The Arc of the Covenant and its Electric Arc 
The Arc of the Covenant or Ark of the Covenant's electrical nature requires thinking out of the box for a proper understanding.
The arc of the Covenant was apparently manufactured after "Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn more, and keep, and do them." The fifth chapter of Deuteronomy goes on to state that "the Lord talked with you [Moses] face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire." Wow! One would logically think that the Source of the creation would find a more comfortable spot in his infinite universe to reside in than in a blazing little fire on a dry, dusty mountain on this paltry planet. Or, he could find better company than shifty humans with whom to consult. However, ignorance and arrogance are still allowed to prevail in many minds today; and intelligence and reason, although revered and relied on for six days a week, blindly bows to those ludicrous words on the seventh.
Ten Commandments similar to those sold in Christian bookstores Nevertheless, speaking further on the Hebrew god's commandments, Moses went on to point out that "I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to shew you the word of the Lord, for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up unto the mount." So, to solve this problem, he moved the fire god off the mountain down to the tribes, and he placed him between two cherubim on an oblong box with two carrying poles.
The Ark of the Covenant from Rev. John Brown's 1873 Illustrated Bible This arrangement, the so-called Ark of the Covenant, is illustrated above and below. However, the angelic images or cherubim on top of the chests are not accurate depictions. Why? The answer lies in the second of Moses's Ten Commandments, which has been abbreviated and placed on popular plaques like the one above. Although the Hebrew fire god is said to have forbade the worshiping of graven images by uttering to Moses: "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me," this is not all of the Second Commandment. Those revered words, dispensing ruthless injustice on innocent progeny, are immediately preceded by those of Exodus 20:4, which command: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water below."
A priest bowing down before molten images on the Ark of the Covenant, from Rev. Brown's Bible Furthermore, Deuteronomy 27: 15 says, “Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image.” One Internet Web page informally comments on these words by exclaiming: “That’s right kids don’t EVER draw, sculpt or paint or else god will curse you. Wanna be an artist, a photographer, take a picture of yourself or family? TOO BAD, God says no! You better drop out of art class before he smites you with boils.” This comment is quite defining and obviously points to one of the reasons why so many people do not want to see the Ten Commandments in our schools—and can you blame them?
A phoney Arc or Ark
Nevertheless, the pertinent point being made here is that the "graven or molten" angelic cherubim of the Arks above demonstrate the popular versions shown in bibles, other books, in movies, on TV, and elsewhere, but they would never have been fabricated by the ancient Hebrews because the second commandment absolutely forbids doing so.
An old Czechoslavkian carbon arc light of Karlova University, now in Larry Brian Radka's collection
However, two chunks of blazing copper-coated carbon (if gold-plated instead) of an electric arc light like the one on the above would have nicely complied with the Hebrew fire god's restrictions. The Old Testament book of Exodus, which describes the building of the Ark (Arc) of the Covenant in detail, points out that Moses assigned to the task craftsmen who were skilled in cutting stones (carbon included) and in working gold. The book says: "Thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them." Gold leaf can be beaten down to 1/250,000 of an inch, and it would have wrapped around the cherubim(s) or carbons easily, like the copper-covered rods above. But why? The answer lies in the fact that elegant gold would increase the awe of the audience and the conductivity of the carbons, and protect the ends of the carbons near the divine arc, thereby prolonging their life.
The electric arc's bow is caused by convection. And the chapter goes on to say that "the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings [arcs] on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces [ends] shall look one to another." And Moses's fire god supposedly goes on to say, "I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony." Furthermore, the 22nd Chapter of II Samuel describes the Hebrew arc light god by claiming, "He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind." And, "Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled." Here the nature of the wings on the cherubim (carbons) are more aptly explained, not as metallic wings, but as "wings of the wind," the arc flashing through the air. Fiery coals and carbons are synonymous. Could anybody today explain any better the bright bowing arc of an ancient electric carbon arc light?
