 1: see a lot of variety in the way they're depicted,
Speaker 1: ranging indeed, from the bestial to the more humanoid. Depictions
Speaker 1: of the art tend to favor of a version of
Speaker 1: winged humanoids. But we could, and perhaps we should, do
Speaker 1: an entire episode on angels and religious traditions in the future,
Speaker 1: because there's so much the fascinating material there. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about creatures that would have been first or second
Speaker 1: circle in the hierarchy of angels, and their descriptions include
Speaker 1: or tend to include the form of a lion, the
Speaker 1: form of a man, the form of an eagle, or
Speaker 1: any hybrid of these forms I've actually seen it described
Speaker 1: that they sometimes are representative as having four faces, yes,
Speaker 1: and the four the four faces would flude the lion
Speaker 1: to represent the beasts of the wild, the man to
Speaker 1: represent the world of humans. I think, an oxen face
Speaker 1: to represent the world of domesticated animals, and then an
Speaker 1: eagle face to represent the world of birds, which I
Speaker 1: guess are somehow different than wild animals. Yeah, these depictions
Speaker 1: of of the chairbs often look kind of like emblems, right,
Speaker 1: with like folds of multiple wings and haloed heads of
Speaker 1: these creatures and a human poking out. Now. According to
Speaker 1: Carol rose Um Folklore's who I frequently side on the
Speaker 1: show in her book Spirits, Fairies, lepre Cons and Goblins
Speaker 1: and Encyclopedia, Hebrew religious writings state that images of cherubim
Speaker 1: guarded the ark of the Covenant as well as Solomon's
Speaker 1: temple and their divine messengers attending spirits and disseminators of knowledge.
Speaker 1: Now it's possible. Rose points out the cherubim or derived
Speaker 1: from the Assyrian Lamassu or sea dow, and these were
Speaker 1: the female and male, respectively, benevolent demons in ancient Assyria
Speaker 1: and Babylon. They would have protected palaces and temples, and
Speaker 1: they were there often depicted as winged bulls or lions
Speaker 1: with human heads, and they mostly remained invisible, and we
Speaker 1: were assigned in the manner of guardian angels to protect
Speaker 1: an individual human from the evil uh two ku. There
Speaker 1: are some amazing carvings of these in the met in
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I believe from the palace
Speaker 1: of the Assyrian king Ashurbanapoul the second, or maybe not
Speaker 1: the palace, but I think commissioned by that king, and
Speaker 1: that they are fearsome and wonderful to behold, Yes they are,
Speaker 1: and to come back to Raiders of the Lost Arc.
Speaker 1: These are of course, presumably the the the entities we
Speaker 1: see flying around after the Nazis opened the Ark of
Speaker 1: the Covenant at the end of the film. The Cherubim yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they first thought of like like women, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of beautiful ghost women. And then of course the
Speaker 1: face changes and it becomes this kind of snarling, skeletal
Speaker 1: lion type face, and then of course, uh, it's death
Speaker 1: for all who view the Ark. Now for a for
Speaker 1: an artifact that has come to be imbued with so
Speaker 1: much mystery. Retrospectively, the Bible actually does just straightforwardly explain
Speaker 1: how to build the arc. It's like minute specifications on
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do to make one. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: also it almost makes you wonder, like, what's the big
Speaker 1: deal about losing it, because clearly you have you have
Speaker 1: a strict set of instructions on how to build another one. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I think they were just like magical beliefs
Speaker 1: about the sacredness of what it contains. Oh yes, certainly,
Speaker 1: but but that ultimately is the thing, right. The art
Speaker 1: is a container, a fancy container, perhaps even a holy container,
Speaker 1: and if you're approaching with that worldview, but just a
Speaker 1: container for other otherwise holy relics. That is one thing
Speaker 1: that I think makes it very fascinating and kind of unique.
Speaker 1: And there are probably some other great artifacts like this,
Speaker 1: but fascinating in that it is, uh, this artifact with
Speaker 1: all this significance, but it is essentially just a vessel
Speaker 1: for other things. It's a container, it's not a statue. Well,
Speaker 1: should we read the instructions from Exodus in case anyone
Speaker 1: wants to build along as we as we do the podcast,
Speaker 1: Let's build it all right, get your your cubit ruler ready,
Speaker 1: and they shall make an arc of ship him. Would
Speaker 1: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof,
Speaker 1: and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and
Speaker 1: a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou
Speaker 1: shalt overlay it with pure gold within and without shalt
Speaker 1: thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown
Speaker 1: of gold around about, And thou shalt cast four rings
Speaker 1: of gold for it, and put them in the four
Speaker 1: corners thereof, And two rings shall be in the one
Speaker 1: side of it, and two rings in the other side
Speaker 1: of it. And thou shalt make staves of ship him
Speaker 1: wood and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put
Speaker 1: the staves into the rings by the sides of the arc,
Speaker 1: that the arc may be born with them. The staves
Speaker 1: shall be in the rings of the arc. They shall
Speaker 1: not be taken from it. Now I want to jump
Speaker 1: in here and say they say that this is exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of description of the arc that is disappointing.
Speaker 1: When you're a child, you've seen raiders and then you
Speaker 1: want to read about in the Bible, and you just
Speaker 1: find this this kind of boring description of how to
Speaker 1: build one. Oh, there are better stories. We got them rods.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to some more later. Well, this this
Speaker 1: description is about to get a lot more interesting, and
Speaker 1: certainly we'll tie into some stuff we're gonna discuss later.
Speaker 1: And thou shalt put into the arc the testimony which
Speaker 1: I shall give thee. And thou shalt make a mercy
Speaker 1: seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall
Speaker 1: be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half
Speaker 1: the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims of
Speaker 1: gold of beaten work. Shalt thou make them in the
Speaker 1: two ends of the mercy seat, and make one cherub
Speaker 1: on the one end, and the other cherub on the
Speaker 1: other end. Even of the mercy seat, shall he make
Speaker 1: the cherubims on the two ends thereof? So otherways, make
Speaker 1: the two cherubs face each other on the ends of
Speaker 1: the mercy seat. Believe a space, because that space is important.
Speaker 1: Anyway continues, And the cheruban shall stretch forth their wings
Speaker 1: on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and
Speaker 1: their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat.
Speaker 1: Shall the faces of the cherubims be, and thou shalt
Speaker 1: put the mercy seat above upon the arc, and in
Speaker 1: the arc, thou shalt put the testimony that I shall
Speaker 1: give THEE, and there I will meet with THEE, and
Speaker 1: I will commune with THEE from above the mercy seat
Speaker 1: from between the two chaerubims, which are upon the ark
Speaker 1: of the testimony of all things which I will give
Speaker 1: THEE in commandment unto the children of Israel. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this thing is a container, as we've been saying, but
Speaker 1: it's also a chair, and it's a chair for God himself. Right.
Speaker 1: The ideas that that mercy seat is where God is
Speaker 1: going to manifest. It sounds from the instructions like there
Speaker 1: is going to be a presence of the Lord there
Speaker 1: and Uh and Moses, Um and perhaps you know some
Speaker 1: other priests. H whoever is is in charge, whoever is
Speaker 1: authorized to do so, will actually commune with God. It is,
Speaker 1: in the words of Belloc, a radio for speaking to God,
Speaker 1: a transmitter. But it's really more like a video phone
Speaker 1: than than just a transmitter. Right, Yeah, it's like FaceTime,
Speaker 1: you know. On that note, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we'll discuss the story of
Speaker 1: the Arc, because that too will be important as we
Speaker 1: get into some of these scientific ideas regarding the arc.
