The Ark, the Levites, and the Weight of Heaven

A memoir of an afternoon at Oxford, concerning the Ark of the Covenant, electricity, levitation, miracles, and the rather unfortunate consequences of all

Oxford, Michaelmas Term, November 2019.

There are afternoons in Oxford when one goes in expecting to learn something and comes away wondering whether the foundations of the universe have been quietly rearranged in one's absence.

I have always considered Oxford particularly susceptible to such afternoons. Its buildings have an unfortunate habit of making ordinary questions appear ancient, its libraries possess the extraordinary capacity to turn a passing curiosity into a lifelong affliction, and its scholars, when sufficiently encouraged, can make an innocent observation about a biblical footnote sound like the opening declaration of a theological revolution.

I had gone to the University that Thursday expecting nothing more dangerous than a lecture on The Ark of the Covenant.

It was advertised modestly enough: The Ark of the Covenant: Construction, Symbolism and Historical Interpretation. The notice had appeared on a departmental board, printed in a font which suggested that the organisers had either run out of money or deliberately wished to discourage enthusiasm. The lecture was to be delivered by a young undergraduate, a student of theology whose name I shall omit, partly out of discretion and partly because I have never thought it particularly gentlemanly to immortalise the mortification of another person.

She was, I was told, in her second year.

I remember thinking that this was rather ambitious. The Ark of the Covenant is one of those subjects upon which a man can spend half his life and still discover, on a wet Tuesday afternoon, that he has misunderstood the arrangement of the carrying poles.

I had brought a notebook, a fountain pen, and a small collection of questions which I considered sufficiently harmless to be kept in reserve. I had also brought my usual determination not to speak unless absolutely necessary, a resolution which, as events would demonstrate, was to prove rather less durable than I had intended.

The conference was held in one of those Oxford rooms whose furniture seems to have been inherited from several different centuries, none of which was particularly pleased with the others. There were long tables, wooden chairs, a projector which had evidently been designed by someone with a personal grievance against technology, and windows overlooking a quadrangle in which the November light had settled into that peculiar Oxford grey which makes even the most cheerful building appear to be contemplating its own mortality.

The audience was a curious mixture.

There were theologians, historians, a couple of archaeologists, a lecturer in ancient languages, two physicists, a gentleman whose badge identified him as a specialist in the history of scientific instruments, and several students who had come, I suspect, because the conference had promised refreshments.

I took a seat towards the back.

The young lecturer stood at the front, arranging her notes with the careful concentration of someone who had spent considerably more time preparing them than she intended to admit. She wore a dark blue dress, had her fair hair tied back, and possessed that particular expression of academic earnestness which one often encounters in young people who have not yet discovered that the world is considerably less interested in their qualifications than their supervisors have led them to believe.

She smiled nervously.

"Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming."

She looked at her notes.

"Today I shall be discussing the Ark of the Covenant, principally its biblical construction, its function in Israelite worship, and some of the more unusual interpretations which have appeared throughout history."

I liked her immediately.

She had prepared a modest lecture, and there is something to be admired in a person who knows precisely what she intends to say and has no apparent desire to say considerably more.

I wish I could report that the afternoon respected her intentions.

It did not.

I. A chest of acacia wood and gold

She began with Exodus 25.

The description was presented with admirable clarity. The Ark, she explained, was to be made of acacia wood, two and a half cubits in length, one and a half in width, and one and a half in height. It was to be overlaid with pure gold, both inside and outside, and furnished with a golden moulding around its upper edge.

She displayed a diagram.

I examined it with interest.

The dimensions, assuming a cubit of approximately eighteen inches, gave us a chest roughly forty-five inches long, twenty-seven inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high. The precise historical length of the cubit was, of course, subject to the usual disagreements, but the proportions were sufficiently clear.

She proceeded to identify the four golden rings, the two acacia-wood poles overlaid with gold, and the golden Mercy Seat, or Kapporet, upon which stood two cherubim with outstretched wings.

The cherubim faced one another, their wings extending over the Mercy Seat.

"According to Exodus 25:22," she said, "God promises to meet Moses above the Mercy Seat, from between the two cherubim."

She paused.

"The Ark therefore functions not simply as a container for sacred objects, but as the focal point of divine presence within the Israelite sanctuary."

I made a note.

The Ark was not, in the biblical conception, a throne in the ordinary sense, nor was it simply a repository. It was an object of extraordinary theological significance, associated with the covenant, the divine presence, and the relationship between God and Israel.

She mentioned the tablets of the Law, and then the familiar question of the additional objects associated with the Ark.

Hebrews 9:4 refers to the golden jar containing manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.

She was careful to distinguish this passage from 1 Kings 8:9, which explicitly states that the two stone tablets were inside the Ark.

I appreciated the distinction.

A young scholar who is willing to say that a biblical passage does not say quite what one might wish it to say is already displaying an academic virtue which some senior professors have managed to avoid for several decades.

She moved to the Ark's transportation.

Numbers 4:15, she explained, prescribed that the sons of Kohath were responsible for carrying the sacred objects, but were forbidden to touch them, lest they die. Aaron and his sons were first to cover the sanctuary furnishings.

Exodus 25:12–15 prescribed the rings and poles. The poles were to remain in the rings and were not to be removed.

Deuteronomy 10:8 further identified the Levites as those appointed to carry the Ark.

At this point she appeared perfectly comfortable.

She had explained the construction, the measurements, the symbolism, the contents, and the prescribed method of transportation. She had done so in perhaps fifteen minutes.

Then she made the mistake of mentioning Uzzah.

II. The unfortunate gentleman and the golden chest

The young lecturer displayed the familiar passage from 2 Samuel 6.

David had decided to bring the Ark from the house of Abinadab to Jerusalem. The Ark was placed upon a new cart, drawn by oxen, and accompanied by Uzzah and Ahio.

The oxen stumbled.

Uzzah reached out his hand and took hold of the Ark.

And he died.

She read the passage quietly.

"At first glance," she said, "the punishment appears extraordinarily severe. Uzzah's intention seems to have been protective. He appears to have been attempting to prevent the Ark from falling."

I found myself nodding.

There is something almost painfully human about the incident. A man sees something valuable about to fall and instinctively reaches out to save it. One can imagine the movement occurring before conscious thought has had time to intervene.

The lecturer continued.

"The parallel account in 1 Chronicles 13:10 says that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and that He smote him."

She displayed the King James wording:

"And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God."

The word "kindled" attracted the attention of a gentleman seated two rows ahead of me.

He was a physicist, as I subsequently discovered, and possessed the sort of eyebrows which suggest that he has spent much of his professional life waiting for other people to say something scientifically indefensible.

"Kindled," he repeated.

The young lecturer smiled.

"Yes."

"An interesting choice of translation."

She hesitated.

"Indeed."

He raised his hand, although the lecture had not yet reached the question period.

"Would you mind identifying the Hebrew?"

The lecturer looked down at her notes.

"The expression is wayyiḥar ʾaph YHWH."

"Precisely. And the verb?"

"From ḥārâ."

The physicist nodded.

"To burn, become hot, glow, or kindle. Figuratively, to become angry."

"Yes, I think so," she replied.

"Very interesting."

He sat back.

I had a feeling that the afternoon had just become more expensive than the organisers had budgeted for.

The lecturer attempted to return to her prepared remarks.

She explained that ḥārâ was a familiar Hebrew expression for anger, and that the noun ʾaph, ordinarily meaning nose or nostril, formed part of an idiom conveying burning indignation.

She cited Exodus 4:14, where the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and Numbers 11:1, where divine anger was kindled against Israel.

The physicist seemed satisfied, but a second gentleman, an elderly scholar of Hebrew literature, intervened.

