The Tabernacle: Its Priests and Its Services

This book is a great book if you want to go through and learn how the tabernacle was built, what parts were brazen, silver, gold, etc. The book does a great job of explaining all this, and allowing the reader to visualize the finished product pretty effeciently. Diagrams and drawings allow the reader to see what the author is describing. A word on scholarly writing: this book could have been much, much better had the author given citations as to what text he is referring. Often the text is that of the scripture, and while it can usually be readily found, it is not always so obvious. While many scripture references are included, many are not. Similarly, when the author disagrees with another on some point of interpretation (which happens throughout the book) you are as likely as not to be able to find out where to find that other view. Finally, a word on allegories: the Tabernacle was a striking portrait of Christ, and Christ performed the ordinances of the Tabernacle (and therefore, those of the Temple) once and for all. This book keeps that view in mind, and at the end of almost every chapter has a brief discussion of how Christ fulfilled that stage of the Tabernacle, or completed the image painted there. However, I found the discussion to be a bit scarce, and a bit less substantive than I had hoped. I described the theology as "shallow" in my title. It is good, but not great, and not in the depth that I feel a discussion of the Tabernacle deserves. For a great portrait of the Tabernacle, its building, its form, and its appearance, this is the book. For a more detailed examination of the portrait of Christ which the Tabernacle created, there are other, more effective, works to choose from.