Speaker 1: Than all right, we're back, all right, So if the
Speaker 1: Arc was actually built, about when do we think that
Speaker 1: would have happened. It would have been about three thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. Now we've seen the instructions in the Bible
Speaker 1: where they believed God had sent his people. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the detailed plans on how to make the arc. But
Speaker 1: what do they do with it once they've got it? Well,
Speaker 1: after they've they've built it, they carried around with them
Speaker 1: and they use it as a central part of their
Speaker 1: religious observations. I mean, it's essentially a mobile alter piece, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a it's a temple that you
Speaker 1: can pick up in move. So think back again to
Speaker 1: that part about the mercy seat. This is the point
Speaker 1: from which God speaks to the children of Israel, and
Speaker 1: if Raiders is any indication, it's also from Wendcey sends
Speaker 1: out his smiting laser beams of Holy Nazi frying death.
Speaker 1: Now the wording here is interesting because it is the
Speaker 1: and I'm possibly a butchering this of course, but the
Speaker 1: hawk Copperette well, and kaufer that's k k pH a
Speaker 1: r means to cover, but kapareth means a thing of
Speaker 1: wiping out or cleansing. So they carried a bit before
Speaker 1: them when during the Exodus, and it was said to
Speaker 1: clear impediments and poisonous animals in their path, and it
Speaker 1: was even said to stop the flow of the river
Speaker 1: Jordan's so that they could cross into the Promised Land.
Speaker 1: But it was also conceived of as a kind of
Speaker 1: a magical weapon of war. Right, yeah, they marched with
Speaker 1: it at the Siege of Jericho. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: they were blowing those trumpets, but still the arc was there,
Speaker 1: and as they're blowing those trumpets, eventually the walls come
Speaker 1: tumbling down. But then in five and five BC, the
Speaker 1: Babylonian Empire conquered the Israelites, and the arc was supposedly
Speaker 1: taken from the temple in Jerusalem and from their advantishes
Speaker 1: from history. So if it did indeed exist, as as
Speaker 1: to some degree as the stories are told, this is
Speaker 1: where it stops. We don't know what happens after this, right,
Speaker 1: this is this is where it becomes the Lost Arc. Now,
Speaker 1: as with any Bible artifact of any significance. I would
Speaker 1: bet that there are some people out there who claim
Speaker 1: to have found it. Yes, and but but before we
Speaker 1: touch on those, I do want to point out just
Speaker 1: a wonderful fragment of a quote here came to It
Speaker 1: came to us from a National Geographic Society fellow, Fred Hybert.
Speaker 1: He told the website National Geographic that it's not really
Speaker 1: something that you can go after. You can't really search
Speaker 1: for the arc because the arc exists at quote the
Speaker 1: crossroads between myth and reality. And I think that's that's
Speaker 1: essential to keep in mind for the entirety of this episode.
Speaker 1: In the next well, I would say, for example, I
Speaker 1: think the arc probably has a better chance of being
Speaker 1: in some way based on a real historical artifact than
Speaker 1: something like Noah's Ark. But people constantly go looking for
Speaker 1: Noah's Ark, and every time they go looking, they find it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's well, here's some wood on a mountain
Speaker 1: and turkey here it is, right, And likewise, the arc
Speaker 1: is simply essentially just wood and gold. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: not it's even less of a feat to build. Like
Speaker 1: we have the instructions you could, if you had the materials,
Speaker 1: you could build one today. So even if we were
Speaker 1: to uncover an ARC candidate, it's not really possible to
Speaker 1: tell that if you have the arc of the Covenant.
Speaker 1: I mean, there could probably be multiple arcs out. They're
Speaker 1: saying that they're the arc, yeah, I mean there And
Speaker 1: there have been cases where they where market artists have
Speaker 1: found something that is like an arc, a box that
Speaker 1: has perhaps excited a few people here and there, but
Speaker 1: ultimately you know, it doesn't pan out. I mean, I
Speaker 1: suppose if you had a strong candidate, you could do
Speaker 1: carbon dating on the on the relic, perhaps the wood,
Speaker 1: especially if there are any humans of the wood remaining,
Speaker 1: to at least know if it's old enough. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: know if it's it's old enough. But again, it could
Speaker 1: just be another box from that time period. That being said,
Speaker 1: some of the possible final resting places for the arc
Speaker 1: include has already already alluded to St. Mary of Zion
Speaker 1: Cathedral in Oxom, Ethiopia, under the care of the Ethiopian
Speaker 1: Orthodox to a head O church, and more specifically, under
Speaker 1: the care of a single caretaker who alone gets to
Speaker 1: see the arc. Naturally, that means no one gets to
Speaker 1: verify what they actually have or don't have much less
Speaker 1: study it. Some claim that it was hidden beneath the
Speaker 1: First Temple in Jerusalem before the Babylonians destroyed it in
Speaker 1: five eighty six b C. But this can't be verified either,
Speaker 1: because that means it would be somewhere beneath the Dome
Speaker 1: of the Rock Shrine, which of course is a holy
Speaker 1: site in its Lam. Now, there's another claim mentioned in
Speaker 1: that nat Geo article that I sided earlier, that it
Speaker 1: was buried beneath the hill, and not just any hill,
Speaker 1: but the very hill that would later be known as Galgatha,
Speaker 1: the place of the Skull, right, which is the place
Speaker 1: where it is said that Jesus was crucified right And
Speaker 1: according to this story, when he's crucified, his blood like
Speaker 1: drains down into the hill and eventually to the Ark
Speaker 1: itself buried beneath him. And uh. This relates to a
Speaker 1: quote unquote find of amateur adventurer Ron Wyatt, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen who claimed to have found, among other things, Noah's Ark,
Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant, the Tower of Babel, the
Speaker 1: graves of Noah and his wife, as well as the
Speaker 1: blood of Christ itself. Needless to say, one should take
Speaker 1: his account with all the salt that Wyatt claimed to
Speaker 1: have also discovered at the ruins of Sodom. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was not a true archaeologist. Now, this guy is
Speaker 1: not unique and essentially being um, somebody who is a
Speaker 1: hologist for their religion who goes out. I mean I
Speaker 1: mainly know of this within within Christian you know, like
Speaker 1: somebody who's basically a Christian apologist, a defender of the faith,
Speaker 1: who goes out seeking artifacts. That has always struck me
Speaker 1: as a kind of odd thing to want to do.
Speaker 1: I guess I get it on the level of these
Speaker 1: are people who are trying to prove that the Bible
Speaker 1: is literally true and everything, all the stories in it
Speaker 1: literally happened on Earth a certain number of years ago.