"May I suggest that we be careful not to confuse metaphorical heat with physical heat?"

"Certainly," she replied.

"Because the text is describing divine anger, not an electrical event."

"Yes, absolutely."

The physicist smiled.

"Of course. But the question of whether an electrical event might have accompanied the incident is a separate matter."

There was a brief silence.

The lecturer looked at her notes.

I opened my notebook.

The Ark, it appeared, had begun to attract electricity.

III. The Leyden jar

The physicist introduced himself as a specialist in electrostatics.

He explained that the Ark had occasionally been compared to a Leyden jar, an early form of electrical capacitor developed during the eighteenth century.

A Leyden jar stores electrical charge by maintaining a potential difference between two conductive surfaces separated by an insulating dielectric.

Without waiting for an invitation, the expert rose, made his way to the blackboard, and proceeded to illustrate his argument with the confidence of a man who considered permission an unnecessary academic formality.

A glass vessel, conductive material on the inside, conductive material on the outside, and an insulating layer between them.

"Now," he said, "consider the construction of the Ark."

He listed the materials.

Acacia wood.

Gold.

More gold.

A golden covering.

Golden rings.

Golden cherubim.

The audience looked towards the diagram.

The physicist continued.

"If we were to consider the Ark as a hypothetical electrical apparatus, the inner gold plating might be compared to one electrode, the outer gold plating to another, and the wooden structure between them to an insulating layer."

Although the theory was by no means new to me, I have always found it an intriguing proposition. I remained, however, somewhat unconvinced that the gentleman had given due consideration to one rather inconvenient detail: the Ark, so far as Scripture tells us, was not the product of a design committee at the Institute of Electrical Engineers.

The elderly Hebrew scholar raised his hand.

"Would the wood have been sufficiently insulating?"

"Dry wood can be a reasonably good insulator. Its electrical properties depend considerably on moisture content, density, and other conditions."

"And the gold?"

"An excellent conductor."

"Then the Ark could have stored electricity?"

The physicist smiled.

"That is the hypothesis. Not a demonstrated fact."

A young man from the history of science department mentioned that the comparison had appeared in earlier discussions of the Ark's construction. He referred to eighteenth-century speculation associated with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.

I was interested.

The suggestion was not entirely absurd at the level of superficial construction. A conductive exterior, an insulating wooden body, and an inner conductive surface certainly invited comparison with a capacitor.

But the resemblance was not proof.

I wrote in my notebook:

The Ark may resemble a capacitor in certain structural respects. Resemblance does not establish function.

The physicist continued.

"A capacitor does not generate electricity. It stores electrical energy supplied by an external source. We would need to identify a plausible mechanism for charging it."

"Could friction have supplied one?" asked a student.

The physicist nodded.

"Potentially. Triboelectric charging occurs when materials are brought into contact and separated. Certain combinations of materials can produce substantial electrostatic charges."

The student leaned forward.

"Wool and gold?"

"Possibly, although the actual behaviour would depend on the surfaces, their condition, humidity, and the precise materials involved."

The young lecturer looked increasingly fascinated.

She had, I suspected, begun to realise that her original fifteen-minute lecture was in danger of becoming a rather different undertaking.

Someone mentioned the curtains of the Tabernacle.

The discussion moved to linen, wool, animal fibres, and the possibility that repeated handling of coverings could produce static electricity.

The physicist was careful, though.

"There is no evidence that the Ark was charged in this fashion. Nor is friction against an external gold surface sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate that a charge would have accumulated between two isolated electrodes."

"But could it happen?" asked another participant.

"In principle, electrostatic charging is entirely possible. Whether this particular construction could retain a dangerous charge is another question."

I looked towards the lecturer.

She was no longer reading her notes.

She was watching the conversation with the expression of someone who has discovered that a small hole in a garden fence may lead to an underground railway.

IV. Uzzah and the completed circuit

The physicist returned to Uzzah.

"If the Ark had accumulated a sufficiently large electrical potential, and if the outer conductive surface were charged, contact by a human being could conceivably produce a discharge."

He drew a human figure beside the Ark.

"The body is conductive. If the person provides a path through which charge can move, a discharge could occur."

"Could it kill him?" asked the student.

"Certainly, under appropriate circumstances. Electrical current passing through the chest can disrupt the heart's normal rhythm. The consequences depend upon the current, its duration, the path through the body, and the available energy."

I looked again at the biblical passage.

Uzzah reaches out.

He touches the Ark.

He dies.

The sequence was sufficiently dramatic to make even the most restrained imagination pause.

But the physicist immediately introduced a qualification.

"One should not imagine that any charged object is automatically lethal. Nor should one assume that a Leyden jar of this hypothetical size could necessarily deliver a fatal discharge. We have no measurements, no demonstrated charging mechanism, and no evidence that the Ark was constructed as a capacitor."

The elderly Hebrew scholar nodded approvingly.

"Quite right. We must not turn a biblical narrative into an electrical laboratory report."

"Nor," replied the physicist, "must we assume that a theological account excludes the possibility of a physical mechanism."

That sentence, though familiar to me from some time ago, nevertheless caught my attention.

I wrote it down.

There are occasions when two men disagree not because one is right and the other wrong, but because each is standing at a different window looking at the same landscape.

The lecturer, meanwhile, appeared to have abandoned all hope of returning to her original presentation.

A gentleman from the theological faculty raised another question.

"Doesn't the account in 1 Chronicles itself tell us why Uzzah died? The text attributes the event to divine anger."

"Yes," replied the physicist. "But the attribution of an event to divine agency and the existence of a physical mechanism are not logically identical questions."

The elderly scholar considered this.

"That may be so, but the text does not invite us to replace its theological explanation with a speculative mechanical one."

"Agreed," said the physicist.

I was pleased to see that the conversation had not yet deteriorated into the usual academic sport of attempting to prove that a man is an idiot because he has used a noun in the wrong discipline.

It was, at least, still civilised.

V. The Levites and the extraordinary coincidence

The next contribution came from a student of classical languages.

He had been examining the lecturer's earlier reference to the Levites.

"There's an interesting linguistic coincidence here," he said. "Levites and levitation."

The lecturer smiled.

"Yes?"

"Could there be a connection?"

I sat upright.

At last, a question worthy of a gentleman who had spent an unreasonable proportion of his life examining the habits of words.

The student explained that Levite came through Greek and Latin from the Hebrew name Levi, whereas levitation derived from Latin levis, just meaning light.

Therefore, the two words were not etymologically related.

The lecturer nodded. Then she asked:

"So the similarity is accidental?"

"Entirely, as far as the historical linguistic evidence is concerned."

I was disappointed.

Not terribly disappointed, naturally. I have survived considerably greater disappointments, including the loss of a perfectly respectable cricket match to a side whose principal qualification appeared to be enthusiasm.

Nevertheless, I thought the coincidence deserved some attention.

"May I suggest," I said, "that although the words might be unrelated, the juxtaposition is rather irresistible?"

Several people turned towards me.

The lecturer looked relieved to discover that another person intended to speak.

I continued.

"The Levites were appointed to carry the Ark. Levitation, meanwhile, describes the suspension of an object above a supporting surface. It is tempting to imagine that the Levites were not required to make the Ark levitate, but merely to carry it in such a manner that nobody was tempted to discover whether it could do so unaided."

There was laughter.

The lecturer laughed too.

I was pleased.

I have always considered it a useful academic service to remind a room full of serious

people that the English language occasionally possesses a sense of humour.

The classical scholar smiled.

"An excellent coincidence, Sir."

I inclined my head.

"Timothy Monday."

He nodded.

"An excellent coincidence, Mr Monday."

The physicist, however, had already returned to his diagram.

