Was the Ark of the Covenant an Apiary?

In the beginning, the bee existed,

and the bee was with god, and the bee was god.

John 1:1, Bible of the Bee

This article discusses a straightforward connection between the Contents of the Ark of the Covenant and postulated ancient Matriarchal bee priesthood. 

I suggest before or directly after reading this article, anyone interested in the religious and occult history of bees, read the online series of articles by Andrew Gough on his website, Arcadia: http://andrewgough.co.uk/bee1_1.html

          Pop Culture’s Indiana Jones depicts of the Ark of the Covenant as a supernatural weapon of war, dangerous to those who would possess it and especially their enemies.  The idea that the Ark might be an ancient battery is usually abutted with the concept that ancient Egyptians (may have) possessed rudimentary batteries.  Nevertheless this tells us nothing about the nature of the Ark, symbolically or realistically.  A battery which would have the potency to send lightning bolts at enemies, especially in the size of a portable footlocker is still outside modern technology.  What service any lower voltage battery technology would serve to a nomadic people in a spiritual manner is highly questionable as well.  Did the priests use the Ark to produce minor electrical jolts, as a magicians trick?  Rather than this doubtful utility, I suspect the ark provided some actual utility or religious/symbolic significance.  I will suggest a content/purpose that actually fits with the needs and spiritual background of an early nomadic culture.

The contents of the Ark of the Covenant have been, traditionally, a jar of manna, the Word of God, and Aaron’s rod. A telling similarity presents itself in the root etymology of the Hebrew word bee and the Hebrew word word.  Word, in Hebrew is da-var, which in verb form means speak.  Bee in Hebrew is devorah and is produced from the same root.  What if the God within in the Ark of the Covenant was the bee itself, holy to the Goddess Neith, or the matriarch Deborah.

The Hebrew root word of bee, de-var, was originally written in an ancient pictographic form, similar to hieroglyphics.  When words were assembled in this pictographic ancient Hebrew, the words used to assemble larger word-concepts often tried to impart a physical connotation or sensual meaning.  In other words, the evolution of the pictographic language produced an interrelated tree of concepts which were symbolically and perceptively connected to one another.  Another similar word in this same “word tree” is de-vash; honey. 

“Bee (דבורה devorah, Strong's #1682): The root of devorah is davar ^[str:1696]. This root literally means 'to arrange in order,' usually in the sense of arranging words in an order to make a sentence or to 'speak.' A colony of bees are insects living in a completely ordered society hence its connection to the idea of order.”  Source #6

          There may have been a rewriting within Hebraic tradition, of sacred myths originating in ancient Egypt, specifically, the locale of Sais, City of Neith.  Neith may have been a prefiguration of the Jewish Devorah, or Deborah.  Both Neith and Devorah were associated with bees specifically.  Ancient people dual-associated many mythical gods, and the Egyptian Goddess Isis may have also been a source in formulating the Hebrew conception and story of Devorah.  Joseph Campbell believed certain mythological structures repeated themselves in the stories of ancient culture.  Robert Graves, in The White Goddess suggested that the Isis, Horus, Set myth prefigured the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Devil relationship.  Source #7 discusses more in depth the similarities between Devorah and Neith.

The significance of the ancient Hebraic terminology, to the modern ear, looses implications which would be inherent in any living or used language.  Many Hebrew words have dual meanings which have direct physical analogies.    In learning the etymological significance of certain Hebrew words, further insight can be wrung out of what would otherwise be lost in translation.  For example, from Source #6: 

“The Hebrew word kaphar means "to cover over" such as a lid and is the word for the lid of the ark of the covenant (though many translations translate this as mercy seat for no etymological reason). This word is translated as pitch which was spread over the ark in order to make it water tight (my emphasis added)(Genesis 6:14) This same word is also translated as a atonement. The word atonement is an abstract but in order to understand the true Hebrew meaning of a word we must look to the concrete meaning. If an offense has been made the one that has been offended can act as though the offense is covered over and unseen. We express this idea through the word of forgiveness. Atonement is an outward action that covers over the error.”

     While unrelated to this discussion directly, I agree with Gordon Wasson in suspecting that manna may have been Psilocybe cubensis.  This mushroom may have been dried and preserved in honey, stored in the ark, to be used in priestly rites. 

     The rod of Aaron appears to have been a small stave representing authority, power.  If the staff predates the Patriarchal priesthood it is possible the rod may represent the Matriarchal lineage of the right to rule. This would make it similar to the red Crown of Egypt, the Deshret.  The Deshret was associated with the god Neith and also means honeybee.  The Deshret looks like an antennae crown, most suitable to a “queen bee.”  (see depiction at left)   The picture on the right is of a tribal Apiru, with traditional head covering.  The headgear of kings and queens in Egypt and surrounding nomadic cultures in the fertile crescent often sport gold and black stripes, which associates royal headgear with bee motifs.  A common example of this ornamentation is found in King Tut’s crown or the Sphinx.

From Source#1: “The Bee has other, albeit precarious associations with religious writings and biblical figures, such as the Ark of the Covenant; arguably the most cherished of all biblical artifacts and one that is adorned with images of angels with wings called cherubs. With respect to the Ark, the famous Egyptologist Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie said;

‘In the holiest of all things, the Ark of the Yahweh of the Hebrews, there were cherubs, one on each side of the mercy seat with wings covering the mercy seat. This agrees with the description of the Egyptian Ark of the Gods with figures of the goddess Ma’at with wings covering the ark.”

So here we have the goddess Ma’at - the daughter of the god RA who cried Bees as tears, placing her wings over the most sacred artifact in religious history. As previously noted, Ethiopians believe that the Bee once defended the throne of God.”

