A Retroductive Disaster-Tracking Framework for Locating the Ark of the Covenant: A Self-Refuting Inquiry

This article proposes and then dismantles a new heuristic in Ark of the Covenant research: the Retroductive Disaster-Tracking Method (RDTM). Starting from the pattern in 1 Samuel 4--6, where illicit possession of the Ark is followed by cultic humiliation, bodily affliction, civic panic, and ritualized restitution, RDTM asks whether analogous patterns of misfortune around later claimants might serve as indirect locational evidence. After reconstructing this biblical disaster grammar, the study formulates RDTM as a form of retroduction and subjects it to methodological critique. It argues that the method conflates narrative theology with transferable historical causality, cannot be falsified, and collapses into confirmation bias and base-rate neglect. Testing RDTM against major Ark-location traditions, the article concludes that its value is deliberately negative: it clarifies why "disaster signatures" should not be treated as historical evidence in Ark research.