"Levitation itself is not entirely imaginary," he said. "Electrostatic levitation is a real experimental phenomenon."

He explained that charged objects could be suspended by carefully controlled electric fields, provided the upward electrostatic force balanced gravitational attraction.

He wrote an equation regarding gravity.

The lecturer looked at the equation.

"Would that mean the Ark could have levitated?"

"Not merely because it behaved as a capacitor. A capacitor stores electrical energy; it does not automatically create a stable levitating field. We would need external charges, electrodes, or another suitable mechanism."

"Could atmospheric electricity provide that?"

The physicist considered the question.

"An atmospheric electric field can exert forces on charged objects. Under certain conditions, it can also produce corona discharge around conductive points. But whether anything approaching the weight of the Ark could be supported is an entirely different question."

The cherubim appeared on the screen again.

Someone suggested that their projecting wings might concentrate electrical fields.

The physicist nodded cautiously.

"Sharp conductive features can concentrate electric fields. That is a genuine physical phenomenon. But it does not establish that the cherubim functioned as electrical terminals."

The lecturer looked at the diagram.

"Would the Ark itself have needed to be charged?"

"Not necessarily. An external field can induce charge separation in a conductor. But stable levitation requires much more than simply placing a conductive object in an atmospheric field."

I found myself thinking that the cherubim had been promoted rather rapidly from objects of theological symbolism to experimental electrodes able to fly.

I wondered whether they would have approved.

VI. The possibility of an Ark that moved without being carried

It was at this point that the discussion took a turn which I had not anticipated.

The young lecturer, who had by now abandoned the distinction between her prepared notes and the proceedings of the conference, asked whether there was any possibility that the Ark might have been associated with atmospheric electricity rather than merely storing a charge generated by friction.

The physicist seemed genuinely pleased.

"That is a more interesting question," he said.

He began discussing atmospheric electricity.

The Earth possesses an electric field under ordinary fair-weather conditions. Thunderstorms can produce much more intense electrical environments, with substantial differences in electrical potential between clouds, the atmosphere and the ground.

A conductive object exposed to such conditions can become electrically polarised. Depending on its geometry and surroundings, it may experience electrical forces.

He mentioned corona discharge, the ionisation of air around sufficiently intense electric fields, and the behaviour of sharp metallic projections.

Someone mentioned St Elmo's fire.

I confess that I have always liked St Elmo's fire. It possesses the advantage of being a genuine atmospheric electrical phenomenon while sounding like something invented by a particularly imaginative Victorian novelist.

The physicist explained that luminous electrical discharges can appear around pointed conductive objects in strong electric fields, particularly during storms.

"Imagine," said the lecturer, "the golden cherubim."

The physicist smiled.

"Yes. One could certainly investigate the electrical behaviour of such a structure in a controlled experiment."

The elderly scholar raised an eyebrow.

"Are you proposing that the Ark was a weather instrument?"

"No," replied the physicist. "I am proposing that a metal-covered wooden object exposed to an electrical environment might behave in ways that could be investigated experimentally."

I admired his restraint.

There is a difference between being curious and being prepared to announce that one has discovered the secret of the universe. The latter is generally a sign that the former has gone badly wrong.

Another participant raised the question of the Tabernacle itself.

Could its curtains, poles, coverings and surrounding materials have affected electrical behaviour?

The physicist replied that this would depend upon the precise construction, moisture, grounding, geometry, and the electrical properties of the materials.

He was particularly careful about the suggestion that the Ark might have been electrically isolated.

The gold plating could have been connected at its edges. The golden rim, the upper surface, and the other metallic components might have created electrical pathways which would defeat the proposed capacitor arrangement.

Furthermore, the biblical description did not provide the precise details necessary to establish whether the inner and outer gold layers were electrically separated.

The lecturer was taking notes furiously.

I began to suspect that her supervisor would receive a rather unusual account of the afternoon.

The discussion eventually returned to levitation.

The physicist drew a distinction between electrostatic suspension and electromagnetic suspension. He explained that the forces involved were different, and that an ordinary electrostatic field did not automatically provide stable levitation for a macroscopic object.

Someone mentioned diamagnetic levitation.

The physicist explained that certain materials can be suspended in sufficiently strong magnetic fields through diamagnetic effects, but that the Ark's described materials offered no obvious reason to suppose such a mechanism was involved.

The lecturer asked whether the Ark could have appeared to float.

The physicist paused.

"An object can appear to float for several reasons. It may be suspended by an invisible support, balanced by a force, or observed under conditions which conceal its actual means of support. But we should distinguish an appearance of levitation from genuine levitation."

I wrote this down too.

It was becoming a very expensive afternoon in terms of notebook paper.

I had not expected to attend a lecture on the Ark and leave with a collection of notes concerning atmospheric electricity, dielectric breakdown, electrostatic induction, and the linguistic ancestry of a Hebrew patriarch.

Oxford, I thought, was behaving perfectly normally.

It was the rest of the world which had become unreasonable.

VII. The Ark, the cart, and David's unfortunate decision

The elderly theologian now returned the discussion to the biblical narrative.

He reminded everyone that, whatever electrical possibilities one might entertain, the account of Uzzah's death could not be separated from the regulations governing the transportation of the Ark.

He opened Numbers 4:15.

The Kohathites were responsible for carrying the sacred objects, but were forbidden to touch them.

He then opened Exodus 25:12–15.

The Ark was to have four golden rings and two poles, and the poles were to remain in the rings.

Finally, he cited Deuteronomy 10:8.

The Levites had been set apart to carry the Ark of the Covenant.

"These instructions," he said, "precede David by centuries in the biblical chronology. The method of transportation was not an invention of David's administration."

The lecturer nodded.

"But David used a cart."

"Precisely."

The theologian turned to 2 Samuel 6.

The Ark was placed upon a new cart, drawn by oxen, with Uzzah and Ahio accompanying it.

The resemblance to the earlier Philistine transportation of the Ark in 1 Samuel 6 was noted.

The Philistines had also used a new cart.

I found this rather interesting.

The Ark had been returned to Israel by the Philistines using a cart, but the Israelites possessed an entirely different set of instructions governing its transportation.

It was one thing for the Philistines, who did not possess the Mosaic regulations, to employ a cart. It was another for Israel to do so.

The lecturer asked whether Uzzah was himself a Levite.

The theologian replied that the biblical text identified him as a son of Abinadab but did not establish his tribal ancestry with sufficient certainty.

It was therefore unsafe to declare that he was not a Levite.

But even if he had been one, the Kohathites were forbidden to touch the holy objects.

The distinction was important.

The physicist, who had been listening patiently, raised his hand.

"Would it be fair to say, then, that the Ark was not intended to be carried by ordinary contact with its exterior?"

"Exactly," replied the theologian.

"Which would be relevant if one were considering the possibility of electrical discharge."

"Potentially," said the theologian. "But we must be careful not to suggest that the Torah was written as an electrical safety manual."

There was laughter.

The lecturer laughed rather nervously.

The theologian continued.

"David himself eventually acknowledged the mistake. In 1 Chronicles 15:2, he declares that none ought to carry the Ark except the Levites, whom the Lord had chosen to carry it."

He then read 1 Chronicles 15:13:

"Because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order."

There was a pause.

"And in verse fifteen," he continued, "the Levites carry the Ark upon their shoulders using the poles, as Moses had commanded."

I considered this a particularly important point.

The first procession had been organised incorrectly. The second was conducted according to the prescribed arrangement.

The lecturer looked towards the physicist.

"Would you say that, if the Ark had been electrically charged, the Levites might have avoided the danger by using the poles?"

The physicist considered his answer.