Also, the rod of Aaron was traditionally once owned by the Syrian Solomon who wrote an ancient compilation of biblical myth titled “The Book of the Bee.”  According to Andrew Gough; “Aaron, brother of Moses and the first High Priest of the Hebrews, heard the sound of Bees humming while pronouncing the secret name of Yahweh in the presence of the Ark.”

     The Ark is widely associated with the physical phenomenon of smoke and buzzing, or humming.  Bees are smoked to encourage docility while a beekeeper enters the hive.  Their natural response of bees to smoke is to assume the hive is on fire and enter the honey combs, and eat as much as they can, so as to be able to survive the exodus to a new hive.

     There is every reason to believe the Hebrews were using bees to lead them to a promised land.  Moses may have been the high-bee-priest, who interpreted their portent; their Honey-Bee-Augur.  There are still modern people in Lithuania who remember the tradition of following bees and then settling where they land, believing that a special right to the land was granted by the bees.  Is this what directed the Jews on their Deseret(Honeybee) Odyssey?  Another possible connection between Moses and the word, de-var, is the burning bush story.  It is possible the story of the burning bush is a real event of the Ark “throwing a swarm,” veiled in myth.  Perhaps Moses left the tribe to attempt recovery of a swarm, finding it on a bush which “burned but was not consumed.”  If the bees left the ark in a swarm and Moses recovered them from a bush on a mountain forty days later, it would be understandable that the Jews had replaced their God by then with a golden calf.  They simply lost faith that Moses would return with one animal “God,” so they invented a new one.  Then Moses put the de-var back in the Ark and massacred a bunch of them for losing faith. 

It is possible that the religious predecessors of Old Testament Judaism may have been Deborahs, or female bee-priestesses, and the holy of holies a beehive, vestigial of their reign.  Often, when tribal cultures come in contact with competing religions through trade or conquering warfare, religions were absorbed and traditions accumulated.  The dispersal of cultural icons or the significance of religious artifacts can be transferred from one nation to another, sometimes even the victims of a conquest would win out in a religious conversion over time. It is widely believed by Anthropologists that agricultural preliterate tribes may have favored Matriarchal dominance or equal status between men and women.  Bees would have proved themselves highly valuable to any nature-worshipping preliterate civilizations.  Associations of bees with royalty and instances of bee worship are widespread throughout ancient world culture.       

     The Ark has garnered the reputation as being a weapon of war.  How would a bee ark fit this characteristic?  Bees have been used in warfare throughout ancient times.  They were lobbed at the enemy in baskets in order to disperse and terrify opponents.  The Mayans are known to have used bees defensively, releasing them upon attackers of fortifications.  See source #3 for more information on bees used in warfare.

          The only female judge in the Bible is Deborah or Devorah.  Deborah was depicted as a warrior and a prophet whose name translates as “bee.”  Deborah was married to Lapidoth, whose name in Hebrew means “torch.”  Deborah is traditionally referred to as the “Mother of Israel”, and what may be the earliest Hebrew poetry is dedicated to her.  Passages related to Deborah in the bible are considered by scholars to be some of the oldest.  It is possible that the Biblical Deborah archetype was based on the Egyptian God Neith.  See source #7 for similarities between the two women.

          Fancy Priest-Name, Same Bee-Reason: 

“Every year, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Bringing burning incense to shield his eyes from a direct view of God’s glory, he sprinkled blood from a bull onto the atonement cover for his and his household’s sins, then sprinkled blood from a goat for all the sins of Israel. God promised that when He saw the blood, it would cover over man’s sin. (To atone for means to cover over — hence the name atonement cover.)”  In other words, smoke was used when approaching the Ark and the Cover was removable.  Just like a beehive.  See source #4

          The Priests who attended the Ark, as well as the ceremonial carriers of the Ark all wore special clothing, to protect themselves from the Ark’s “glory.”   The Hebrew word glory (kavod) translates to “battle armaments.”  See source #6.  The Ark was alluded to as being “Veiled” like the Virgin Isis.  Later, in Christian interpretation, the Ark was symbolically associated with the Virgin Mary.  From Neith of Ancient Sais to Artemis of Greece, the power of the Mellisae abound.  What better symbol of abundance than honey, what better template for society than a beehive?  The beehive represents the wisdom of the ages.

While the Jews gave explicit dimensions of the Ark, many interpretations exist, due to varying estimates for the ancient cubit.  Nevertheless, “It was (probably) 3 feet, 9 inches long and 2 feet, 3 inches wide and high.” Source #3 Such dimensions are perfectly suitable for an apiary.  Its longitudinal orientation is no advantage to naysayers; beehives around the world have been made from baby-crib-style laid-out-logs.  The modern top-bar hive is the closest design in resemblance to these dimensions.  See source #5. 

Bees have mystical connotations worldwide, from the early Delphic Oracle to the Mayan Bee God, Mok Chi.  Ritual use of honey as an intoxicant in and of itself, or made into mead, is highly prevalent.  It is not a stretch to suggest, nor am I the first to do so, that Judaism is built upon the structure of a preexisting religion, or religions.  Robert Graves and Joseph Campbell have made the case on this concept.  Sadly, without the Ark of the Covenant to inspect, or any other tangible proof, the content and nature of the Ark remains a mystery.  This gestalt theory based on “poetic myth,” I hope, will encourage more study of Bee Goddesses and help answer the question “What is it?” of the Ark.

 Sources:

1.   http://www.thebeegoddess.com/index.html

2.   http://andrewgough.co.uk/bee1_1.html

3.   http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/war_bees.htm

     4.  http://the-tabernacle-place.com/articles/what_is_the_

          tabernacle/tabernacle_ark_of_the_covenant

5.  http://cbrp.org/SDBluebirds/beekeeping.htm

6.  http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/

     7.  http://ggreenberg.tripod.com/writings/w-neith-deb.htm