HISTORICITY OF THE MOSAIC TABERNACLE. 127 



Tabernacle at another. It is possible that the shiftings of the Taber- 

 nacle from place to place — from Shiloh to Nob, and from Nob to 

 Gibeon — were in order to bring the Tabernacle and the Ark nearer 

 together. Certainly Gibeon was a good deal nearer to Kirjath Jearim 

 than Shiloh was. The whole question is worth fuller treatment. 

 Thus it is clear that the word heycal does not necessarily mean 

 Solomon's Temple, for we have the word in the plural in many parts 

 of the Old Testament. Heycal means simply a large building, and in 

 I Sam. i, 9, and iii, 3, it probably includes, not merely the Taber- 

 nacle, but buildings surrounding it to protect it from assault or 

 plunder, as well as the "other structures" which Professor Orr 

 suggests. 



One remark I should like to add. On p. 106 the Professor criticizes 

 the " schemes for the reduction of the numbers in the Exodus," I 

 do not question his conclusions there. But there can be no doubt 

 that the numbers in the Old Testament generally have fallen into 

 confusion, either by the use of signs for numbers — signs which 

 eventually became out of date, so that they were no longer under- 

 stood — or for some other undiscovered reason. The best explanation 

 of the difficulty is that of Mr. Harold Wiener, who has given much 

 attention to Old Testament questions. He thinks that the " M " 

 with which the word Meah (hundred) begins, when used to signify 

 one hundred, as it does a thousand among ourselves, may have been 

 confounded with "-im," the Hebrew plural, used in matters 

 numerical for tens, and that, therefore, numbers may have sometimes 

 been inadvertently multiplied or divided by ten. 



To my mind the one thing needful at the present moment is full, 

 fair, and free discussion of the whole critical question. As that 

 able scholar Professor Flint said some years ago, it is time to 

 "criticize the critics." I venture to say that the question will 

 never be settled until argument takes the place of assertion, and all 

 objections are fairly met and answered. 



Dr. Orr's Eeply. 



The discussion seems to deal largely with the merits or demerits 

 of the general critical theory, which it did not fall within my 

 province to discuss, rather than with the special question of the 

 Tabernacle. My views on the critical theory may be seen at large 

 in my book. The Problem of the Old Testament, and in more popular 