"Possibly, depending upon the electrical configuration. The poles might have altered the manner in which a person approached the object, but whether they would have provided meaningful electrical insulation would depend upon their material, moisture, surface condition, and the arrangement of the gold."

"Acacia wood," she said.

"Yes. Wood can be insulating when sufficiently dry. But one cannot simply assume that the poles would have functioned as perfect electrical insulators."

The elderly theologian smiled.

"Then perhaps the Lord had already prescribed the safest arrangement."

The physicist returned the smile.

"That is a theological conclusion. It is not an electrical measurement."

I thought this was rather well put.

I raised what seemed to me an obvious difficulty. If the poles themselves were overlaid with gold, and passed through gold rings attached to the Ark, why had the Levites who carried it not received an electrical shock?

The conventional explanation given by the physicist was straightforward enough: the gold was merely a thin covering over a substantial core of acacia wood, an excellent insulator under suitable conditions. The more adventurous electrical hypothesis, however, required a little further ingenuity.

One suggestion was that the poles thus coated might have provided a means of equalising electrical potential between the carriers, rather than allowing a discharge to pass through any one of them.

I confess I found this an ingenious attempt to rescue the theory, though not an entirely convincing one.

The notion of the poles as some primitive grounding arrangement was, after all, speculation rather than established engineering; and I was not persuaded that the introduction of a few gold rings and wooden shafts had quite solved the electrical difficulties of the Ark.

The gentleman, however, had evidently anticipated another objection.

If the poles and the outer casing shared the same electrical potential, he argued, then the Levites might have carried the Ark without danger, rather as a bird may perch upon a high-voltage wire without suffering harm: there would be no significant difference in potential between their hands and the poles, and consequently no current passing through them. The wooden cores of the poles, moreover, would have provided further insulation. The danger, he suggested, lay not in carrying the Ark but in completing the circuit. The carriers, protected by the relative insulation of their wooden poles, dry ground and perhaps leather sandals, could remain unharmed so long as they did not make contact with a point of different potential. If a carrier suddenly touched the bare ground while touching a highly charged Ark, they would become a lightning rod, grounding the circuit and suffering a lethal shock.

Uzzah might have touched the casing or the golden lid at precisely the wrong moment, perhaps while the Ark was making contact with the ground, thereby providing a path for a sudden discharge through his body. The golden crown and the outstretched cherubim, he ventured, might even have served as points of concentrated electrical discharge.

It was a remarkably elaborate reconstruction, and I admired its ingenuity; but admiration, as I have occasionally had to remind younger scholars, is not the same thing as assent. The whole explanation depended upon a series of assumptions about the Ark's electrical properties, its charging mechanism, and the precise circumstances of Uzzah's death for which the biblical account offers no physical evidence. It was an interesting hypothesis, certainly, but one should be wary of allowing an ingenious circuit diagram to acquire the authority of Scripture.

I also thought that the young lecturer was beginning to look as though she would have preferred to have spent the afternoon discussing the decorative function of the cherubim.

She had not yet reached the worst of it.

VIII. The burning anger of the Lord

The discussion returned, inevitably, to the word "kindled".

The Hebrew scholar had been consulting his notes.

He explained that the verb in 1 Chronicles 13:10 was ḥārâ, a word associated with burning, becoming hot, glowing, and figuratively becoming angry.

The construction wayyiḥar ʾaph YHWH was an idiomatic expression describing the anger of the Lord.

The noun ʾaph meant nose or nostril, and the expression evoked the imagery of heated indignation.

He mentioned Genesis 4:5, Exodus 4:14, and Numbers 11:1.

"The language of heat," he said, "is common in descriptions of anger."

The physicist nodded.

"Indeed. But it is worth remembering that heat and electrical discharge are not unrelated physical phenomena."

The Hebrew scholar looked at him.

"Are you suggesting that the Hebrew verb contains an electrical meaning?"

"No. Absolutely not. I am saying that the physical world contains several forms of energy which may produce heat, light, and other effects."

"Then we agree."

"Entirely."

I was beginning to admire the way in which the afternoon was proceeding.

Nobody had yet attempted to prove that the Hebrew language contained a concealed electrical engineering manual, although I had no doubt that someone somewhere would eventually publish a book suggesting precisely that.

The young lecturer asked another question.

"If the Ark had discharged electricity, could the discharge have produced light?"

"Yes, an electrical discharge through air can produce a visible flash or spark. But whether a particular discharge would have been visible, and whether it could have been fatal, would depend on its electrical characteristics."

"Would it produce heat?"

"Certainly. Electrical discharges can produce heat. They can also produce light, sound, and ionisation."

The Hebrew scholar folded his arms.

"Which is fascinating, but does not establish that the word "kindled" describes any such event."

"Agreed," replied the physicist.

I intervened.

"Perhaps we should distinguish between what the text says, what the text might permit us to imagine, and what we can demonstrate."

The lecturer looked towards me.

I continued.

"The Hebrew expression describes divine anger. That is its meaning in the passage. Whether the event also involved a physical process is a separate question. We must not force the language to do work which it was never intended to perform."

The elderly scholar nodded.

The physicist smiled.

The lecturer wrote something down.

I was pleased to have contributed something which did not require a diagram.

IX. Those who went upwards

I thought the conference might now return to its original subject.

I was mistaken.

A young theologian sitting near the window raised his hand.

"If we are considering the possibility of levitation in biblical accounts, what about Elijah?"

The lecturer looked up.

"Elijah?"

"Yes. Second Kings 2:11."

The passage was read aloud by him.

"And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

The room became interested again.

The theologian explained that Elijah's departure was one of the most extraordinary accounts of bodily transportation in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Elisha witnesses the event. The chariots and horses of fire separate the two men, and Elijah is carried upwards in a whirlwind.

The physicist looked thoughtful.

"That is certainly an account of upward movement, but it does not describe levitation in the scientific sense."

"Naturally," replied the theologian. "It is a theological narrative."

The lecturer displayed the verse.

I found myself considering the distinction between being lifted and lifting oneself.

Elijah does not appear to exercise an independent power of flight. He is taken.

This is important.

The biblical narrative presents the event as an act of divine initiative, not as a technique which Elijah has mastered.

Then, another student mentioned Enoch.

Genesis 5:24.

"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."

The student explained that Hebrews 11:5 develops the account, saying that Enoch was translated so that he should not see death.

Here, again, we have an extraordinary departure without a detailed description of its physical mechanism.

I was interested in the use of the word translated.

It is a word which has acquired several meanings in English, but in the biblical context it conveys removal or transfer.

The young lecturer began writing on the board.

She listed Enoch and Elijah.

Naturally, the theologian then added Jesus.

And the room fell silent.

X. The Ascension of Christ

The lecturer opened Acts 1:9.

"And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight."

The Ascension is, of course, central to Christian theology.

Jesus, following his Resurrection, is taken up before the disciples, and the cloud receives him from their sight.

The theologian explained that this was not simply another instance of a person being transported from one location to another.

The Ascension belongs to the Christian understanding of Christ's glorification and return to the Father.

The physicist, who had remained remarkably patient throughout the afternoon, asked whether the event should be described as levitation.

The theologian replied that the biblical language describes upward movement, but the theological meaning cannot be reduced to a mechanical description.

"One might describe the visible movement," he said, "but one would not thereby explain the event."

I liked that distinction.

The Ascension is not a demonstration of an unusual physical ability which Jesus possessed and could have employed at will.

It is a theological event, understood within the Christian account of salvation.

The lecturer added the Ascension to the board.

Enoch.

Elijah.

Jesus.

She then included Philip.

Acts 8:39–40.

After baptising the Ethiopian eunuch, Philip is caught away by the Spirit of the Lord. He subsequently appears at Azotus.

