Parfitt's Story Gets Weirder: The Holy Ark and Mugabe

One never knows how strange a story you'll read.

A year ago, I dealt with Tudor Parfitt, Professor of Jewish Studies at London’s School of African and Oriental Studies and now, he's in this:-

Has Mugabe Stolen the Lost Ark?

The decayed wooden object ­lying neglected on a shelf in a museum storeroom didn’t look like anything too exciting...The professor was convinced that this object, which resembled a damaged, ancient African drum, was in fact the lost Ark of the Covenant...Parfitt became convinced that the ordinary looking wooden object in the storeroom of the Musuem of Human Sciences in Harare, Zimbabwe, really was the ­remains of the lost Ark...now, almost a year later, Parfitt is worried. Since the publication of his book and the broadcast of the documentaries, the whereabouts of his intriguing discovery are once again unknown. Parfitt says he has been told by sources close to family members of the autocratic Zimbabwean president Robert ­Mugabe that the object is now in the possession of one of Mugabe’s relations, perhaps even Mugabe himself.

...Parfitt was struck by the similarities between the Lemba’s description of the ngoma and the Bible’s description of the Ark of the Covenant. Both were carried on poles and not allowed to touch the ground, both were brought into battle as a way of guaranteeing victory and both were guarded by a priest class, whose male descendants would inherit the guarding role. In the case of the Ark these men were the Levites; those guarding the ngoma were called the Buba...research from the cutting edge of science brought Parfitt a step closer to his goal. A study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics discovered the men of the Lemba tribe really did show evidence in their DNA that they had descended from Jewish tribes who had subsequently married into African families. What’s more, DNA analysis has discovered genetic markers unique to Jewish priests, proving that they really had descended from a common ancestor, believed to be Levi.

When Parfitt’s colleagues carried out DNA tests on the Buba, the Lemba priests, they discovered the same frequency of the unique genetic markers as in Jewish priests.

...Now the object is missing, further analysis is impossible.

“At first the authorities in Zimbabwe had been relatively uninterested in what we were doing but as they began to appreciate what we had found the threats started,” says Parfitt. “Members of my team who had been allowed to film the ngoma were told that if they tried to return they would come to harm or be thrown in jail.”

Parfitt also says that sources who have told him of the Mugabe family’s interest in the Ark have stressed that their lives could be in danger for even discussing its present whereabouts. These aren’t empty threats. Mugabe’s thugs have killed and tortured countless people. At least half of Zimbabwe’s population is in danger of starvation and cholera is killing one in 20 citizens.

If Parfitt’s suspicions are correct and Mugabe really does have possession of the sacred Ark of the Covenant, it could hardly be in more evil hands.

Jewish tradition has the ark hidden somewhere below the surface of the Temple Mount.