From Picture Puzzles or How to Read the Bible by Symbols, Note the lack of graven images The illustration above with the oil lamp and bright cloud depicting the Judeo-Christian god in flame and in mythical Hebrew lettering are weaker representations of this Hebrew arc light god. However, its designer was right on the mark by employing light to represent the God of the Bible, which assigns his brilliant presence to a position between the cherubim. The illustrator, like many people in the nineteenth century, was probably not aware of the newly reinvented electric carbon arc light, or else he would have surely used one instead. Furthermore, notice that he carefully considered the Second Commandment by portraying the cherubim as natural horns (representing power) instead of the ridiculous manufactured winged creatures that so many artists, with little or no knowledge of biblical scripture, so carelessly employ today.
Moses breaking up his Commandments in anger, from the Lutherans' Small Illustrated Catechism The reason Moses did not want the heathen Hebrew tribes to make any of these types of creatures was his fear that they would worship them instead of his arc light god. However, when the cat's away, the mice will play. So in his absence, his followers melted down their golden jewelry and made a molten calf, which they were vigorously worshiping when he returned. Out of disgust for their reversion to worshiping a non-enlightening Egyptian god, he broke up the tablets with the Ten Commandments.
The two tablets had been engraved with Moses's laws on both sides, probably in space-consuming Egyptian hieroglyphics, which Moses had been taught during his upbringing in Egypt. His divine predecessor, old Abraham, who came out of Ur where similar laws were found, could have written all of Moses's decrees on one tablet in minute Babylonian cuneiform characters, so this language was not used. Furthermore, there seems to be no evidence that any Hebrew tongue ever existed during Moses' time, so this tongue can probably also be ruled out. Hebrew writing apparently developed long afterwards, from Canaanite's characters, after the Hebrews seized their land, which they still claim as their own today. Nevertheless, one thing is certain, the laws were not written with Roman characters, like those commonly portrayed in the phony illustrations in bibles and catechisms like the ones depicted above and below.
From the Lutherans' Small Illustrated Catechism
Note the apparent horns on Moses's head Nevertheless, the holy Scripture as well as other reliable written testimony still extant, and the hard evidence engraved in stone monuments, all strongly indicate that, for religious as well as practical purposes, priests like Moses and Aaron, who directed the course of beliefs and events in antiquity, illuminated their authority by conspicuously placing brilliant electric arc lights in their temples, churches, and icons.
From Mariette's Denderah, General Description of the Temple To help make the point, here is an animated comparison of an ancient Egyptian iconic ark light god at the Temple at Denderah and a possible depiction of the same type of god in the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant. The searchlight on the bow represents the radiance of the horned (powerful) light god in the center.
This animation of the ancient Egyptian ark (arc) below removes all the molten images and likely depicts a more complete Hebrew (Jewish) arc light. The serpent springing over the arc-light god's pedestal (the so-called "mercy seat") represents an undulating electric arc winging its way through the air between two carbons or cherubim, The first electric light that the world ever saw was produced by lightning, snaking its way across the heavens; and the ancients naturally compared the undulating light of the celestial serpent to the slithering asp that can also strike mankind. The ancient Greek biographer Plutarch tells us in Moralia that the Egyptians honored the serpent, and, "They compare the asp to lightning." So a manmade arc light and heavenly lighting are quite synonymous, both are electrical and often look and act like a serpent.
Furthermore, the yellow color of a cobra and its hissing are quite comparable to some of the features of an electric arc light, not to mention the hissing sound in the name Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of light. Slingo and Brooker's Electrical Engineering for Electric Light points out that "The light emitted by an arc lamp actually approaches in quality more nearly to the solar luminous rays than does that of any other artificial illuminant, although the light of the arc itself contains in reality a larger proportion of orange or yellow rays than does the light of the sun." In his 1905 edition of Electricity in Every-Day Life, Dr. Edwin J. Houston, a renowned authority and author of numerous books describing electric arc lights, tells us that "As long as the carbons [cherubim] are maintained at the proper distance apart, and are supplied with a current of constant strength, the arc will burn quietly. If, however, these conditions are not maintained, various noises will be heard. Where the distance between the carbons is too small, or where the carbons are so soft that comparatively large quantities of vapor are liberated, hissing sounds will be heard."