The physicist raised an eyebrow.

"That is a rather interesting form of transportation."

The theologian smiled.

"It is."

"Does the text specify the distance?"

"No."

"Or the speed?"

"No."

"Or the physical mechanism?"

"No."

"Then we should perhaps resist the temptation to calculate the acceleration."

There was laughter.

I confess that I rather liked the idea of an Oxford physicist being invited to calculate the acceleration of an apostle.

I imagined the resulting paper:

The Kinematics of Philip: A Preliminary Investigation into Spirit-Mediated Transportation.

It would probably receive a grant.

The lecturer added Philip to the board.

Then Paul.

Second Corinthians 12:2–4.

Paul describes a man caught up into the third heaven, and then into Paradise.

The passage is particularly interesting because Paul admits that he does not know whether the experience occurred in the body or outside the body.

The physicist looked pleased.

"That is an important qualification."

The theologian nodded.

"It is."

The lecturer added Paul.

Finally, Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 8:3.

The prophet describes being lifted by the Spirit and brought in visions to Jerusalem.

The theologian explained that Ezekiel's experiences are frequently associated with visionary transportation.

The lecturer added his name.

The board was now becoming crowded.

I counted six figures.

Enoch.

Elijah.

Jesus.

Philip.

Paul.

Ezekiel.

The young lecturer looked at the list and then at her original notes.

I could almost hear the little lecture dying.

XI. Simon Magus takes flight

It was at this point that I remembered the woman whom I shall not name; and I introduced Simon Magus.

I had not intended to do so.

Indeed, I had been rather pleased with myself for having remained relatively quiet, and I have always found that the surest way to ruin a good afternoon is to begin believing that one has managed it successfully.

But the opportunity was too tempting.

"May I suggest another name?"

The lecturer turned towards me.

"Certainly."

"Simon Magus."

There was an immediate response from the theologian.

"Ah!"

The physicist looked puzzled.

"Who?"

"Simon the Magician," I replied.

I explained that Simon appears in Acts 8:9–24 as a Samaritan practitioner of magic who astonishes the people through his activities.

He becomes a Christian, at least outwardly, after encountering Philip, but subsequently attempts to purchase the power of conferring the Holy Spirit from Peter and John.

Peter rebukes him severely.

The incident gives us the word simony, referring to the buying or selling of ecclesiastical offices or spiritual privileges.

The theologian nodded.

"But Simon does not fly in Acts."

"Quite correct."

I continued.

"His alleged flight belongs to later Christian tradition, particularly the apocryphal Acts of Peter."

The lecturer looked interested.

I explained that, in the later narrative, Simon demonstrates his supposed powers in Rome, including the ability to fly through the air.

Peter confronts him through prayer, and Simon falls.

The details vary across the traditions, but the episode became an important representation of the confrontation between apostolic authority and deceptive supernatural spectacle.

The physicist leaned forward.

"So we have a man who claims to possess supernatural powers, and an apostle who exposes him?"

"That is the broad narrative."

"Then he belongs in a different category from Elijah."

"Entirely."

The theologian intervened.

"Simon is not presented as a holy man who has been taken by God. He is a magician whose supposed abilities are associated with deception and spiritual pride."

I nodded.

"Precisely. It is important not to confuse the two."

The lecturer added Simon Magus to the board, but placed a small asterisk beside his name.

"Later Christian tradition," she wrote.

I thought this was an admirable precaution.

The physicist examined the list.

"Are we now suggesting that all these figures were levitating?"

"No," I replied. "Strictly speaking, to levitate is to rise in the air and float, or to remain suspended in the air, as though in defiance of the ordinary forces of nature. What we are considering here, however, is whether biblical and later Christian literature contains several accounts of extraordinary upward movement, transportation, and apparent suspension. Whether any of these should properly be described as levitation depends upon the precise nature of the event being recounted."

The physicist nodded.

"That is fair."

I was rather pleased.

We had, at last, achieved a distinction which might have survived a faculty meeting.

XII. The sea and the two men who walked upon it

The discussion might have ended there, had not the lecturer herself raised another rather innocent question.

"What about Jesus and Peter walking on the water?"

I looked towards her.

"Ah."

Someone opened Matthew 14.

The passage was familiar to everyone, but it acquired a different dimension in the context of our discussion.

Jesus approaches the disciples' boat, walking upon the sea.

Peter asks to come to him.

Jesus says:

"Come."

Peter steps out of the boat and walks towards Jesus. But when he becomes frightened by the wind, he begins to sink.

The lecturer read the passage slowly.

The physicist considered it.

"That is not levitation."

"Why not?" asked the student who had originally raised the question.

"Because levitation means suspension above a supporting surface. The narrative describes walking upon the surface of the water."

"But the water cannot ordinarily support a human being in that manner."

"Correct. Which is why the narrative is presented as miraculous."

The theologian smiled.

"One might say that the miracle is not that Jesus was lifted above the water, but that the ordinary relationship between the human body and the water was overcome."

I thought this was a rather elegant observation.

Peter's experience was particularly interesting.

He did not simply watch Jesus perform the miracle. He was invited to participate.

He stepped out of the boat.

He walked.

Then he began to sink.

The physicist made a distinction between the physical description and the theological interpretation.

"From a scientific perspective, we cannot infer a mechanism from the narrative. We can describe what the text says, but we cannot establish the physical process."

The theologian nodded.

"And from a theological perspective, the passage is concerned with faith, fear, and the identity of Christ."

The lecturer looked at the board.

Enoch.

Elijah.

Jesus.

Philip.

Paul.

Ezekiel.

Simon Magus.

And now Peter.

She added him beneath Jesus.

I watched her do it.

She had begun the afternoon with a modest presentation about the construction of a sacred chest.

She now possessed a blackboard containing a comparative catalogue of biblical ascension, transportation, alleged flight, and water-walking.

I began to feel rather sorry for her.

She had not asked for any of this.

XIII. The distinction between the supernatural and the impossible

By this stage, the conference had acquired an atmosphere which I can only describe as academically combustible.

The physicist had drawn three diagrams, the Hebrew scholar had corrected two translations, the theologian had quoted half a dozen passages, and the young lecturer had stopped pretending that she was in control of the proceedings.

The discussion had become less concerned with the Ark itself and more concerned with the relationship between the supernatural and the physical world.

A question was raised from the back.

"Is the supernatural necessarily a violation of the laws of physics?"

It was an excellent question.

The theologian answered first.

"That depends upon what one means by supernatural. If one means an event caused by divine agency, then one need not necessarily suppose that the event violates every physical law. One might say that the physical world is the means through which the event occurs."

The physicist looked thoughtful.

"That is a philosophical proposition, not a scientific one."

"Certainly."

"Science investigates regularities in the physical world. If an event is reported which appears inconsistent with those regularities, we investigate the evidence, the circumstances, and the possibility of an explanation. We cannot simply declare that a supernatural cause has been demonstrated."

"Nor," replied the theologian, "can science demonstrate that no supernatural cause exists."

The physicist smiled.

"That is also true."

I began to feel that we were approaching something rather more important than the Ark's electrical properties.

The lecturer asked whether a miracle could be understood as an event in which the ordinary operation of nature was altered by divine intervention.

The theologian replied that this was a traditional understanding, although Christian thinkers had expressed it in different ways.

He mentioned Augustine and Aquinas.

The physicist, meanwhile, reminded everyone that the laws of physics describe observed regularities and that a claimed exception must be investigated carefully.

"One should not confuse the absence of an explanation with evidence for a particular explanation," he said.

I agreed.

I have always found that the most dangerous sentence in intellectual life is: We cannot explain it, therefore it must be what I say it is.

It is a sentence which has launched a thousand unnecessary books.

