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174 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT AND ISRAELITE INFLUENCES they may have brought it to Najran when they gave up control of the Ka’bah. The best account of the Ark of the Covenant is by Roderick Grierson and Stuart Munro-Hay, published in 1999. They state that Yusuf, the sixthcentury A.D. Jewish ruler of Himyar, may have inherited or come into possession of the Ark. If he had indeed stolen the Ark from Aksum that could explain his nickname of Masruq (Stolen), and it would certainly have been a matter of national and religious honor for Aksum’s Christian king Caleb to retrieve it. Conversely, the Ark may have been in Najran since early times and Masruq was an ancient Sabaean title known to be used hundreds of years B.C.E. on the Ethiopia plateau. Grierson and Munro-Hay suggest that if Caleb had captured the Ark from Yusuf, the Ark culture of Aksum may have entered the kingdom for the first time around A.D. 520, hence the Arabic name. Another hypothesis is that Christians fleeing Himyar before Caleb’s invasion brought the Arabic text of the Sheba- Menelik Cycle with them to prove that Aksum was the resting place of the Ark, and that Yusuf had stolen the tradition claiming he had the true Ark. If they had invented the Sheba-Menelik Cycle, its geography would of course been very different and matched a Palestinian setting. Therefore it is likely that arrival of the Sheba-Menelik Cycle Arabic text revived the Ark story rather than introduced it to Aksum for the first time. Ethiopian culture is obsessed with the Ark of the Covenant. The main weakness of Grierson and Munro-Hay’s book, from this writer’s point of view, is their acceptance that Solomon’s kingdom was in Palestine. Despite this, Munro-Hay is a leading authority on Aksum, and his work with Grierson demonstrates the Ark’s extremely nebulous nature (unfortunately Stuart Munro-Hay died in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in late 2004, six weeks before this writer arrived to visit him). Even the account in the Sheba- Menelik Cycle does not describe the Ark, only the size of the wooden frame that Azariah built to replace it. The text refers to the Ark as “Our Lady,” and traditions report that Azariah stole a very large tablet. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is of course fully aware of the description in Exodus, but its Ark tradition is centered around tablets, not gold boxes adorned by cherubim. Every Ethiopian Orthodox church possesses a tabot, a replica of the original held in the Chapel of the Tablet next to the Church of Mary of Zion in Aksum. The Ark, under the care of a monk with the title of Atang (Keeper of the Ark), has never been publicly revealed, but clergy have occasionally described it as a milky colored stone tablet that emits a bright
QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 175 light and is contained in a small gold-covered hinged box the size of a modern encyclopedia. The Alexandrian Coptic Church uses a wooden Ark as a shelter for wine and water during services. This is not called tabot and resembles the Arabian walled tent named mahmal and the Ark described in Deuteronomy, not the elaborate Cherubim-adorned gold-covered version of Exodus. There is a lack of unanimity about what the tabot represents. In Ethiopia and Eritrea the altar slab rather than the church is consecrated and this is referred to as tabot. For example, the tabot for the Orthodox cathedral in Asmara, Eritrea, was consecrated in Egypt. Tabot can also refer to the chest that contains the tablets of the law, the tablets themselves, or both. Tabotat (plural of tabot) are usually made from hard timber, but prestigious tabotat have been of gold. Although Israelite in origin tabotat are often dedicated to Christian saints. The Ethiopians refer to the Ark as the Ark of Zion, and there is an annual festival in Aksum to celebrate its arrival. Elsewhere tabotat are paraded under canopies at all major Christian festivals. Whatever their appearance, they are all associated with the original story of Menelik’s epic journey to Ethiopia, a symbol that God decided to switch his blessing from Solomon’s kingdom to the New Zion. The desecrated memorial at Mai Bela and disparaging remarks concerning the veracity of the Sheba-Menelik Cycle reflect the deep nationalist and political divisions that devastated Ethiopia and Eritrea after 1952. The Kebra Nagast, of which the Sheba-Menelik Cycle is part, was used by the Ethiopian imperial ruling family from A.D. 1270 to justify its rule until its fall in 1974. It was in the imperial family’s interest to emphasize its divine authority, using the Kebra Nagast to prove its legitimacy as successor to Solomon’s kingdom and as guardian of the One Truth Faith authorized at Nicaea. As mentioned earlier the Orthodox Church at Aksum had revived its fortunes by supporting the restoration of the Solomonid royal house under Yekunno Amlak. This close relationship of church and monarchy dominated Ethiopian society thereafter. During the Eritrean war of independence the Orthodox Church was criticized for supporting Ethiopian rule because the emperor had granted it lucrative feudal land rights. Eritrean nationalist leaders tended to be members of non- Orthodox churches or Muslims. However, self-seeking imperial policies do not explain the Hebraic/Israelite nature of the Orthodox Church nor the claim by
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Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholar
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QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
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CHAPTER ONE Sheba, Zionism, and the
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CHAPTER TWO The Search for Evidence
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CHAPTER THREE Writing the Old Testa
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CHAPTER SIX Western Arabia and the
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Sheba

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