<P> The "mountain from the top of which Moses saw God's promised land" would be Mount Nebo, located in what is now Jordan . </P> <P> In the New Testament, the Ark is mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation to St. John . Hebrews 9: 4 states that the Ark contained "the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant ." Revelation 11: 19 says the prophet saw God's temple in heaven opened, "and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple ." </P> <P> Catholic scholars connect this verse with the Woman of the Apocalypse in Revelation 12: 1, which immediately follows, and say that the Blessed Virgin Mary is identified as the "Ark of the New Covenant ." Carrying the saviour of humankind within her, she herself became the Holy of Holies . This is the interpretation given in the third century by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in the fourth century by Saint Ambrose, Saint Ephraem of Syria and Saint Augustine . The Catholic Church teaches this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells . She is' the dwelling of God...with men" </P> <P> In the Gospel of Luke, the author's accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation are constructed using eight points of literary parallelism to compare Mary to the Ark . </P>

What was the purpose of the arc of the covenant