I offered a thought of my own.

"Perhaps we should distinguish between what is physically impossible under ordinary conditions and what is theologically impossible under any circumstances."

The theologian turned towards me.

"Explain."

I said that the biblical narratives did not present God as a particularly unusual physical object moving about within an otherwise closed universe.

They presented God as the Creator of the universe itself.

If one accepts that theological premise, then the laws of nature are not independent authorities standing above God. They describe the ordinary order of creation.

A miracle, in that framework, need not be understood as nature somehow defeating its own Creator.

The physicist considered this.

"That is a coherent theological position."

I thanked him.

I was careful not to suggest that it constituted a scientific proof.

One must be particularly cautious in Oxford. A man may be forgiven for holding an eccentric theological opinion, but he is unlikely to be forgiven for claiming that a theological opinion has been experimentally verified.

The elderly Hebrew scholar then made a point which I thought deserved greater attention.

He observed that the biblical narratives did not always concern themselves with the physical mechanics of extraordinary events.

They were concerned with meaning.

Elijah's departure was not recorded to provide an account of atmospheric dynamics.

The Ascension was not described to furnish a study of human aerodynamics.

Philip's transportation was not intended to establish a new branch of geographical science.

And the Ark's encounter with Uzzah was not presented as an experiment in electrostatics.

The lecturer looked at him.

"Then are we wrong to ask these questions?"

"Not at all," he replied. "But we must know what sort of question we are asking."

I thought this was perhaps the most important observation of the afternoon.

There is nothing inherently improper about examining the physical possibilities surrounding a biblical event.

But a physical hypothesis should not be confused with the meaning of the biblical text, and a theological interpretation should not be presented as though it were a laboratory measurement.

We had spent nearly two hours discovering that a question can belong to several disciplines without becoming the property of any one of them.

XIV. A rather unfortunate question about the Ark's weight

Someone then asked how much the Ark would have weighed.

The physicist looked delighted.

At last, a question which could be answered without invoking the third heaven.

The lecturer returned to the dimensions.

Two and a half cubits by one and a half cubits by one and a half cubits.

Assuming a cubit of approximately 45.7 centimetres, the Ark would have measured roughly 114 centimetres in length and 69 centimetres in both width and height.

The actual weight could not be established from the biblical description.

It would depend upon the thickness of the wooden boards, the thickness of the gold covering, the construction of the Mercy Seat, the cherubim, the rings, and the poles.

Someone suggested thirty kilograms.

The physicist shook his head.

"That is an assumption, not a measurement."

The lecturer smiled.

"Then perhaps forty?"

"Also an assumption."

The audience laughed.

I was beginning to suspect that the physicist had made a private resolution never to allow anyone in the room to leave with a number.

The question was nevertheless useful.

If the Ark weighed thirty kilograms, an upward force of approximately 294 newtons would be required merely to balance its weight.

If it weighed forty kilograms, the required force would be approximately 392 newtons.

The physicist explained that the electrostatic force required for levitation would depend upon the electrical field and the charge distribution.

One could not simply say that a charged gold surface would rise because gold conducts electricity.

The lecturer looked at the Ark diagram.

"Then we cannot establish that it could levitate."

"No," replied the physicist. "We cannot."

"But we can establish that electrostatic levitation exists."

"Certainly."

"And that atmospheric electricity exists."

"Yes."

"And that the Ark contained conductive and insulating materials."

"According to the description, yes."

"Then there are three interesting facts."

The physicist smiled.

"Three interesting facts, yes. But not yet a demonstrated connection between them."

I found myself admiring the young woman's persistence.

She was no longer attempting to defend her original lecture. She was trying to understand the boundaries of what could legitimately be inferred.

That is a considerably more difficult undertaking.

XV. The poor girl discovers the price of curiosity

It was nearly five o'clock.

The November light had almost disappeared from the windows, and the room had acquired that peculiar artificial brightness which makes everyone appear slightly more exhausted than they actually are.

The lecturer looked at her notes.

Then she looked at the board.

Then she looked at the audience.

I noticed that her hands were trembling.

At first I thought she was simply tired.

She had been speaking for considerably longer than she had intended, and the discussion had become an unexpectedly demanding intellectual exercise.

It was then that someone ventured to ask whether we might reasonably conclude that the Ark had been an early form of electrical technology.

Another participant suggested that the biblical prohibition against touching it might be understood as an ancient safety precaution.

The Hebrew scholar objected.

The physicist qualified.

The theologian intervened.

A student asked whether we could conclude that the cherubim could have functioned as electrical terminals.

Someone else mentioned the Ark's disappearance from the biblical narrative.

Then, rather unexpectedly, the discussion returned to the question of whether the Levites had been required to carry the Ark because it was too dangerous to touch.

The young lecturer attempted to answer.

"I think we should be careful not to assume that..."

She stopped.

She looked down.

Her voice faltered.

"I mean, I haven't really..."

She tried again.

"I only intended to..."

And then she began to cry.

It was not theatrical crying.

It was not an attempt to attract sympathy.

It was the quiet, involuntary collapse of someone who has suddenly discovered that the room has become considerably larger than she had imagined, and that everyone inside it appears to possess more knowledge than she can possibly hope to acquire.

She covered her face with one hand.

There was a silence.

An uncomfortable, dreadful silence.

The physicist looked down at his notes.

The theologian closed his book.

The Hebrew scholar removed his spectacles.

Someone at the back shifted in his chair.

I looked at the young woman and felt a rather familiar sensation.

It was not embarrassment on her behalf.

It was recognition.

I have seen that expression before.

I have seen it in young people who have worked extraordinarily hard to prepare themselves for something, only to discover that the world has no intention of respecting the boundaries of their preparation.

It is a particularly cruel discovery because it often occurs at precisely the moment when they are beginning to believe that they might be good at something.

The chairman of the conference attempted to intervene.

"Perhaps we should take a short break."

The lecturer nodded, although she was clearly struggling to compose herself.

She apologised.

That was the part I disliked most.

She apologised.

She apologised for crying.

I wanted to tell her that she had absolutely nothing for which to apologise, but I decided that it was better not to approach her immediately.

A person who is crying in public does not necessarily wish to be comforted by a stranger, however well-intentioned he may be.

The chairman announced that refreshments would be available in the adjoining room.

The audience began to disperse.

The physicist approached the theologian.

The theologian approached the Hebrew scholar.

The students gathered around the refreshments.

I remained seated for a few moments.

I looked at the board.

It was a rather extraordinary sight.

There was the Ark, with its dimensions and golden cherubim.

There were the words Leyden jar.

There was a diagram of a capacitor.

There was the Hebrew verb ḥārâ.

There was the equation for electrostatic levitation.

And beneath it all was a list of people who had, in one way or another, gone upwards.

Enoch.

Elijah.

Jesus.

Philip.

Paul.

Ezekiel.

Simon Magus.

Peter.

I smiled.

The young woman had intended to explain a sacred chest.

She had inadvertently convened a symposium on the relationship between matter, energy, divine agency, and the limits of human knowledge.

I thought she had done rather well.

Indeed, I thought she had done something considerably more valuable than delivering a polished lecture.

She had opened a question.

And the question had opened a door.

Unfortunately, the people who had walked through it had brought their furniture.

XVI. The afternoon's final question

The conference resumed briefly after refreshments.

The young lecturer returned to the room.

Her eyes were still red, but she had recovered sufficiently to sit at the front again, and listen.

The chairman announced that there would be one final contribution before the proceedings closed.

The elderly theologian stood.

He looked towards the lecturer.

"I should like to say something about the nature of today's discussion."

The room became quiet.

