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2 Chron 36:18. "He (Nebuchadnezzar) carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord's temple and the treasures of the king and his officials."

According to this, the ark was taken in 586 from Jerusalem. Probably in the basement of one of Saddam's palaces or buried out in the Iraqi desert somewhere.

The theory is that the Ark was hidden before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, thus it was not among the objects carried away. Another theory that has not been mentioned in this thread is that the Romans took the Ark when they destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D., and that it can be found among the treasures of the Vatican.

My personal wish is that it will be found, the sooner the better, and the Third Temple rebuilt. At least we don't have to wait too long to find out if this latest theory is right!

The ark had already been removed from the temple and hidden by Gods direction. The ark and most of the other important temple items were not taken to Babylon.

Right now, I would say that Ron Wyat has the most likely discovery.

All the temple rites were 'types' or 'pictures' of what God had planed for the forgiveness of sin.

When on the day of atonement, the high priest splattered the blood of the sacifical lamb on the ark, it repersented Jesus as out high priest spilling His own on the Ark when He was crucified.

The lamb that was sacrificed had to be perfect in every way and spotless.

The high priest also had to be acceptable in Gods sight. It was not uncommon for a high priest to be struck dead when entering the 'holy of holies' or the part of the temple that the ark was located in. The high priest had a rope tied around his leg so that if he was struck dead, the other priests and temple workers could pull him out without being struck down themselves.

The 'picture' or 'type' represented by the temple worship was of a perfect sacrifice made by the high priest who alone was aceptable to God.

If a 'high priest' was unaceptable to God, he would lose his life simply by entering the 'holy of holies' or attempting to splatter the blood on the ark.

According to this, the ark was taken in 586 from Jerusalem.

Nope. As for the vessels and everything else carried away, they were returned - all of them. There are numerous extant texts in Judaism that point to the ark being hidden by Jeremiah.

Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. And this is the number of them: thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty basons of gold, silver basons of a second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand. All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem.

Ezra 1:7-11