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In the late 1990s, for example, author Richard Andrews, who had worked in his youth as a furniture builder, constructed a replica of the Ark, following the precise instructions given in the Bible. He and others have a theory that explained how Aaron's sons might have been struck dead by merely touching the Ark. The object's design, they note, essentially made it a giant capacitor, capable of storing electrical energy. "Gold is one of the best conductors of electricity there is, while wood is one of the best insulators," Andrews wrote in a 1999 article for the Daily Mail, a British newspaper. "If the Israelites had set out to construct a primitive accumulator, they could hardly have picked a better design than the Ark." Subsequent tests of Andrews' model at a college laboratory confirmed that his Ark could accumulate and release an electrical charge.

Could the Ark have been some form of ancient electrical capacitor?.

The Ark was portable, and before being stored in the Holy of Holies, it was carried around the dry, hot desert environment of Israel. Andrews theorizes that the friction of the heated air against the Ark allowed it to accumulate static electricity, much in the same way that a car can do so on a hot day. "The strength of the charge would depend on variables such as humidity and temperature, but also length, speed and bumpiness of journey," he wrote. "There is no reason why the charge could not be lethal."

If the Ark was indeed a primitive but powerful electrical device, where did the knowledge to build such a device come from — other than, perhaps, divine inspiration?

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