Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945 (6)

On the question of infant baptism, Sager highlights how the conversion stories in the Book of Acts apparently do not support the practice. "You will read in Acts 8:12--'But when they believed Phillip preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women' (not babies)." Further on in her letter, Sager notes that in the story recorded in Acts 10, Cornelius spoke for himself and his entire household with the words, "Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God" (Acts 10:33b). She remarks that this did not include infants, "for those in the house were able to understand."[1]

Note

[1] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945. Compare J. W. McGarvey, A Commentary on Acts of Apostles, 7th ed. (Lexington, KY: Transylvania Printing and Publishing Company, 1872), 43, where, commenting on Acts 2:39, says that the reference to the salvation of "children" must mean descendants and not "children as children," because the promise in question is based upon repentance, "with which infants could not possibly comply."

Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945 (5)

It appears that much of what Sager wrote to Heiliger was in response to a Methodist pamphlet Heiliger had sent as a way of explaining and defending her beliefs and practices.[1] It is impossible to know which pamphlet Heiliger had sent, but it certainly taught the same things found in the 1944 edition of Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Church: "We hold that all children, by virtue of the unconditional benefits of the atonement, are members of the Kingdom of God, and therefore graciously entitled to Baptism."[2] The same manual begins its discussion of the administration of the sacrament by saying, "Let every adult person, and the parents of every child to be baptized, to have the choice of sprinkling, pouring, or immersion."[3]

Notes

[1] "Your little pamphlet is good in so far as it goes," wrote Sager, "but your Methodist friends always stay short of baptism." Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945.

[2] Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Church (New York: Methodist Publishing House, 1944), 40. See also Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in the United States (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951), 131-32.

[3] Ibid., 448.

Alexander Campbell on Infant Baptism

According to historian Douglas A. Foster, the birth of Alexander Campbell's first child in 1812 made the hotly-debated issue of infant baptism a personal matter. Campbell had been brought up in the home of a Seceder Presbyterian minister and certainly had been sprinkled as an infant. With the question now pressing, he threw himself into deep study of the Bible on the topic and at the end of several weeks of investigation "concluded that he could accept only immersion of penitent believers as legitimate baptism."[1] As Campbell came to understand the New Testament, especially passages like Acts 2:37-38, baptism was only for believers and brought the remission of sins. Infants obviously could not understand and believe the gospel. Moreover, since baptism was for the remission of sins, it made no sense to baptize infants because they had not yet committed any sins and could not make a profession of faith.[2] Campbell never taught that those who failed to understand this aspect of biblical teaching were lost. "I cannot . . . in my heart regard all who have been sprinkled in infancy without their knowledge and consent as aliens from Christ and the well-grounded hope of heaven."[3] Nevertheless, the New Testament taught believers' baptism, by immersion, for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so would Campbell.[4]

It is worth noting that as early as 1820, in his debate with Presbyterian minister John Walker, Campbell had developed and was enunciating several arguments against infant baptism. These arguments went far beyond an interpretation of the conversion stories in the Book of Acts, according to which the approved examples did not depict infant baptism, but did, rather, suggest inferential evidence against the practice.[5]

Notes

[1] Douglas A. Foster, A Life of Alexander Campbell, Library of Religious Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 53.

[2] Ibid., 71.

[3] Alexander Campbell, "Any Christians among Protestant Parties," Millennial Harbinger, September 1837, 412. See also Foster, Life of Alexander Campbell, 160-61.

[4] Campbell preferred to avoid theological words that could not be found in the Bible. Yet, his mature view of baptism pictures the ordinance as a "sacrament," a divinely-appointed means of grace. See, for example, the entry for "sacrament," in Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 245. See also Millard J. Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 174, who defines "Sacramentalism" as "The view that grace is conveyed through certain religious rites."

[5] See, especially, Alexander Campbell, "Evils of Infant Baptism," Millennial Harbinger (September 1848), 481-92, in which Campbell reprints the arguments he put forward in his 1820 debate with John Walker. See also the brief but helpful discussion in Royal Humbert, ed., A Compend of Alexander Campbell's Theology (St. Louis, MO: Bethany Press, 1961), 201, n. 16.

Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945 (4)

Having quoted Acts 8:35-38, Sager sets out to make two points about baptism. The first is a follow-up to her discussion about the necessity of the ordinance. She observes that the author of the Book of Acts does not quote Philip's sermon to the eunuch. Chapter 8, verse 35 merely says "he preached unto him Jesus." As Disciples were wont to do, Sager focused on that phrase in order to make her point: "something must have been said about baptism since the eunuch asked to be baptized."[1] According to the inference, because baptism is inherent to preaching Jesus, it is therefore an essential part of the faithful response to the gospel. In his commentary on the Book of Acts, first published in 1863, J. W. McGarvey had emphasized this point. McGarvey, an 1850 honor graduate of Alexander Campbell's Bethany College, was the leading biblical scholar in the second generation of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Disciples widely read and often cited his work on Acts. Commenting on the eunuch's question to Philip, "what doth hinder me to be baptized?" (Acts 8:36), McGarvey wrote:

The appearance of the water to which they had come suggested this question, but it could not have been done so unless the eunuch had been taught something concerning immersion as a religious ordinance. But he had enjoyed no opportunity for instruction on this subject, except through the teaching of Philip. Had Philip, then, preached him a sermon on immersion? No. Luke says Philip "preached to him Jesus." How, then, had he, while hearing Jesus preached, obtained instruction in reference to immersion? There is only one answer to this question. It is, that to preach Jesus, after the apostolic method, involves full instruction upon the subject of immersion. The prejudice, therefore, which exists at the present day against frequent introduction of this subject in discourses addressed to sinners, is altogether unscriptural; and those only preach Jesus correctly who give to it the same prominence which belongs to it in apostolic discourses. It was a part of Peter's sermon on Pentecost, of Philip's preaching to the Samaritans, and of his present discourse to the Ethiopian; and we will yet see, in the course of this commentary, that it always occupied a place in the preaching of inspired men on such occasions. Indeed, it would be impossible to preach Jesus fully without it.[2]

Sager's second point is related, but takes up a separate question: the scriptural mode of baptism. As noted earlier, the Methodist tradition to which Eva Heiliger belonged asserts that baptism may be administered by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion, and that infants as well as adults my be baptized. In practice, sprinkling has been common among Methodists. It seems clear that the pamphlet Heiliger had sent defended the position of her church. For, having quoted the passage in which "they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him," Sager comments, "And surely he was neither sprinkled nor water poured upon his head."[3]

Notes

[1] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945. 

[2] J. W. McGarvey, A Commentary on Acts of Apostles, 7th ed. (Lexington, KY: Transylvania Printing and Publishing Company, 1872), 98. See also McGarvey's, New Commentary on Acts of Apostles (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company, 1892), 1:157-58, which presents similar remarks. For the place of McGarvey in the history of Disciples biblical scholarship, see M. Eugene Boring, Disciples and the Bible: A History of Disciples Biblical Interpretation in North America (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1997), 221-23. For McGarvey's impact on all subsequent interpretation of the Book of Acts within the Stone-Campbell Movement, see Ibid., 248-49. For excellent brief biographies, see Henry Warner Bowden, Dictionary of American Religious Biography, 2nd ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), 325-26; and M. Eugene Boring, "McGarvey, John W. (1829-1911)," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, (Grand Rapids, MI: William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 506-07.

[3] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945. A standard reference work of the time noted that in Methodist churches in America, baptism was administered "usually by sprinkling." Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in the United States (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951), 132).

Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11,1945 (3)

Next, Sager cites another passage from the Book of Acts, the episode in which the evangelist Philip teaches the gospel to a eunuch, an official in the government of "Ethiopia." According to the story, the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and was now returning (Acts 8:27-28).[1] As he traveled, the eunuch was reading the Book of Isaiah, specifically Chapter 53, one of the Church's favorite messianic texts ever since: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth" (Acts 8:32-33). At this point in her letter, Meta picks up the story:

You will note in the 35th verse that Phillip [sic] "began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Phillip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Phillip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.[2]

Two features of this part of Meta's letter suggest she was writing out the biblical passage from memory. First, while she quotes the eunuch confessing, "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," the King James Version, which she no doubt read and from which she memorized Scripture, reads: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Second, she misspells Philip's three times as "Phillip." On the other hand, the placement and specific type of punctuation are perfect in Meta's transcription of the passage, suggests use of the printed text.[3]

Notes

[1] I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), 162, states that the man "came from the country now known as Sudan (rather than modern Ethiopia)." Likewise, Ben Witherington, III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 295, writes: "The geographical location Luke has in mind is the Nubian kingdom whose capital is Meroe, south of Egypt, which is part of Sudan." If not a proselyte, the eunuch was one of the gentile admirers of Judaism, like the centurion Cornelius of Acts 10:1-2, described as "one that feared God with all his house." The Book of Acts contains several more references to this category of people, virtuous Gentiles. See Acts 13:16, 26, 43; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7. The existence of these people in the Greco-Roman world has been established by, among others, John G. Gager, "Jews, Gentiles, and Synagogues in the Book of Acts," Harvard Theological Review 79, no. 1-3 (1986): 91-99; and Louis H. Feldman, "The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers," Biblical Archaeology Review 12, no. 5 (1986): 58-63. See also the good discussion in Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 2:1566-67.

[2] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City.

[3] Ibid.

Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11,1945 (2)

One of the more remarkable notes found in the letter comes at the very beginning, where Sager speaks of her "salary," and refers to the financial struggles of "us school people." Apparently, at the age of eighty-one, she was still working at the Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasha. The campus of the college, now the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, is less than a mile from the house where she lived at 1528 South 7th Street. It seems likely that Sager, very much a woman of the nineteenth century, never drove an automobile. Most days she would have walked to and from her workplace, each time passing by the Rose Hill Cemetery where her husband lay buried.[1]

In response to what must have been Eva Heiliger's questions or challenges regarding baptism, Sager denies that her position detracts from the essentiality of faith. (Again, today the Church of the Nazarene asserts that the Lord grants salvation "to all who believe on Jesus Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior"). At the same time, paraphrasing part of James 2:20, she adds that "faith without works is dead." This marks an opening salvo in an argument according to which Meta will insist that just as the New Testament connects faith to salvation, it also connects repentance, confession, and baptism to salvation. Coming to faith is not the end, but is rather the beginning of a process by which a person becomes a Christian, a series of steps culminating with the immersion of the penitent believer who has confessed his faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. And, "[j]ust as you must come every step of the way into the house, so you must come every step of the way into the Church of the living God."[2] On this point, she notes Acts 2:36-38, where the Apostle Peter did not tell people who had just concluded Jesus was the Messiah that they should believe. "It would have been silly to tell them to believe, for that they had already shown." Yet, neither did Peter suggest that their faith was sufficient for salvation. Instead, when they asked what they should do, Peter "told them to do what they had not done, repent and be baptized."[3]

Notes

[1] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City. The author has made several visits to Chickasha, Oklahoma, researching the life of Meta Chestnutt Sager.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11,1945 (1)

The Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection presents mostly one-sided correspondence. Specifically, the archive contains letters written by Meta to her great-niece, Eva Heiliger, most of which directly reply to letters from Eva. But the archive includes none of the letters Mrs. Heiliger wrote to her Aunt Meta. These circumstances create problems for the historical sleuth. In some cases, for example, it seems impossible to know the referent of a certain word, phrase, or question in one of Chestnutt Sager's letters. In other cases, however, determining what she is replying to is simple.

Religious questions, especially matters on which Sager and Heiliger disagreed, are a frequent topic. What seems clear is that Heiliger did not understand, and sometimes differed with, the views of her Aunt Meta. What was the source of their disagreements?