Speaker 1: But it seems like kind of a profaning of the
Speaker 1: the orientation towards their myths if they're going out and
Speaker 1: saying like, I'm going to find the bones of this
Speaker 1: person who's the you know in the stories that I believe,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to find the wood left over from
Speaker 1: the boat. Yeah. I mean, I guess you can approach
Speaker 1: it from a few different points of view. I mean
Speaker 1: I always the way I always approach it is that
Speaker 1: that the you know, the deep mythology of a given
Speaker 1: faith need not be factual to have power and uh,
Speaker 1: and therefore there's no reason to go and try and
Speaker 1: find fragments of it or expect them to be there
Speaker 1: be there. Uh. You could, I guess, approach it as
Speaker 1: someone who needs to find those items because that again
Speaker 1: supports their religion. Perhaps the racist doubt. If only I
Speaker 1: could find a piece of the arc, then I know
Speaker 1: it was real and I can silence these doubts. The
Speaker 1: other way of looking at it, of course, is someone
Speaker 1: who has no doubts whatsoever, and they're like, hey, the
Speaker 1: arc was obviously real. Um, I gotta prove it to
Speaker 1: everybody else. Yeah, I need to prove it to everybody else,
Speaker 1: or I just I just want to find it. It's
Speaker 1: out there somewhere. Why has nobody found it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be the one to do it. And to your point,
Speaker 1: if you go into this read these regions, there is
Speaker 1: just so much history that, especially somebody who's just bumbling
Speaker 1: around and they don't really know what they're doing, they're
Speaker 1: going to find something that they can pass off, they
Speaker 1: can believe in. I don't know, they end up being
Speaker 1: kind of like the villains in all the Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: movies who want to possess some powerful, mysterious saction artifact,
Speaker 1: but they want to possess it for some earthly purpose,
Speaker 1: like you know, then I can show everybody this thing
Speaker 1: or something. It's sort of the more all of Raiders
Speaker 1: of the Lost Ark at the end that Indie Indie
Speaker 1: loses his his sort of profane curiosity and he realizes
Speaker 1: I can just let this thing be sacred and not
Speaker 1: have to look inside and not have to want to
Speaker 1: own it and control it and show the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's a solid read on Raiders
Speaker 1: of the Lost Dark. You know, well, while we're talking
Speaker 1: about Raiders, so let's let's go ahead and uh and
Speaker 1: discuss a few of the details about it, because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm assuming most people have seen Raiders, but I know
Speaker 1: there are some individuals out there who just haven't seen
Speaker 1: the film yet. Uh, And I certainly encourage everyone to
Speaker 1: see it because it is a damn near perfect motion picture.
Speaker 1: Is there a better action adventure movie? I can't think of.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could, you could say Star Wars, right,
Speaker 1: you can point to other maybe things of that nature.
Speaker 1: But but I mean, it's such a tentpole film in
Speaker 1: terms of like big summer action films. It is the
Speaker 1: film that so many other motion pictures have have tried
Speaker 1: to be. This of course with a film came out
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty one, directed by Steven Spielberg, screenplay by
Speaker 1: Lawrence Kasden's story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. U.
Speaker 1: Philip Kaufman, by the way, is the person who reportedly
Speaker 1: brought up the idea of using the arc in the story,
Speaker 1: and he was he was also the grandson of German
Speaker 1: Jewish immigrants to the US. Spielberg's parental grandparents were Jewish Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I one would assume that the that this
Speaker 1: played into the the use of the arc in the film,
Speaker 1: but also some of these themes regarding the you know,
Speaker 1: the struggle of the Jewish people against depression. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the unspoken subtexts to the film, I think
Speaker 1: is that ultimately the arkans up fulfilling its destiny as
Speaker 1: the weapon that protects the Jewish people in the end,
Speaker 1: it's it's destroying Nazis, right, and it's recreating a tale
Speaker 1: that will touch on in a bit the idea that
Speaker 1: the Arc is stolen by an enemy force and then
Speaker 1: uses its power against that enemy force. Yeah, it's sort
Speaker 1: of a retelling of the of the Amrods story. Almost. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I should also point out that John Williams did the
Speaker 1: score for the film, and I'm usually I'm I'm kind
Speaker 1: of over John Williams scores for the most part. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about, dude, how can you
Speaker 1: not love John Williams. Well, the thing is in rewatching
Speaker 1: portions of this film for this episode. I I still
Speaker 1: I have to give him all the credit in the
Speaker 1: world because that that the scene when they finally opened
Speaker 1: the Arc and the Arc unleash's it's um, it's wrath
Speaker 1: upon the Nazis. The music is perfect in that it
Speaker 1: just really adds to the sense of just holy mystery
Speaker 1: that is unfolding there. Take any movie with the John
Speaker 1: Williams score and take the score out, replace it with
Speaker 1: something else. You wouldn't have half the movie. But what
Speaker 1: if it was Tangerine Dream. I can only imagine it
Speaker 1: it might be just a little better. Maybe. Well, I
Speaker 1: love Tangerine Dream too, but you're wrong about this time. No?
Speaker 1: Well maybe so. Now key scenes in the film for
Speaker 1: our purposes, because there's a lot of stuff in there
Speaker 1: that is of course added on and uh um, you know,
Speaker 1: historically inaccurate, certainly, h But there are a few key
Speaker 1: scenes that that that match up with a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff we're talking about here today. There's a scene in
Speaker 1: which the Arc burns the swastick off of the crate
Speaker 1: containing the arc. And then of course there's that fabulous
Speaker 1: scene at the end where the Nazis open the arc
Speaker 1: uh and those Cherubim emerge, and then you also have
Speaker 1: the burning light of God finally emerging as well and
Speaker 1: just eradicating everybody that has their eyes open. And the
Speaker 1: idea of a fire that burns people emerging from the
Speaker 1: arc is absolutely biblical. And will explore more of those
Speaker 1: stories later on. Now, a side question that I saw
Speaker 1: come up on the internet. Does Indie actually impact the
Speaker 1: situation with the Arc and the Nazis at all? Because
Speaker 1: outside of saving Marian's life Marian the romantic interest, does
Speaker 1: he accomplish anything? No, And I think that's the genius
Speaker 1: of it. The movie ends with with Indie. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's an action movie that doesn't end with a fist fight.
Speaker 1: There's no fight of any kind at the end. The
Speaker 1: the hero of the movie at the end is completely powerless,
Speaker 1: and his victory at the end is assuming a posture
Speaker 1: of humility in the presence of the Sacred Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: because to remind everybody, at the end, he and Marian
Speaker 1: are tied up. The Nazis have the Arc and UH
Speaker 1: and Belloc is opening it in the full regalia and
Speaker 1: in fact wearing some version of the vestiments that are
Speaker 1: described UH, alongside the instructions for the for the construction
Speaker 1: of the Arc, and then the Arc just murders all
Speaker 1: of the bad guys and UH and Harrison Ford is
Speaker 1: left to pick up the pieces. Okay, we can't just
Speaker 1: fully turn this into a movie crush episode. Now we've
Speaker 1: got to get back to so we should probably get
Speaker 1: into exploring some of the weird scientific tangents people have
Speaker 1: gotten into on the subject of the Arc, and one
Speaker 1: of them that you can clearly look at is the
Speaker 1: idea of the m Rods and what happened with the
Speaker 1: Arc in the presence of the Philistines. If you assume
Speaker 1: this story is based on any kind of historical memory
Speaker 1: or even an exaggerated version of something that people remembered, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because this is getting to one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: about the Arc, the idea that it brings plague and
Speaker 1: or madness to those who should not possess it, that
Speaker 1: it is a dangerous artifact. So should we explore the
Speaker 1: idea of the arc as a sort of bio weapon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Arc as plague bearer. I just
Speaker 1: want to remind everybody that previous passage that we read,
Speaker 1: and it was so that after they had carried it about,
Speaker 1: the hand of the Lord was against the city with
Speaker 1: a very great destruction, and he smoked the men of
Speaker 1: the city, both small and great, and they had immrods
Speaker 1: in their secret parts. Now, let's talk about those emrods.
