Biblical Artifacts
Over the weekend, I wrote two articles for the Examiner on the Ark of the Covenant. The first dealt with the possibility that the Ark was found and the second dealt with it staying hidden. I don’t want to revisit those articles here, but I have linked to them if anyone wants to read them.
What I am fascinated about today is how religious people react to the possibility that a religious artifact may have been found. I have gotten a lot of comments on those two articles from people posting responses and from private e-mails.
Some Christians jump at it without any verification and say “See, the Bible is true.” Others say that the Bible is true and that God won’t allow the artifact to be revealed… unless he wants it to be. And others claim that this artifact is probably fake, but the real one is out there somewhere.
Few if any actually want to test whether such an artifact even came from the time it was alleged to be from. When asked about testing, some Christians have claimed that it can’t be tested. The tests can’t measure it because it is from God or that the tests are evil science. Some have even stated that God won’t allow it to be tested.
Most of these types of Biblical artifacts are alleged to be magical. The Ark of the Covenant is just one such magical artifact. The magic manna inside is another and a few years ago, people claimed to have found part of Noah’s Magic Ark (it had to be magical to carry at least two of every animal on Earth and enough food to feed them for 40 days and 40 nights). It seems that most Christians don’t like it when their artifacts are called “magical.” They prefer “miraculous.” Miraculous doesn’t sound as make-believe as magical. When people hear the term, “magical” they think of fairytales and childish stories. And even though the Bible is a fairytale and a childish story, Christians don’t like to see it in those terms.
The fact is that magic and miracles don’t exist. The Ark of the Covenant will not melt people’s faces off like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The more Christians claim such nonsense the more ridiculous their religion seems to me and almost everyone else.
Many Christians don’t understand why I was so excited about the Ark of the Covenant. I really hope that the Ethiopians do let the public see it. When it doesn’t melt people’s faces off and is dated to be from the middle ages, I will be laughing my ass off. Besides, these artifacts always bring out the Christians making the wackiest claims and then they argue over competing wacky claims. One guy commented on one of the stories claiming that the Ark was from aliens. A few people stated that God didn’t make the Ark, but the head of the Ethiopian Church claimed that God did make the Ark. A few people warned about the dangers of seeing or touching the Ark, while others said it was just a box. Each of course had biblical verses to back up their claims.
I love it when a new magical Christian artifact is “discovered.” It is so much fun to watch how various Christians react. Just wait until someone finds Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map.
Filed under: Current Events, Religion
