The Ark of the Covenant contained the Ten Commandments
(Exodus 25:21)

Historians and archeologists have pointed out the blindingly obvious: it doesn’t make sense to tuck away the most important set of rules of your religion in a sealed box. Who would read them?

In the ancient Middle East, it was common practice to display important religious inscriptions in public. That makes sense. After all, people might want to consult them.

The bible itself is pretty vague about the contents of the Ark. According to Exodus 25:21, Yahweh ordered Moses to put inside the Ark ‘the Testimony which I will give you’.

But as we’ve pointed out elsewhere on this site, the Lord gave Moses a lot of testimonies: two different sets of Ten Commandments, a comprehensive set of detailed religious rules and prescriptions, and a list of instructions how to build the tent, the tabernacle and the Ark itself.

Researchers assume that it’s most likely that Moses put the list of building instructions into the Ark.

Bible researchers agree that Exodus was written by at least three different authors at different times in history. And by meticulously dissecting the texts, they conclude that in the most ancient version of the story, the Lord tells Moses to place the building instructions for the Ark, the taberbacle and all kinds of religious objects into the Ark – and not the Ten Commandments.

That would make sense. In ancient societies, it was common practice to put building instructions for temples into the temples themselves. This is because people believed that the instructions were god-given. They were holy. The Ark would have made no exception to this very common rule.