Speaker 1: So those immrods are often interpreted as hemorrhoids. That would
Speaker 1: there seems to be a cognate issue there, and a
Speaker 1: lot seems to have been written about them over the years,
Speaker 1: in part because it seems like anytime you have a
Speaker 1: hemorrhoid paper, and there are a lot herroid papers out there,
Speaker 1: the doctor's writing them often like to throw in a
Speaker 1: little bit of biblical flavor at the beginning. Yes, how
Speaker 1: many times has this story been cited in the International
Speaker 1: Journal of Hemorrhoid Research. Right, yeah, right at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of any paper, because you're ultimately just going to
Speaker 1: talk about swollen veins and the lower part of the
Speaker 1: rectum and anus. But then you can make it a
Speaker 1: little magical right at the start. You can hook readers. Right,
Speaker 1: So for people who don't actually know, can you just
Speaker 1: briefly explain what a hemorrhoid is? Yeah, it is swollen
Speaker 1: veins and the lower part of the rectum and anus. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all it is. Yeah, that basically. I mean you
Speaker 1: can get more detailed in describing what causes them and
Speaker 1: of course the treatments that that are necessary. But it's
Speaker 1: been a problem for a long time. Obviously, it's something
Speaker 1: that may have been described here in the Bible, uh,
Speaker 1: and just throughout human history people have had to deal
Speaker 1: with hemorrhroids. Now, if the story actually does mean that
Speaker 1: the Philistines got hemorrhoids, I know it's been translated in
Speaker 1: other ways, But if it did mean that, would the
Speaker 1: story be best interpreted as something that's supposed to be humorous?
Speaker 1: Is it like a joke on the Philistines? You know
Speaker 1: this comes down? Oh man, you you kind of end
Speaker 1: up asking a big question about humor there, right, because
Speaker 1: I don't think hemorroids are ever humorous to the individual
Speaker 1: that has them, right, But clearly we have a lot
Speaker 1: of jokes about hemorrhoids. It's really funny when your enemies
Speaker 1: get one, I guess, I mean it's it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of an insulting curse from a powerful god figure. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not just like causing them to go blind or something.
Speaker 1: It's giving them this this annoying health problem. And then
Speaker 1: there's this other part to it as well. So the
Speaker 1: Philistines suffer these after they steal it and they locked
Speaker 1: it up in the temple of Dagon, and we see
Speaker 1: the statue of Dagon fall over multiple times. Um and
Speaker 1: the arc of course not only mutilated there with their
Speaker 1: god's statue, it also caused these these imrods as well
Speaker 1: as a plague of rampaiy mice. The emerrods again are
Speaker 1: also sometimes referred to as tumors. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people have have looked at these examples and tried to
Speaker 1: figure out what could possibly be going on here, because
Speaker 1: if these these imrods be the hemorrhoids or some sort
Speaker 1: of a tumor. Well, that's that's a symptom. That's something
Speaker 1: we can look look to that we can analyze via
Speaker 1: modern medicine, and then maybe we can look at some
Speaker 1: of these other elements and try and piece something together
Speaker 1: as well. Now, just to be clear, once again, we
Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier, but we don't We don't have direct
Speaker 1: evidence that this story actually happened. We right, We don't
Speaker 1: know that this is based on something that people remember,
Speaker 1: but it could be it could be based on some
Speaker 1: kind of historical event. Right. And likewise, a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of work has been done looking at Okay,
Speaker 1: we had we had immerrods and we have mice. What's
Speaker 1: the connection there, when in reality you could have two
Speaker 1: separate stories then end up being combined into a story
Speaker 1: that has immerrods and mice. So, as I said, a
Speaker 1: number of people have written about this. Two of the
Speaker 1: earlier ones were ninety century historians Gaston Maspero and Archibald
Speaker 1: Henry Says, who summarized the quote. The Philistine soothsayer, being
Speaker 1: consulted at the end of seven months, ordered that the
Speaker 1: solemn sacrifices should be offered up and the arc restored
Speaker 1: to its rightful worshippers, accompanied by expiatory offerings of five
Speaker 1: gold mice and five gold tumors, one for each of
Speaker 1: the repentant cities. So they're not only saying, here, take
Speaker 1: your arc back because it is causing mice to be
Speaker 1: everywhere and has given us some weird growths. They're saying,
Speaker 1: here it is back, but also here's here's some golden
Speaker 1: mice and some golden hemorrhoids or or tumors or something
Speaker 1: uh too, sort of as payment or perhaps warning who
Speaker 1: whoever gets the arc next. Now, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get too far ahead of things here, but I can't
Speaker 1: help but notice, if you've got mice and you've got
Speaker 1: tumors or lumps of some kind, I'm going to start
Speaker 1: thinking about bubonic plague. That's right, because bubonic plague does
Speaker 1: result in bu bos, which are swellings of the lemp notes.
Speaker 1: So that could sort of be classed as something like
Speaker 1: a tumor. You get a lump under your skin, right,
Speaker 1: And if you if you want to do a Google search,
Speaker 1: you can find images of these uh, these swellings, and
Speaker 1: indeed they look kind of like like lumpy tumor like growths.
Speaker 1: Frank R. Freeman, in a two thousand five Royal Society
Speaker 1: of Medicine article highlighted some some other writings on the topic,
Speaker 1: including a two thousand argument by JP Griffin that it
Speaker 1: was in fact plague that was afflicting the Philistines here.
Speaker 1: But then one W. M. S. Russell insisted that the
Speaker 1: tumors were emorrhoids due to dysenterry and that quote the
Speaker 1: rat carrier of the plague wasn't in the region at
Speaker 1: the time of the described events, but that quotes Since then,
Speaker 1: advances in archaeology have shifted the weight of evidence towards Griffin. Moreover,
Speaker 1: the emmrods of the King James Bible appear in all
Speaker 1: modern translations as tumors, So if you're just trying, really
Speaker 1: trying to make it work as hemorrhoids, you're probably out
Speaker 1: of luck. Right. It seems like like tumors are more
Speaker 1: likely interpretation, and that leads a number of people to say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it was it was bubonic plague. Here's another quote
Speaker 1: from Freeman. Recent archaeological evidence has caused a rethinking of
Speaker 1: plague in the ancient Near East. Fossilized remains of the
Speaker 1: plague flea have been found in large numbers in Amarna, Egypt,
Speaker 1: and since a Marna was occupied for only a few years,
Speaker 1: we can date this contact between human beings and plague
Speaker 1: fleas accurately to about fifty b C, which is before
Speaker 1: the events described in the Book of Samuel. Moreover, archaeological
Speaker 1: studies in the Nile Valley indicate that our rattus was
Speaker 1: introduced at this time, probably via ships from India. Evidence
Speaker 1: of bubonic plague has not been seen in Egyptian mummies,
Speaker 1: but all the vectors were in place. Okay, so this
Speaker 1: is saying based on some evidence we have there. The
Speaker 1: historical setting is is there like you could imagine that
Speaker 1: there could be bubonic plague at the right time in
Speaker 1: the right place for this to be what is what
Speaker 1: is described in the story about the arc in the Philistines.