When Heiliger died in 2009, her brief obituary mentioned that she was "an active member of the Community Church of the Nazarene where she taught children's classes."[1] Likewise, when Eva's husband, Richard C. Heiliger, died in 2002, his obituary noted that a memorial fund had been set up at the very same church.[2] The denomination known as the Church of the Nazarene resulted from a series of mergers from 1895 to 1908. All of the merging bodies had roots in the nineteenth-century Holiness Movement, which advanced the doctrine of Christian perfection taught by John Wesley (1703-91), the founder of Methodism.

True to their name, Holiness churches emphasize above all the expectation and goal of the complete sanctification of believers.[3] According to the Church's sixteen "Articles of Faith," God grants "full pardon" and "complete release" from the penalty of sin "to all who believe on Jesus Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior."[4] The section on baptism describes it as "a symbol of the new covenant" and affirms that it "may be administered by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion." In addition, "young children may be baptized upon request of parents or guardians who shall give assurance for them of necessary Christian training."[5]

In a letter she wrote to Eva Heiliger on February 11, 1945, Meta Sager, then 81 years old, discussed each of these ideas and then some. In my next post, I'll say more about what she said.

Notes

[1] "Eva Heiliger, March 15, 1915--Feb. 2, 2009," Sedona Red Rock News, accessed January 30, 2021, https://www.redrocknews.com/2008/05/14/eva-heiliger/.

[2] "Richard C. Heiliger," Glendale News-Press, accessed January 30, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gnp-xpm-2002-10-19-export23732-story.html.

[3] H. E. Raser, "Church of the Nazarene," in Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 274-75; J. Gordon Melton, Nelson's Guide to Denominations (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 385-401, esp. 388 and 391. See also Church of the Nazarene, Articles of Faith, https://nazarene.org/sites/default/files/2019-09 /ArticlesOfFaith%28English%29_0.pdf, accessed January 30, 2021. According to article "X. Christian Holiness and Entire Sanctification," members affirm that "subsequent to regeneration" and "preceded by consecration," that is, the absolute devotion of the individual, a person may be completely filled with the Holy Spirit. This experience, described by phrases like "Christian perfection," "the fullness of the blessing," and "perfect love," brings the believer into a state of entire devotion to God.

[4] Church of the Nazarene, Articles of Faith, "IX. Justification, Regeneration, and Adoption."

[5] Ibid., "XII. Baptism."

Tabernacle Furnishings in Exodus and Hebrews

According to the instructions found in the Book of Exodus, the Tabernacle contained seven ceremonial items. Chapter 25 details four of these furnishings: the ark of the covenant, its atonement cover, in some translations called the mercy seat, which was graced by two cherubim, the table of the bread of presence, and the menorah, sometimes called the lampstand or candlestick). Subsequent passages describe the three remaining items: the altar of burnt offering (27:1-8), the altar of incense (30:1-10), and the brazen laver or basin (30:17-21). In the closing chapter of Exodus, the God of Israel gives Moses specific directions for setting up and consecrating the Tabernacle (40:1-33). Notably, this passage refers to each of the seven items described in the earlier sections of the book.

In the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews, the author draws parallels between the Mosaic tabernacle and "the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man" (8:2, NIV). Chapter 9 mentions specifically the lampstand, the table, the altar of incense, the ark of the covenant, and the atonement cover (9:2-5), but not the two items that stood outside the tent of meeting, in the tabernacle courtyard: the brazen laver and the altar of burnt sacrifice.

The Heavenly Tabernacle in Hebrews 8 and 9

In Hebrews 4:14 through 7:28, the writer draws an extended comparison between the priests of Israel, especially the high priests, and Christ, who is portrayed as a superior high priest. 7:26 through 8:2 provides a fitting summary of the previous section and an introduction to the next. The passage refers to the superior sacrifice of Christ, the better covenant that God inaugurated through Christ, and the heavenly sanctuary in which Christ serves as the perfect high priest:

Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever. The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man  (7:26--8:2, NIV).