He explained that the Ark of the Covenant was an extraordinary subject precisely

because it occupied several different intellectual worlds.

It was an object described in the Hebrew Scriptures.

It was a theological symbol.

It was an element of Israelite worship.

It had a prescribed method of transportation.

It had acquired an extraordinary history in Jewish and Christian imagination.

And, because of its unusual construction, it had also attracted speculative interpretations concerning its physical properties.

He paused.

"One may investigate the electrical hypothesis without believing it. One may investigate the theology without pretending that the physical questions are irrelevant. And one may study the biblical text without assuming that every question has already been answered."

He looked towards the young lecturer.

"I think our colleague has given us a very successful afternoon."

There was applause.

The lecturer looked rather astonished.

I joined in.

The chairman thanked everyone for attending and formally closed the conference.

The physicist packed his papers.

The Hebrew scholar collected his books.

The students began leaving.

I remained behind.

I had one matter to attend to.

XVII. A word to a young scholar

I found her standing near the window.

She was collecting her papers, placing them rather untidily into a folder, and attempting to restore some order to the afternoon.

I approached slowly.

"Miss?"

She turned.

"Yes?"

"May I say something?"

She nodded.

I introduced myself.

"Timothy Monday."

She smiled faintly.

"I know. You made the remark about the Levites and levitation."

"Ah. I had rather hoped that would be my principal contribution to the afternoon."

She laughed.

It was a small laugh, but it was genuine.

I asked whether she was feeling better.

"Yes. Thank you. I'm terribly sorry about earlier."

I raised my hand.

"Please don't."

She looked at me.

"I really wasn't expecting any of that. I had prepared a short lecture. I thought I knew what I was going to say. And then everyone started asking questions, and they seemed to know so much more than I did. I couldn't keep up."

I looked at her folder.

"May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Did you prepare your lecture?"

"Yes."

"Did you read the relevant biblical passages?"

"Yes."

"Did you investigate the construction of the Ark?"

"Yes."

"Did you identify the principal historical and theological questions?"

She nodded.

"And did you learn something this afternoon?"

She hesitated.

"Quite a lot, actually."

I smiled.

"Then I should say that your afternoon was rather more successful than you suppose."

She looked unconvinced.

I continued.

"You see, there is a rather unfortunate misconception about scholarship, particularly among young people. They imagine that the purpose of an academic lecture is to demonstrate how much the lecturer knows."

I paused.

"It isn't."

She looked at me attentively.

"The purpose of scholarship is to discover how much there is still to know."

She said nothing.

I continued.

"Today you began with a chest made of acacia wood and gold. You intended to explain its dimensions, its construction, its contents, and its significance. You did that. Then somebody asked about electricity. Somebody else asked about the Hebrew word for "kindling". Another person introduced the possibility of levitation. Before you knew it, you were discussing Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, Philip, Paul, Ezekiel, Simon Magus, and Peter."

She smiled.

"Yes."

"And at some point, I suspect, you began to feel that you were no longer qualified to speak about your own subject."

She nodded.

"That was exactly it."

"Well, allow me to tell you something."

I adjusted my cuff.

"Never mistake the discovery of how little you know for evidence that you are not qualified to learn."

She looked at me.

I continued.

"Every worthwhile academic discipline eventually leads to a point at which the student discovers that the subject is larger than the student. This is not a personal failure. It is the beginning of education."

I glanced towards the blackboard.

"The physicist knows about electricity, but he cannot establish the theology of the Ark. The theologian knows the biblical tradition, but he cannot calculate the electrical potential of a hypothetical capacitor. The Hebrew scholar understands the language, but he cannot tell us whether a golden cherub would produce a corona discharge under particular atmospheric conditions."

I smiled.

"And I, for my part, know enough about philology to tell you that Levites and levitation are astonishingly unrelated, but not enough about electricity to persuade a Leyden jar to carry itself across a quadrangle."

She laughed.

"Fortunately," I added, "Oxford has not yet made that a requirement for a degree."

She laughed again.

I let the moment pass.

Then I gave her the advice I had been considering.

"Listen carefully. There are three things I should like you to remember."

First: never be embarrassed by a question you cannot answer.

I told her that an academic who pretends to know everything has already ceased to be a serious scholar.

The honest answer to a difficult question is often:

"I do not know."

There is no shame in those words.

Indeed, I suggested that they were among the most important words in the entire vocabulary of intellectual life.

But I added something.

One must not stop there.

"I do not know" should be followed by "I shall investigate."

A scholar who does not know something but is willing to discover it is infinitely more valuable than one who knows the answer to everything because he has never permitted himself to question anything.

Secondly: never surrender your subject to someone else's enthusiasm.

I told her that the afternoon had demonstrated something important.

The physicist had approached the Ark from the standpoint of electrostatics.

The theologian had approached it from the standpoint of divine holiness.

The Hebrew scholar had approached it through the language of Scripture.

The historian had considered the development of the Leyden jar hypothesis.

Each had contributed something.

But none had possessed the whole subject.

I told her that she should never feel obliged to become an expert in every discipline merely because someone in the audience happens to know more about one of them.

"Your responsibility," I said, "is to understand your own subject well enough to recognise when another discipline has something useful to contribute."

She nodded.

"And remember this: interdisciplinary scholarship is not the same thing as intellectual surrender. You may welcome the physicist without allowing him to rewrite Exodus. You may welcome the theologian without allowing him to dismiss every physical question. And you may welcome the philologist without allowing him to turn every coincidence into an etymological revelation."

She smiled.

I thought of the Levites.

"Especially the philologist."

Thirdly: protect your curiosity from the people who make you afraid of it.

I told her that the most dangerous thing which could happen to a young scholar was not making a mistake.

It was becoming so frightened of making one that she eventually stopped asking questions.

There would always be people who knew more than she did.

There would always be professors with greater reputations, specialists with more publications, and gentlemen who could produce a Greek manuscript reference before she had finished asking her question.

Some would be generous.

Some would be impatient.

Some would be entirely convinced that the universe had been created principally to provide them with an audience.

She laughed.

I continued.

"Do not allow any of them to make you ashamed of being curious."

I looked towards the blackboard.

"Today you permitted a room full of people to explore a subject far beyond the boundaries of your prepared lecture. You listened. You asked questions. You allowed your understanding to be challenged. And when you discovered that you did not possess all the answers, you were distressed."

I paused.

"That is perfectly understandable. But it is not something you should be ashamed of."

She looked down at her folder.

I could see that she was listening very carefully.

Then I offered her what I hoped would be the most useful advice of the afternoon.

"Never aspire to be the cleverest person in the room. Aspire to be the person who leaves the room having learned the most."

She was silent for a moment.

Then she smiled.

"Thank you."

I inclined my head.

"You are most welcome."

She looked towards the board.

"Do you really think the Ark could have been electrically charged?"

I considered the question.

"I think it is an interesting hypothesis. I do not think we have demonstrated it."

"And levitation?"

"Electrostatic levitation is real. The Ark's ability to achieve it is another matter entirely."

She smiled.

"And Simon Magus?"

"An excellent subject for a separate lecture. Preferably one in which the audience is warned in advance that the principal character may attempt to leave the room without using the door."

She laughed.

I was pleased.

Then she asked one final question.

"Do you think I should write something about all this?"

I looked at her.

"Certainly."

"What would you call it?"

I thought for a moment.

"Perhaps The Ark of the Covenant and the Limits of Physical Interpretation."

She considered it.

"That sounds rather serious."

"It is Oxford, my dear. One must occasionally give the impression that one knows what one is doing."

She laughed again.

"Or perhaps," I added, "you might call it A Levite, a Leyden Jar, and the Question of Whether the Ark Could Fly."

She laughed considerably more loudly.