Speaker 1: That being said, I don't think anybody is arguing that
Speaker 1: the arc was full of plague infested mice. This would
Speaker 1: just be a situation where the soothsayers made sort of
Speaker 1: a connection between plague mice and the illness, but instead
Speaker 1: of connecting those two things together, they just assumed they
Speaker 1: were both curses of the Ark. Now, in the minute,
Speaker 1: I do want to come back and discuss the possibility
Speaker 1: of bio warfare and germ warfare in the ancient world. Yes,
Speaker 1: and now before we get to that, I do I
Speaker 1: do want to also mentioned that one doctor Otto news
Speaker 1: stator In considered that the swellings described here might be possible.
Speaker 1: It might possibly be due to syphiletic infection, which is
Speaker 1: that the Philistines would have contracted syphilis from the Ark
Speaker 1: of the Covenant or lahore again, that an outbreak of
Speaker 1: syphilis lined up with the presence of the arc or
Speaker 1: was attributed to the presence of the arc in some action.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that syphilis doesn't explain? But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: if we go back to to our earlier discussions of
Speaker 1: syphilis on this uh this podcast, it it seems like
Speaker 1: you can pretty much describe just about everything. The only
Speaker 1: thing is you probably get into an argument about when
Speaker 1: syphilis would have impacted a given region. No, by that,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean that syphilis is a good explanation for everything.
Speaker 1: I just people have tried it on everything. It's like
Speaker 1: every powerful force in human history. For sure. Every historical
Speaker 1: event has a syphilis hypothesis, as will come up repeatedly
Speaker 1: in this episode. It's not necessary to invoke bronze punk
Speaker 1: biowarfare explanations to justify legends of the ark. But it
Speaker 1: is certainly, I think plausible that forms of biological warfare
Speaker 1: were practiced in the ancient world. That who knows that
Speaker 1: the ancient Uh, the ancient Hebrews, or any of the
Speaker 1: other peoples of the time period could have figured out
Speaker 1: how to do germ warfare and could have used it.
Speaker 1: And in fact, we have some pretty interesting evidence that
Speaker 1: it did actually happen, at least in one case UH
Speaker 1: in the second millennium BC. That's right, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the Hittites of Asia Minor going back to whatc around then,
Speaker 1: so I think in the fourteenth century BC. So there
Speaker 1: was an epidemic at the time in the fourteenth century BC,
Speaker 1: known to historians as the Hittite plague, that spread throughout
Speaker 1: the Middle East, And historical records of this pestilence appear
Speaker 1: in correspondence Stella to the Egyptian pharaoh aknat In from
Speaker 1: around thirteen thirty five BC, and they say that there's
Speaker 1: a horrible plague that's spread throughout the land. It's affecting
Speaker 1: some Phoenician cities, and there was a fear that it
Speaker 1: was being spread by donkeys, which led to them barring
Speaker 1: people from infected cities from coming into other cities and
Speaker 1: from preventing donkeys from being used in traveling caravans. And
Speaker 1: so there is a paper I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: published in Medical Hypotheses in two thousand seven by a
Speaker 1: microbiologist named Zero e gin No trevis Sinato called the
Speaker 1: Hittite plague an epidemic of tularemia and the first record
Speaker 1: of biological warfare. And this is a really interesting hypothesis.
Speaker 1: So Trevisano believes that the evidence indicates that the Hittite
Speaker 1: plague was in fact an epidemic of tularemia, which is
Speaker 1: a bacterial infection caused by the Bacterium francis sella to lawrensis.
Speaker 1: Tularemia can spread between animals and humans, so it's potentially
Speaker 1: zoonotic infection UH and it can spread via several routes,
Speaker 1: including tick bites and by just direct contact or inhalation
Speaker 1: of infected aerosols. It has different symptoms depending on the
Speaker 1: route of transmission, including high fever and ulcers and swelling
Speaker 1: of the lymph glands and the pneumonic version of this
Speaker 1: infection leads to a cough, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and
Speaker 1: can definitely be deadly to Tularemias is actually often known
Speaker 1: to kill off large numbers of rabbits, which has led
Speaker 1: to it being commonly known as rabbit fever, and especially
Speaker 1: without modern medical intervention, primarily antibiotics, it can be fatal
Speaker 1: to humans, so it is a deadly dangerous disease. Trevis
Speaker 1: Sinato says that after the outbreak of this plague hit
Speaker 1: the Phoenician city of Simura, the Hittites also known as
Speaker 1: the nest Shites, attacked the area and looted it. So
Speaker 1: you've got the city weakened by disease. The Hittites say, hey,
Speaker 1: some free stuff, so they run in. They attacked the
Speaker 1: city and they looted, taking along live stock among the
Speaker 1: many spoils of war. But soon after they returned, the
Speaker 1: Hittite raiders were hit with an outbreak of disease that
Speaker 1: Trevis Sano. Trevis Sinato also thinks was to laremia, and
Speaker 1: this would make sense because they brought the livestock. The
Speaker 1: animal hosts were arcs if you will, for the bacteria.
Speaker 1: Then while the Hittites were weakened with this epidemic. Another
Speaker 1: people known as the r za Ones attacked them. Then.
Speaker 1: Trevis Sinato writes that their historical records that indicate strange
Speaker 1: incidents and when like wandering rams appeared in our Zawa,
Speaker 1: and the Arzawans, of course wouldn't pass up free live stock,
Speaker 1: so they incorporated these rams into their flocks. But then
Speaker 1: they were hit with the disease, probably to laremia and
Speaker 1: Trevis Sinato also mentioned the story that there was this
Speaker 1: Arzawan leader called Hsidas who was struck by a divine
Speaker 1: thunderbolt in the knee, disabling him. Quote. A ruler infected
Speaker 1: with the plague and symptoms thereof being observed in the
Speaker 1: knees or in a region euphemistically and or puritanically described
Speaker 1: as the knees fit the metaphor. Oh. This is the
Speaker 1: idea where like if an individual is wounded in the
Speaker 1: in the groin, they describe it as the knee instead
Speaker 1: or like the foot to like often in the Bible,
Speaker 1: the use of the word foot is clearly a euphemism
Speaker 1: for the genitals. So here's Trevis Sinato's hypothesis. It's the
Speaker 1: the hit tights who experience with this epidemic. Deliberately planted
Speaker 1: disease carrying rams among their enemies in order to deliberately
Speaker 1: spread the rabbit fever the tularemia and weaken those enemies.