Those verses lead directly into the discussion in chapters 8 and 9, where the author compares the literal tabernacle, constructed by the ancient Israelites under the direction of Moses, and a heavenly tabernacle. Later in this section, the author refers to the "first tabernacle," implying that there is a second (9:8). Finally, he speaks of "the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands" (9:11).

Getting a Handle on Hebrews

In the New International Version of the Bible, the New Testament contains forty-one occurrences of the word better. Of those occurrences, eleven, more than one fourth of the total, appear in the book that was known in the Early Church as To the Hebrews. The word superior occurs five times among the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. Three of the five occurrences of superior are in Hebrews.[1]

The relatively high frequency of better and superior in the Epistle to the Hebrews points to the author's use of comparisons. He sets out to compare God's dealings with the human race in two different periods of time, specifically before and after the redemptive work of Christ. The first four verses of the epistle point to its before-and-after perspective:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs (Heb. 1:1-4, NIV).

As the writer explains, prior to the coming of Christ, God spoke to humanity "through the prophets." But ever since the Incarnation, the same God has been speaking to humanity "by his Son." The superiority of the messenger, Jesus Christ, implies the superiority of the dispensation in which the readers are living, the Christian age.

So, if the people of God prior to the time of Christ were expected to devote themselves to the Lord and to their covenant obligations, how much more should believers living in the Christian age devote themselves to following the ways of God? To use the language of Hebrews, if the message from God before the coming of Christ "was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" (2:2-3).

These patterns of both continuity and discontinuity permeate the rhetoric of the Epistle to the Hebrews and provide a key to understanding its content.[2] 

Notes

[1] Word statistics are taken from the Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance, ed. Edward W. Goodrick and John R. Kohlenberger III (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999). Still one of the better discussions of the title of this book in the ancient church is provided by Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan and Company, 1892), xxvii-xxx.

[2] The discussion here of comparisons and of patterns of continuity and discontinuity in the Epistle to the Hebrews was informed mainly by Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), ch. 20 titled "The Letter to the Hebrews."

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.

Coverture and Its Legacy in Oklahoma

A carryover from English common law, coverture was an American legal idea and practice whereby "wives were understood to be 'covered' under the civil identity of their husbands."[1] As the English jurist Sir William Blackstone expressed it in 1770, "the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing."[2]

Coverture meant that a married woman's identity was subsumed into that of her husband's. Ideally, his duty was to protect and support her. Her duty was to obey and serve him. He would work for a salary or wages and represent the family in public. She would keep the home and nurture the children. According to this arrangement, women were not legal, political, or economic actors, at least not directly. They were domestic workers. More specifically, coverture meant that a married woman could not enter into contracts. As historian Richard White puts it: "The marriage contract . . . was a contract that took away a wife's right to make future contracts." Consequently, "only an unmarried adult woman had legal standing and full control over her property."[3]

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, state laws typically called Married Women's Property Acts began to erode the older laws of coverture. Yet, as historian and legal scholar Linda K. Keber has pointed out, in spite of these legal changes "most people continued to think as the rules of coverture had taught them."[4] The cultural assumptions and legal traditions of coverture were slow to die. Along this line, Kerber points to two examples from Oklahoma history. According to one law established in Oklahoma Territory in 1893, "The husband is the head of the family. He may choose any reasonable place or mode of living and the wife must conform thereto."[5] Kerber's second illustration comes from the mid-twentieth century. Although by that time women had long since gained the constitutional right to vote in federal elections, women in Oklahoma were not permitted to hold statewide office until 1942.[6]

Notes

[1] Linda K. Kerber, "Why Diamonds Really Are a Girl's Best Friend: Another American Narrative." Daedalus 141, no. 1 (2012): 91. Accessed December 25, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23240304.

[2] Ibid., 96. Kerber, in her footnote 18, cites Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books (1770; Washington, D.C.: 1941), vol. 1, chap. 15, 443.

[3] Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 100. 

[4] Kerber, "Why Diamonds Really Are a Girl's Best Friend," 94.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 97.