According to an article I was reading in Meridian magazine a couple of weeks ago touting a podcast with “noted YouTube scholar Daniel Smith,” events called “tabernacle camps are popping up — typically in Youth Conferences — in stakes all over the United States.” In fact, “there’s even one coming to BYU in the coming months, which will be used to teach students about its ancient biblical context.”
One wonders what it might take to be acknowledged as a “noted You Tube scholar” by Meridian, but that must be left for another day. Instead, I want to ruminate a bit about a “tabernacle camp” at BYU-Provo that is to help teach students about the tabernacle’s “ancient biblical context.” According to “noted You Tube scholar” Daniel Smith, “the best way to understand something is to experience it,” so let’s run with that for a bit—we are going to provide students with a spiritual and religious experience from the ANE circa late second millennium BCE.
The mind, it boggles. Surely it does. Think of the gender issues…
Since it’s the second millennium BCE, we’ll deal with the males first – naturally. There’s gonna have to be a campus-wide email blast confirming that the policy on facial hair is suspended until further notice to permit males to grow full beards a la Joseph F. Smith. The Title IX office will be tasked with marking out the lines past which no women are permitted in order to ensure the purity of the space around the material representation of the deity; violators will be referred for honor code violations or maybe just stoning. The Semitics Department, who are acknowledged experts in these ancient temple things, will be charged with inspecting males for circumcision and unblemished testicles. Parts aren’t just parts in this era.