Speaker 1: And if that's true, it seems like it worked. The
Speaker 1: Lands were unable to defeat the Hittites after the fever
Speaker 1: hit them, and we've got historical records that the Hittite
Speaker 1: king wished plague upon the lands and that there was
Speaker 1: this Hittite scapegoat ritual in which a ram and a
Speaker 1: female attendant were sent out on the road, spreading disease
Speaker 1: where they went. So we don't have direct evidence that
Speaker 1: the Hittites knew exactly what they were doing, you know,
Speaker 1: that they knew they were spreading disease, or that they
Speaker 1: understood how the spread of disease was happening. So while
Speaker 1: the evidence for this is very interesting, I would not
Speaker 1: say it's a proven case of germ warfare, and that
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like this has become accepted theory about
Speaker 1: what happened in this case, but it does seem like
Speaker 1: a very promising hypothesis. But despite not having a germ
Speaker 1: theory of disease, I think it's certainly feasible that ancient
Speaker 1: people's could work out basic principles of epidemic transmission, such
Speaker 1: as that infected or maybe cursed animals would spread the
Speaker 1: disease to people that came in contact with, and using
Speaker 1: this basic knowledge, it's possible that ancient people's could have
Speaker 1: deliberately spread diseases among their enemies. And it's clear that
Speaker 1: later armies with not much more scientific understanding than the
Speaker 1: ancient people's had did this. Yeah, indeed, I mean two
Speaker 1: of them. The most probably famous examples of this would
Speaker 1: be throwing dead things, be they animals or soldiers uh
Speaker 1: over the walls into a besieged city, or throwing that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff down a well to try and destroy
Speaker 1: poison uh an enemy's drinking water. Yeah. So I just
Speaker 1: wanted to mention a few examples that are cited in
Speaker 1: a paper called the History of Biological Warfare by Friedrich Frishnecht,
Speaker 1: and this these would all be before the germ theory
Speaker 1: of disease, but he mentions that in eleven fifty five,
Speaker 1: Emperor Barbarossa poison water wells with human bodies in Italy.
Speaker 1: In thirteen forty six, the Mongols catapulted bodies of plague
Speaker 1: victims over the city walls of Kafa and the crime
Speaker 1: Crimean peninsula, And in fourteen the Spanish mixed wine with
Speaker 1: blood of leprosy patients to sell to their French enemies
Speaker 1: in Naples a cocktail. So while I would absolutely say
Speaker 1: that we do not need to resort to explanations like
Speaker 1: this to explain the origins of these stories, at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think it's fascinating and highly plausible that
Speaker 1: there could have been cases where ancient people's used biological
Speaker 1: or germ based weapons to hurt their enemies. Like you
Speaker 1: can imagine a vessel or a container as some kind
Speaker 1: of biological trojan horse, tricking enemies into taking home some
Speaker 1: disease vector with them. What if you you get people
Speaker 1: to steal your arc and it's actually a box full
Speaker 1: of rabbit corpses covered into laremia tis. Yeah, I to
Speaker 1: I would have assumed they look inside it before they
Speaker 1: take it home. I mean that just seems like like
Speaker 1: this is common sense. Well, maybe you make a crafty
Speaker 1: one with like some hidden you know, containers on the
Speaker 1: compartment stuff on the hidden compartments, with grates for the
Speaker 1: ticks to get out. You can. You can get really
Speaker 1: creative with this. So there no instructions about that, though
Speaker 1: in the biblical account, it's true there are not. Again,
Speaker 1: but I'm not saying that this actually happened and explains
Speaker 1: the story. I don't think you need to go there.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take one more break, and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll talk a little bit about radiation
Speaker 1: and uh, the idea of the arc being indeed a
Speaker 1: radio for talking to God. All right, we're back. So
Speaker 1: I I mentioned earlier, you know, the influence of fiction
Speaker 1: on our considerations of the arc, and I definitely remember
Speaker 1: being I guess this was like junior high reading Stephen
Speaker 1: King's The Stand and then also looking around in the
Speaker 1: Bible and thinking about the arc of the Covenant because
Speaker 1: of was this this wonderful sequence throughout the later portions
Speaker 1: of Stephen King's The Stand And which what was his name?
Speaker 1: Do you remember this character? Which character? The character is
Speaker 1: dragging the the atomic bomb across the trash trash can man? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Donald Merwin, Albert that's good. Do you remember his whole name? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I just remember him just being like the melty bomb guy,
Speaker 1: because he's just he's just ravaged by radiation, sickness, and mutation.
Speaker 1: He's just his skins basically dripping off his body as
Speaker 1: he drags this, uh, this bomb into the final scene
Speaker 1: of the entire book. Well, based on a kind of
Speaker 1: atomic age monster movie understanding of how radioactivity works, you
Speaker 1: could certainly imagine somebody looking at the story of oh
Speaker 1: the you know, they took this, this thing killed people
Speaker 1: and sometimes at one point people took it and they
Speaker 1: got tumors. This must be radioactive. Maybe it's a plutonium bomb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like something right out of a Fallout game
Speaker 1: or a plan of the Apes movie. Right, yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: But of course we we can't really seriously consider any
Speaker 1: explanation that involves an ancient atomic weapon. No, there's just
Speaker 1: no explanation for why that would have occurred, right. I
Speaker 1: think the use of germ warfare among the ancients, even
Speaker 1: though they might not have had a germ theory of disease,
Speaker 1: I do think it's plausible given what they could have
Speaker 1: figured out just based on experience. It is not plausible
Speaker 1: at all that they I mean not even close, that
Speaker 1: they came up with any kind of highly radioactive materials, right, Because,
Speaker 1: of course, the other side of the equation is, hey,
Speaker 1: we have naturally occurring radioactive materials. Perhaps they just dug
Speaker 1: that stuff up and stuff the arc full of it,
Speaker 1: because I mean, certainly there are you have sites like
Speaker 1: Ramsar Iran that did have a lot of naturally occurring
Speaker 1: radioactive materials there, but they still don't produce anything near
Speaker 1: the high level doses required to cause radiation sickness. Digging
Speaker 1: uranium out of the ground even it's not going to
Speaker 1: be anything like that. The highly radioactive elements we would
Speaker 1: find in like nuclear reactor fuel or nuclear weapons exist
Speaker 1: only in extremely tiny trace amounts naturally, and to produce
Speaker 1: significant amounts of something like uranium two thirty five or
Speaker 1: plutonium two thirty nine, you have to subject naturally occurring
Speaker 1: rocks containing mostly more stable elements like uranium two thirty
Speaker 1: eight to some kind of process. Right, You've got to
Speaker 1: like bombard it with neutrons and a reactor, or you've
Speaker 1: got a centrifuge it to separate out the more dangerous
Speaker 1: you two thirty five. The greatest natural terrestrial source of
Speaker 1: human exposure to ionizing radiation seems to be radon gas.
Speaker 1: Radon is one of the radioactive decay products of uranium,
Speaker 1: along with other elements like radium and thorium. And I
Speaker 1: just haven't found any evidence of a natural terrestrial radiation
Speaker 1: source strong enough to cause acute or noticeable radiation poisoning
Speaker 1: within a short span of time. Exposure to natural terrestrial
Speaker 1: radiation source can be dangerous, for example rd on gas,
Speaker 1: but this is more because it tends to increase something
Speaker 1: like your risk of cancer over long periods of time.
Speaker 1: For example, rate on gas is believed to be the
Speaker 1: number one cause of lung cancer among non smokers and
Speaker 1: the number two cause of lung cancer overall. So even
Speaker 1: the most potent natural radiation sources, they're not gonna do
Speaker 1: anything to you that you could detect, I think without
Speaker 1: modern science. So I find it extremely unlikely that anybody
Speaker 1: in the ancient world could have an acutely lethal radiation
Speaker 1: source in a box. I think we've got to rule
Speaker 1: that one out. Take that junior High Robert Lamp I'm sorry, no, no, now,
Speaker 1: you made me feel like it's jerk. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is not at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was something I was curious about when I was
Speaker 1: in junior high. And then later on you get to
Speaker 1: look into it and realize that, well, that didn't really
Speaker 1: pan out. Now, I do want to mention something that
Speaker 1: I think we should come back and explore in a
Speaker 1: future episode, which is the idea of natural nuclear reactors.