A serpent symbolized electricity in ancient Egypt, a pelican meant a searchlight This animation removes all the Egyptian molten images and likely depicts a more complete Hebrew (Jewish) arc light. The serpent springing over the arc-light god's pedestal (the so-called "mercy seat") represents an undulating electric arc winging its way through the air between two carbons or cherubim.
From a 1902 edition of Dr. John Lord's Beacon Lights of History
In the religious procession above, we see a more modern portrayal of an ancient Egyptian or Hebrew ark, with a conspicuous light mounted behind. Apparently, it is a reasonable representation of the ark and its entourage. According to Oxford Professor A. H. Sayce's Early History of the Hebrews, in the city of Jerusalem, "sacrifices were offered as it passed along, music accompanied it, and David, as anointed king, clad in the priestly ephod, danced sacred dances before it." Speaking of the similarities of the ancient Egyptian and Jewish arks, volume one of The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopaedia and Scriptural Dictionary states:
"The points of resemblance to the Jewish ark, are many and conspicuous, as in the 'stand,' which, in some of its forms, and leaving out the figures represented on the sides, bears so close a resemblance to the written description of the Hebrew ark that it may safely be taken as an authentic illustration of its form."
Visual evidence like the above, the written testimony in the Old Testament and in other respected works—as well as a detailed ancient eyewitness account of the apparent deployment of powerful electric searchlights in a church on the Mount of Olives—persuades us that the Arc or Ark of the Covenant bore an electric searchlight. Some of these proofs for the existence of such a light may tend to antagonize Judeo-Christian dogmatists, but their presentation here is absolutely necessary to set forth our case for the general use of powerful electric lights in antiquity.
A sitting Sperry and a hanging WWI German carbon arc searchlight
At one time, eight carbon arc searchlights illuminated ancient Jerusalem, and a substantial portion at that, by casting their beams a great distance from the circular Christian Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives. Arculf (Arculfus), a Frankish bishop, perhaps of Prigueux, who visited and explored the Holy Land, accompanied by Peter, a Bergundian monk, who acted as a guide, reported the details and effects of these eight brilliant lights—and some others also.
The Catholic Encyclopedia gives us a little background on his marvelous report—as follows: "St. Bede relates (Hist. Eccles. Angl., V, 15) that Arculf, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 670 or 690, was cast by tempest on the shore of Scotland. He was hospitably received by Adamnan, the abbot of the island monastery of Iona, to whom he gave a detailed narrative of his travels to the Holy Land, with specifications and designs of the sanctuaries so precise that Adamnan, with aid from some extraneous sources, was able to produce a descriptive work in three books, dealing with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the principal towns of Palestine, and Constantinople. Adamnan presented a copy of this work to Aldfrith, King of Northumbria in 698. It aims at giving a faithful account of what Arculf actually saw during his journey. As the latter 'joined the zeal of an antiquarian to the devotion of a pilgrim during his nine months’ stay in the Holy City, the work contains many curious details that might otherwise have never been chronicled.'"
The following two excerpts, from The Pilgrimage of Arculfus in the Holy Land (About the Year A.D. 670) was translated by the Rev. James R. MacPherson in 1895. He says: “The translation has been made as literal as possible in passages where the exact rendering was of any controversial or archaeological importance, as in the description of the sites and buildings.” Here are those two excerpts wherein Arculf continues to describe one of those buildings, a revered church on the Mount of Olives, and the effects of its bright searchlights as follows:
The ancient electric searchlights had to cover over a mile to light up the far side of Jerusalem. "In the western side of the church we have mentioned above [before], twice four windows have been formed high up with glazed shutters, and in these windows there burn as many lamps placed opposite them, within and close to them. These lamps hang in chains, and are so placed that each lamp may hang neither higher nor lower, but may be seen, as it were, fixed to its own window, opposite and close to which it is specially seen. The brightness of these lamps is so great that, as their light is copiously poured through the glass from the summit of the Mountain of Olivet, not only is the part of the mountain nearest the round basilica to the west illuminated, but also the lofty path which rises by steps up to the city of Jerusalem from the Valley of Josaphat, is clearly illuminated in a wonderful manner, even on dark nights; while the greater part of the city that lies nearest at hand on the opposite side is similarly illuminated by the same brightness. The effect of this brilliant and admirable coruscation of the eight great lamps shining by night from the holy mountain and from the site of the Lord's ascension, as Arculf related, is to pour into the hearts of the believing onlookers a greater eagerness of the Divine love, and to strike the mind with a certain fear along with vast inward compunction."
