Prophecy Q&A with Arnold Fruchtenbaum: "Paul" "Ark of the Covenant"

Q:I have heard that to be member of the Sanhedrin you had to be married and therefore, Paul was a married man. Is this true?

A:It is true that to be member of the Sanhedrin one had to be married. The problem is that people merely assume that Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin, but the Bible never makes that statement. He was certainly an apprentice for one of the members of the Sanhedrin and therefore had the clothing at the time of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58), but he himself is never said to be a member of the Sanhedrin. Of all the various claims Paul made about his Jewish identity, he never once said he was a full member of the Sanhedrin. That is why this cannot be used as evidence that Paul was married. In I Corinthians 7 he makes it clear that he was not married and there is no implication that he ever formally married. It is best to take Paul at his word that he was a single man and he remained single for his whole life.

 

Q:What happened to the Ark of the Covenant? Is the ark mentioned in Revelation 11:19 the Ark of the Covenant that Moses made?

A:It is not likely that the original Ark of the Covenant ever survived the Babylonian destruction. The Ark is not mentioned as having gone into captivity. If we keep in mind that the Ark of the Covenant was basically a piece of wood overlaid with gold, Nebuchadnezzar would have only been interested in the gold. When the Jews returned from Babylonian captivity 70 years later, there was no Ark to put in the Temple they rebuilt. However, the Temple functioned just fine for six centuries without it. If the Jewish people could not find the Ark after 70 years, they are not likely to find it after 2,500 years.

The Ark of the Covenant in Revelation 11:19 is not the one that Moses made. We should keep in mind that what Moses made was a copy of the Ark that is already in Heaven. Besides, anything manmade cannot be translated to Heaven. The Ark in Revelation 11:19 is the heavenly one, the original from which Moses made a copy.

Q:The Ark was not destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, he couldn�t find it. See Jeremiah 52:13-19. It seems to have been raptured up to heaven as it appears again in heaven in Revelation 11:19. Is this true?

A:First, concerning the Ark of the Covenant, if you will reread the passage you asked me to read, you will see that the text nowhere states that Nebuchadnezzar could not find the Ark of the Covenant. II Kings 25 and II Chronicles 36 list the things that Nebuchadnezzar took with him to Babylon. What they did not take to Babylon was destroyed by fire. In fact, II Chronicles 36:19 says that Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple down with fire anddestroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. All Nebuchadnezzar had to do was strip the gold off the Ark and the rest of the wood was burned with fire. If the Ark was raptured into heaven, the Bible would clearly have told us so. Your reference to Revelation 11:19 does not prove your point since you are making an unwarranted assumption that that is the same Ark of the Covenant that Moses actually made; but that is not the case. It should be remembered that the whole Tabernacle structure that Moses made was a copy of the Tabernacle already existing in heaven. It is the heavenly Tabernacle that Christ entered into, a Tabernacle not made with human hands (Hebrews 9:11-12).