I thought the second title had possibilities.

XVIII. The walk through Oxford

I left the building shortly afterwards.

The courtyard was almost deserted.

The November air had become colder, and the last of the daylight had disappeared behind the roofs. A few students hurried across the stones, their scarves moving in the wind, carrying books which seemed to have been selected less for their contents than for their capacity to inflict spinal injury.

I walked slowly towards the main street.

I found myself thinking about the afternoon.

There was something deeply satisfying about the way in which an apparently straightforward subject had opened into so many different areas of human inquiry.

The Ark itself remained a mystery.

Its dimensions were given.

Its construction was described.

Its carrying arrangements were prescribed.

Its contents were discussed.

Its theological significance was unmistakable.

Yet its physical history remained incomplete.

We did not know what happened to it after the biblical narratives ceased to mention it.

We did not know whether it possessed any unusual electrical properties.

We did not know whether any of the proposed mechanisms could have produced a dangerous discharge.

We certainly had no evidence that it had ever levitated.

But the questions were interesting.

The curious resemblance between 'Levite' and 'levitation' remained a coincidence of quite extraordinary proportions.

There was no reason why all those questions should not be investigated, provided that the investigator possessed sufficient intellectual honesty to distinguish evidence from speculation.

I thought again about Uzzah.

A man reaches out his hand.

He touches the Ark.

He dies.

The biblical account attributes the event to divine anger and identifies the failure to observe the prescribed regulations as the central issue.

The electrical hypothesis offered a possible physical mechanism, but no demonstration.

The word "kindled" had attracted our attention, but its Hebrew meaning was perfectly intelligible without electricity.

The Levites had been appointed to carry the Ark long before David's procession.

And then there were the other accounts.

Enoch, taken by God.

Elijah, carried upwards in a whirlwind.

Jesus, ascending before his disciples.

Philip, caught away by the Spirit.

Paul, caught up into the third heaven, uncertain whether in the body or outside it.

Ezekiel, lifted in visions.

Simon Magus, allegedly flying in the later Christian tradition.

Jesus and Peter, walking upon the sea.

They were not all examples of levitation.

They were not all the same kind of event.

But together they demonstrated the extraordinary variety of ways in which biblical and early Christian literature describes the relationship between humanity, the natural world, and divine agency.

I stopped for a moment beneath an old stone archway.

The bells were beginning to sound somewhere in the distance.

I thought of the young lecturer.

She had entered the room believing that she needed to demonstrate her knowledge.

She had left it having discovered the limits of that knowledge.

I hoped she would eventually understand that this was not a defeat.

It was a beginning.

I have always believed that there is a peculiar danger in education when it becomes too concerned with the appearance of certainty.

A student who is rewarded only for giving correct answers may eventually become afraid of being asked difficult questions.

A scholar who is praised only for defending established positions may become incapable of discovering anything new.

And an institution which values reputation more highly than curiosity may eventually become a museum of its own former achievements.

Oxford, fortunately, possesses enough centuries of intellectual argument to know better.

At least, one hopes so.

XIX. A final reflection on the weight of heaven

That evening, I returned to my lodgings and placed my notebook upon the desk.

I made a final entry.

The Ark of the Covenant.

I underlined it.

Beneath it I wrote:

Acacia wood. Gold. Cherubim. Mercy Seat. Covenant.

Then:

Leyden jar. Electrostatic charge. Dielectric. Discharge.

Then:

Uzzah. Kindled anger. Numbers 4. Exodus 25. David's cart.

Then:

Levites. Levitation. An unfortunate etymological coincidence.

I smiled.

I added:

Enoch. Elijah. Christ. Philip. Paul. Ezekiel. Simon Magus. Peter.

I looked at the list for a while.

There was something almost comic about it.

One could begin with a wooden chest and end with the third heaven.

One could begin with a golden ring and end with the nature of divine agency.

One could begin with a Hebrew verb and end with a discussion of electricity.

And one could begin with a young undergraduate who had prepared a fifteen-minute lecture and end with a room full of people discussing whether the natural world possessed boundaries which divine action might transcend.

I put down my pen.

There was, however, one final thought which I had not mentioned to the young woman.

It concerned the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Knowledge is the accumulation of facts, arguments, observations, and interpretations.

Wisdom is knowing what to do with them.

The physicist had knowledge of electricity.

The Hebrew scholar had knowledge of the language.

The theologian had knowledge of Scripture.

The historian had knowledge of the development of scientific ideas.

But the young lecturer had done something which none of them had quite intended to

do.

She had brought them together.

She had provided the occasion for their respective disciplines to encounter one another.

And, although she had cried, she had not abandoned the discussion.

That mattered.

I thought of the advice I had given her.

Never aspire to be the cleverest person in the room. Aspire to be the person who leaves the room having learned the most.

I hoped she would remember it.

I hoped, too, that she would eventually discover that scholarship is not a competition in which the last person standing is awarded the title of Professor.

It is an undertaking in which one generation inherits questions from another, examines them, corrects them, occasionally misunderstands them, and passes them on.

The Ark might never be shown to have behaved like a Leyden jar.

Uzzah might never be explained through electrostatics.

The cherubim might never be demonstrated to have concentrated an atmospheric electric field.

No one might ever establish that the Ark could levitate.

But none of these possibilities should prevent a scholar from asking the questions, provided that the questions are asked honestly.

And perhaps that is what I would most like to have told the young woman, had the opportunity presented itself once more.

The purpose of an education is not to teach a person how to stand confidently before a room full of people who know more than she does.

It is to teach her how to remain intellectually alive when she discovers that they do.

There is no disgrace in being overwhelmed by the magnitude of a subject.

There is, however, a considerable disgrace in pretending that the subject is smaller than it is merely to preserve one's dignity.

I have known men who spent entire careers defending conclusions they had reached before they began their investigations.

I have known others who possessed extraordinary intelligence but very little intellectual generosity.

And I have known young people who, despite their uncertainty, possessed something considerably rarer than either: the willingness to ask a question whose answer might disturb everything they had previously believed.

I should take the latter every time.

As for the Ark, I remain unconvinced that it was an electrical apparatus.

I remain equally unconvinced that it ever levitated.

But I shall not pretend that the afternoon had settled the matter.

It had merely made the questions more interesting.

And that, in my experience, is often the finest achievement of a university.

I closed my notebook.

Outside, Oxford had become very quiet.

Somewhere, a student was undoubtedly attempting to finish an essay which had been assigned several weeks earlier and which, owing to an unfortunate combination of procrastination and misplaced confidence, had now become a matter of national importance.

I poured myself a little tea.

Then, almost involuntarily, I thought of the young lecturer once more.

I hoped she would write her paper.

I hoped she would submit it.

I hoped that someone would challenge it, and that she would challenge them in return.

I hoped she would become a better scholar than the people who had overwhelmed her that afternoon.

And I hoped, above all, that she would never again apologise for not knowing everything.

For there is one thing I have learned during my years of reading, writing, collecting, arguing, and occasionally being wrong in public.

He who is afraid to ask where the heavens end will spend his life measuring the floor.

I finished my tea.

The Ark remained where it had always been in my imagination: somewhere between the pages of Exodus, the mysteries of Israel's ancient worship, and the rather less reliable speculations of men who have mistaken an interesting possibility for an established fact.

The Levites, meanwhile, continued to carry it.

Simon Magus, in the later tradition, continued to fall.

Elijah had already gone.

And the young woman, I hoped, had discovered that she had nowhere nearly finished rising.

Some questions are not asked in order to be answered that afternoon. They are asked because, without them, we might never discover how much further there is to go.

— Sir Timothy John Paul Platt Monday, Bt.

The Lakes, Cumbria.

November 2019.