Meta Chestnutt as a Bible Teacher: The Tabernacle

Housed in the Oklahoma History Center, not far from the state capitol in Oklahoma City, is a visual aid that Meta Chestnutt likely used in her Bible lessons at the Church of Christ in Minco, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. A heavy oilcloth, approximately five feet high and three feet wide, presents an overhead schematic of the biblical Tabernacle. It clearly labels the Court, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. It also presents the locations of, and labels, the Brazen Altar, Brazen Laver, Table of Shewbread, Candlestick, Altar of Incense, and the Ark of the Covenant.[1]

Photo by Frank Bellizzi

The Tabernacle was a portable sanctuary constructed by the ancient Israelites during the time of Moses. The "Tent of Meeting," as it is sometimes called in Scripture, was the unique dwelling of the Almighty, the place where the descendants of Abraham met with their God. It served as a place of worship and a site of divine revelation during the period of the wilderness wanderings. Once the Israelites crossed the Jordan River and entered Canaan, their promised land, the Tabernacle was stationed successively at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1) and Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39). Later, King David brought it to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:1-12). Solomon’s Temple, constructed in Jerusalem around 950 B.C., replaced the Tabernacle. Yet, it survived. Eventually, Solomon brought it to the Temple (1 Kings 8:4).[2]

From earliest Christian times, the followers of Jesus considered the Hebrew Bible to be their Bible. In this as in all other matters, they took their cue from Jesus himself, who regarded the Hebrew Bible as authoritative Scripture. Along this line, a survey of the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament reveals a remarkable consistency. To borrow the words of biblical scholar John Bright, "Jesus knew no Scripture save the Old Testament, no God save its God; it was this God whom he addressed as 'Father.'" Jesus "regarded the Scriptures as the key to the understanding of his person; again and again he is represented as saying that it is the Scriptures that witness to him and are fulfilled in him."[3] In the same way, the New Testament the writers never question the authority of the Hebrew Bible. Instead, they always assume and occasionally assert its unique standing, as in the words of 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (King James Version). The earliest Christians made theological meaning and bolstered their moral exhortations by highlighting and drawing connections to people, events, objects, and stories from the Jewish Scriptures, which they came to call the Old Testament.[4]  

Notes

[1] The oilcloth is located in box 2 of the Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, Research Division, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City.

[2]  "Tabernacle" in Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III, eds., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1998), 837-40 provides an excellent, non-technical discussion. See also Roland Kenneth Harrison, "Tabernacle," in The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, ed. Merrill C. Tenney (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1967), 821-24. Richard Elliott Friedman, "Tabernacle," in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:292-300, is an outstanding piece of technical scholarship. Along the way, Friedman argues that evidence amassed since the beginning of the twentieth century, such as the large number of tent shrines in the Ancient Near East, undermines the older scholarly view that the biblical Tabernacle was only a pious fiction.

[3] John Bright, The Authority of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1967), 77.

[4] C. K. Barrett, "The Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New," in Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 1:377-411, provides an insightful discussion of the interpretive assumptions and methods exhibited by New Testament writers as they alluded to, quoted, etc., the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. George W. E. Nickelsburg and Michael E. Stone, Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: Texts and Documents (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991), reveals how New Testament authors developed Old Testament themes like worship, piety, divine wisdom, judgment, and deliverance.