II Chronicles 35:1 Moreover Josiah kept a passover unto the LORD in Jerusalem: and they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.

  2 And he set the priests in their charges, and encouraged them to the service of the house of the LORD,

  3 And said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto the LORD, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now the LORD your God, and his people Israel,

Why was the ark outside of the temple, anyway, at that time?

Maybe the priests had taken it out, previously, and hid it, during the reign of Manasseh.

If so, maybe they also took it out, again, and hid it, during the reign of Josiah's sons, and thus, then, from Nebuchadnezzar, when he came against them.

If that's the case, then it would have remained hidden, even during the years of the second temple, and remains hidden until this very day.

btw - if some Rabbis are so sure that the location is well known, then why was it not brought back during the second temple era?

It's also NOT in the Smithsonian, like at the end of the Indiana Jones movie.

Nor in Ethiopia, that supposedly Solomon, shortly after having it brought into its place in the newly completed temple, let it be taken away by the queen of Sheba?  

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