Speaker 1: I don't believe any exists today, but there is evidence
Speaker 1: that billions of years ago, long ago in Earth's history,
Speaker 1: when the when the elements in the Earth's crust were younger,
Speaker 1: there were some natural fission reactions that were sustained within rocks,
Speaker 1: in in rock formations within the Earth's crust, like a
Speaker 1: I know it, at least one side in Western Africa,
Speaker 1: there are these two billion year old natural fission reactors
Speaker 1: that we found. All this evidence of that there was
Speaker 1: essentially a nuclear fission reactor happening naturally under Earth's crust,
Speaker 1: and that's led to even these really strange hypotheses like
Speaker 1: alternative hypotheses for the origin of the Moon, which say
Speaker 1: that it was the result of a natural fission reaction
Speaker 1: explosion in Earth's crust billions of years ago, which that
Speaker 1: I know that is not a favorite hypothesis, but it
Speaker 1: has been put forward. I believe this was also the
Speaker 1: underlying science in the the more recent American Godzilla film.
Speaker 1: Oh wait what, Yeah, I believe so, Like the idea
Speaker 1: was that Godzilla is this ancient organism from back when
Speaker 1: you had naturally occurring high levels of radiation on Earth,
Speaker 1: and they ate radiation and that's their the whole reason
Speaker 1: for being gigantic radiations viewing monsters. What's the I don't
Speaker 1: think they get into. The one I've seen recently is
Speaker 1: shin Godzilla, which is absolutely amazing, But they don't really
Speaker 1: explore the origin, do they know? I don't think they do.
Speaker 1: They're more they're hyper concerned with the present. How do
Speaker 1: we react to this? What do we have legal authority
Speaker 1: to do? Where to hold the meeting? Yeah, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. So those are both really fun movies in
Speaker 1: their their their own right. So at this point, let's
Speaker 1: let's come back to again that that fabulous quote from
Speaker 1: Belloc and it's a transmit to a radio for speaking
Speaker 1: to God. As a little more than Peter Laurie. But
Speaker 1: you know, any of the idea the more earthly indies
Speaker 1: says you want to talk to God, will go see
Speaker 1: them together? Right now? Yeah, you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: fun moment in the film, but the the idea is
Speaker 1: central to the whole purpose of the art, because we've
Speaker 1: discussed already it's described as not only a place to
Speaker 1: how sacred relics, but as a focus of ritual, an
Speaker 1: altar of sorts, a mobile altar God manifests upon the
Speaker 1: mercy seat and speaks to the priests, instructing the priests
Speaker 1: of God's will. Okay, so if this is how they
Speaker 1: believed the art to function in their worship, what are
Speaker 1: the ways you could interpret this? Well? I think the
Speaker 1: most likely explanation of all would be that it just
Speaker 1: would simply serve as a focal point of devotion, in
Speaker 1: the same way that any altar or any statue or
Speaker 1: religious work of art does so, without the need for
Speaker 1: supernatural occurrences or ancient you know, technological devices or weird
Speaker 1: traps or what have you know, bells and whistles required.
Speaker 1: You know, I also can't help but compare it to
Speaker 1: the notion of a focal point or a drift in yoga.
Speaker 1: And this is where you're you're not even looking necessarily
Speaker 1: at anything in particular. Maybe you're looking at a you know,
Speaker 1: a line on the wall or just a point in space,
Speaker 1: and you're focusing your attention on that and in doing
Speaker 1: so hopefully entering some sort of meditative state. Right. The
Speaker 1: goal is to to center consciousness, to crowd out other
Speaker 1: thoughts entering right. And I imagine a lot of our
Speaker 1: listeners out there you've had that experience either by focusing
Speaker 1: on nothing, focusing on and say a clock on a
Speaker 1: wall or a wall socket, or perhaps some bit of
Speaker 1: religious art, uh, you know, an altarpiece across what have
Speaker 1: you in a various Hindu iconography as well, like these conserves,
Speaker 1: just a way to to focus our mind and also
Speaker 1: think about perhaps what is illustrated in the work itself.
Speaker 1: And this is you know, all ultimately very much a
Speaker 1: form of induction or a formally ritualized procedure whose function
Speaker 1: is the narrowing of consciousness by focusing attention. I also
Speaker 1: can't help but think that with a golden item like
Speaker 1: the like the arc. You so you have the arc,
Speaker 1: it's covered in gold. You have it in a like
Speaker 1: a dark pavilion, and what kind of illumination do you
Speaker 1: have around you? Well, you might have burning sacrifices, so
Speaker 1: they're indoors. You generally probably have firelight, but you could
Speaker 1: also have a sacrifice burning at the altar that would
Speaker 1: be a sort of like a fire there. And I
Speaker 1: have to think also that there there would generally be
Speaker 1: smoke in this environment. You burning something in sensors, so
Speaker 1: you have you have, you probably have smoke, you have
Speaker 1: some some firelight of some sort. You have this gleaming
Speaker 1: golden artifact, not even getting into the cherubim that are
Speaker 1: on it, but it seems like that the light would
Speaker 1: play off of it in curious ways. The smoke would
Speaker 1: add to the mystique. It sounds like an environment that
Speaker 1: is generous to the creation of altered states of consciousness
Speaker 1: exactly again with no drug or or magical interpretations required. Yeah, exactly. Now.
Speaker 1: I know some of you out there that have listened
Speaker 1: to the show for a while are probably thinking at
Speaker 1: this point, well, what about the bicameral mind, right, because clearly,
Speaker 1: this whole time, Yeah, this whole time, we've been talking
Speaker 1: about a way of speaking to God, a way of
Speaker 1: hearing God's voice, right, so it it seems like it
Speaker 1: would naturally be a part of all that. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, it's just refresh about the bicameral mind and
Speaker 1: the idea of bi cameral hallucinations. Uh, even the origin
Speaker 1: of consciousness. In the Breakdown of the bi Cameral Mind,
Speaker 1: Julian James, the late Julian James argued that ancient humans
Speaker 1: heard hallucinated voices and that human consciousness as we know
Speaker 1: it today began roughly three thousand years ago as a
Speaker 1: cultural invention, which of course would kind of line up
Speaker 1: with the time frame that we're talking about here with
Speaker 1: the arc. It's an unproven hypothesis, and um, we've discussed
Speaker 1: some objections to it in the in past episodes, but
Speaker 1: it remains possible that at least some aspect of it
Speaker 1: is correct. In a way. It's a very safe kind
Speaker 1: of idea for j Aims to have proposed, because there
Speaker 1: was and remains no real way of proving or disproving it. Right.
Speaker 1: You can't prove it because it's in history. But I
Speaker 1: do think it's subject to undermining by evidence. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think would help undermine
Speaker 1: it is if you can just find more and more
Speaker 1: ancient examples of people demonstrating inner consciousness in ancient literature.
