Description
The principal interest of the text on the tabernacle tent, Exodus 24:15— Numbers 10:28, is Israelite worship—cultic place, the cultic people, and laws for the regulation of cultic life. The method followed is description of the biblical text and collation of the evidence as would a classicist go about classifying an ancient Greek Vase. The findings reveal a virtual world of Israelite cult. The transportable tabernacle tent with its courtyard and altar resembles a temple in its complexity. Through words the reader is invited into the atmosphere of the tabernacle tent where all the senses are evoked. The beautifully embellished fore-room of the tent illuminated by the light of the lamp-stand is seen, the waft of incense smelt, the atmosphere of fear or attraction that emanates from the epicentre of holiness felt. The tabernacle tent is constructed of words, not of stones. It is indestructible and does not succumb to the vagaries of time, as pristine today as it was over 2,500 years ago when it was first created.
Sarah Hart is a lecturer of Biblical Studies at Good Shepherd College, Te Hepara Pai, Auckland, New Zealand. Her first formal theological studies were in Vienna, Austria, then at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, followed by doctoral studies with Antony Campbell, Jesuit Theological College, University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia. Active in adult education, she has given workshops for the Liturgy Centre of the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, and also presented courses in Biblical Studies for the former Catholic Institute of Theology and for The Catholic Institute of New Zealand. She is a member of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Biblical Studies, Australian Catholic Biblical Association, and the Society of Biblical Literature.