A distant view the holy city of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, nearly a half mile away
And Arculfus went on to add: "This also we learned from the narrative of the sainted Arculf: That in that round church, besides the usual light, of the eight lamps mentioned above as shining within the church by night, there are usually added on the night of the Lord's Ascension almost innumerable other lamps, which by their terrible and admirable brightness, poured abundantly through the glass of the windows, not only illuminate the Mount of Olivet, but make it seem to be wholly on fire; while the whole city and the places in the neighborhood are also lit up."
Searchlights beaming out of the Electric Building at Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition Beside this seventh-century account stands the Old Testament which contains several older examples of dazzling lights that could have only been electrical in nature. One was the huge electric arc lamp, labeled the “pillar of fire”—a supposed divine manifestation lighting the way for the frightened Hebrews wandering through the wilderness at night. Exodus, the second of the first five books of the Bible, or the Pentateuch, says the Hebrew (electrical) god went before them "by night in a pillar of fire to give them light,” and, according to Nehemiah, to show “the way wherein they should go."
In 1875, streets in Washington D.C. had already been lit up with similar electric carbon arc lights Moses's "pillar of fire" was probably a vertical arc light like the one illustrated above. A power supply similar to the steam engine powering the Brotherhood motor and Gramme generator, illustrated on our Old Searchlights page, may have powered the Ark's searchlight and/or charged its batteries. Hero of Alexandria was quite familiar with the principles of the steam engine, so the basic technology was at hand in antiquity. This might also explain the smoke the Hebrews followed in the daytime. The steam engine would have needed fire, and where there is fire, there is smoke!
The carbon arc light, second only to the sun, was a common cure in the early 1900's The Old Testament also speaks of fiery serpents (arc lights) that the Hebrews were struck by on their trek through the wilderness, and of a life-saving holy serpent, with a great healing power (ultra-violet light), which Moses set on a brass pole like the fiery arc light or serpent on the pole on the right?
My light is in a stone, a secret electric light bulb Apparently the arc light on the brass pole was not the only type of Hebrew electric lighting used in antiquity. Speaking of a brilliant light emanating from one of the stones on the breastplate of the high priest, Josephus, a Jewish historian who precisely described the distance the fire of the arc on the Pharos could be seen, maintained: "The one of them shined out when [the electric] God was present at their sacrifices; I mean that which was in the nature of a button on his right shoulder, bright rays darting out thence, being seen by those that were most remote; which splendor yet was not before natural to the stone."
This sounds like a small electric flashlight, perhaps patterned after an ancient Egyptian variety? Other Hebrew electric devices, all found in the Bible, like the Urim and Thummim, were also hooked up to the breastplate—to power the light. Speaking of the Urim and Thummin, M. G. Eaton, in his Illustrated Bible Dictionary, states: "What the 'Urim and Thummin' were cannot be determined with any certainty. All we certainly know is that they were a certain divinely-given means by which God imparted, through the high priest, direction and counsel to Israel when these were needed. The method by which this was done can be only a matter of mere conjecture. They were apparently material objects, quite distinct from the breastplate, but something added to it after all the stones had been set in it—something in addition to the breastplate and jewels." Most Hebrew scholars still do not admit that these mysterious words are ancient electrical terms.
But the greatest example of the ancient Hebrew use of electric lighting is in the mysterious Ark (Arc) of the Covenant, briefly discussed at the beginning of this short dissertation. One of the gods of the Hebrews, Yahweh?, had supposedly instructed Moses to build it to his divine dimensions. Thereafter, the Electric Light God took up residence between its cherubim (sparking carbons) where he allegedly discharged his instructions to Moses and other designated priests and prophets to pass on to their followers. The Old Testament’s claim of the Ark of the Covenant’s divine nature is about as believable as the contention by both Jewish and Christian commentators that Moses wrote the Pentateuch—which describes his own death!