Speaker 1: I mean, like he he pointed to some examples of
Speaker 1: ancient literature and said, oh, they're remarkably devoid of the
Speaker 1: idea of an inner, inner voice or inner thoughts. So
Speaker 1: I think one pretty easy way of saying now he
Speaker 1: was probably wrong is just to look at ancient texts
Speaker 1: that do show signs of of consciousness and and inner
Speaker 1: inner monologue. And then also he was very open about
Speaker 1: the fact that he basically just looked at Western and
Speaker 1: classical examples, classical literature, classical architecture for evidence of the
Speaker 1: bicameral mind. He didn't really look at Eastern examples because
Speaker 1: he did not speak the language. Now you mentioned, and
Speaker 1: we've said this before, the it's it's one of these
Speaker 1: ideas that is probably wrong, but really interesting and could
Speaker 1: be correct in some ways, like some sub parts of
Speaker 1: the the hypothesis could have something to them. I think
Speaker 1: that I've been convinced that James is probably wrong about
Speaker 1: his model of consciousness, where consciousness came from and all
Speaker 1: that very likely wrong there, but could very well be
Speaker 1: right about the idea that ancient religions involved much more
Speaker 1: visions and hallucinations than modern religions do. I think that
Speaker 1: that's entirely plausible. And there's a lot of about reading,
Speaker 1: at least about ancient religious practices that seems to indicate
Speaker 1: that that maybe is true. Yeah, because there is there's
Speaker 1: a lot of listening to the voices of the gods,
Speaker 1: seeking the voices of the gods, and we still see
Speaker 1: it reflected in our in in hymns and prayers that
Speaker 1: are said every day asking to hear some voice. Even
Speaker 1: though we do not hear the voice, the voice does
Speaker 1: not actually speak to us in our minds. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think even if the main part of
Speaker 1: his hypothesis, the idea of, you know, the development of
Speaker 1: consciousness in these different stages, if that's completely wrong, he
Speaker 1: could have been on on the right track looking at
Speaker 1: all these ancient examples of the almost ubiquitous religious visions
Speaker 1: and hallucinations in ancient worship right now. M James's ultimate
Speaker 1: argument was that modern consciousness was a learned development tied
Speaker 1: to metaphorical language and that and that this change wouldn't
Speaker 1: have occurred all at once. Then it would have been
Speaker 1: something that spread, and it wouldn't have affected like everybody
Speaker 1: within like a given talent at once. It wouldn't be
Speaker 1: like everybody, ope, you got the the new consciousness shot,
Speaker 1: all right, we're all good to go. You would have
Speaker 1: had a lot of confusion, a lot of a bit
Speaker 1: of chaos. The voices of the gods, they grow fainter,
Speaker 1: but then they can be reached again via various practices
Speaker 1: like essentially was becoming harder to hallucinate right now. James
Speaker 1: did mention the arts specifically in his original book. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: poetry then was divine knowledge, and after the breakdown of
Speaker 1: the bicameral mind, poetry was the sound and tenor of authorization.
Speaker 1: Poetry commanded where prose could only ask it felt good.
Speaker 1: In the wanderings of the Hebrews after the exodus from Egypt,
Speaker 1: it was the sacred shrine that was carried before the
Speaker 1: multitude and followed by the people. But it was also
Speaker 1: the poetry of Moses that determined when they would start
Speaker 1: and when stop, where they would go and where stay.
Speaker 1: And this is of course referring to the fact that
Speaker 1: the Moses would speak to through the arc. It authorized
Speaker 1: his decision making. So James didn't really get into the
Speaker 1: arc all that much in the book or in other
Speaker 1: papers of his that I've seen. It's possible in missing
Speaker 1: something because I haven't read everything that James wrote, but
Speaker 1: I did run across some, uh, some writings by Brian
Speaker 1: J McVeigh, a scholar of Asia specializing in Japan, and
Speaker 1: he also studied under Julian James as a graduate student,
Speaker 1: and he discussed this a bit in his paper Biblical
Speaker 1: Evidence of Bicamural Mentality Vestiges of super Religiosity in the
Speaker 1: Old Testament. He discussed how the art could have functioned
Speaker 1: as an object of hallucinatory focus or o h F,
Speaker 1: and a portable one at that for the ancient Hebrews
Speaker 1: as they wandered the desert and wandered out of the
Speaker 1: bicameral mindset. So this is his quote from the paper's
Speaker 1: describing what an o h F is quote hallucinatory aids,
Speaker 1: broadcast instructions, commandments, warnings, speaking idols, living statues, effigies treated
Speaker 1: as if alive, fed, paraded, taken on journeys and into battles.
Speaker 1: These emitted holy power and authorized decision making. In some cases,
Speaker 1: portable oh F were used, the example being the Israelites
Speaker 1: Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: as I said a minute ago, you you don't really
Speaker 1: have to accept the bi cameral framework for for consciousness
Speaker 1: and the the origin of these hallucinations in order to think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that they're they're just physical objects that aid the
Speaker 1: mind in having religious visions or religious experiences much in
Speaker 1: the in the like in the example of induction, like
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier with the object of focus
Speaker 1: in say Hindu or Buddhist meditation. Yeah, exactly. The bicameral explanation.
Speaker 1: As fascinating as it is, it's not completely necessary for
Speaker 1: understanding why individuals would carry around a sacred item, carry
Speaker 1: it into battle and uh, and also use it in
Speaker 1: their rituals. Isn't it so interesting the way religions around
Speaker 1: the world, so many of them have what you might
Speaker 1: call scene setting, all these all this paraphernalia, the like
Speaker 1: different clothing, different sights and smells, physical objects to hold
Speaker 1: or be in the presence of, to look at, smoke, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, washing of the body, like all these
Speaker 1: different things that are in order to get you into
Speaker 1: a different mind state than you are. The rest of
Speaker 1: your life. You're out walking around getting your groceries, going
Speaker 1: to work, doing your stuff. But when you enter a
Speaker 1: religious space, you have to go through a process and
Speaker 1: surround yourself with things that put you in a different
Speaker 1: state of mind. And this seems to be core to
Speaker 1: to not every version of religion around the world, but
Speaker 1: a whole lot of them. Oh yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 1: it's not a particular icon a representation, because certainly there
Speaker 1: are religions that that frown upon that and depicting individuals
Speaker 1: or deities, etcetera, there's still is often like a focus
Speaker 1: on architecture or space. Oh yeah, exactly, like in ISLAMI
Speaker 1: you're generally you're not gonna have representative art, but you
Speaker 1: do have a lot of attention to the creation of
Speaker 1: a sacred feeling environment. Uh. You know, the interior architecture
Speaker 1: of many mosques around the world is is beautiful and
Speaker 1: it puts you in a different mind state. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: hope fully we've put everybody in a different mind state
Speaker 1: today as we discussed the Ark of the Covenant, and hey,
Speaker 1: here's the fun part. We're not done. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: another episode on the Ark of the Covenant, looking at
Speaker 1: a particular idea, the idea that okay, what if the
Speaker 1: Ark of the Covenant was a machine. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: a spoiler. We don't think it was a machine, but
Speaker 1: there there that does lead us down some other interesting
Speaker 1: paths that that will be a lot of fun to explore,
Speaker 1: all right. In the meantime, you can check out all
Speaker 1: the episodes of stuff to Blow Your Mind at stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's
Speaker 1: we will find them all. That's we'll find links out
Speaker 1: to our social media accounts, including the discussion module page
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier. Obviously, we'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: everybody about the Ark of the Covenant, um, your thoughts
Speaker 1: on it, crazy theories you've read about it, your thoughts
Speaker 1: on Raiders of the Lost Arc. All of it is
Speaker 1: fair game. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us directly to let us
Speaker 1: know feedback on this episode or any other to uh
Speaker 1: say hi, let us know where you listen from. To
Speaker 1: suggest a topic for the future, you can always do
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