Addenda 125 Also, respecting the “great high place,” Smith’s Dictionary has the following: “The most natural position for the high place of Gibeon is the twin mountain immediately south of El-Jib, so close as to be all but a part of the town, and yet quite separate and distinct. The testi mony of Epiphanius, viz., that the ‘Mount of Gibeon’ was the highest round Jerusalem, by which Dean Stanley supports his conjecture (that the present Neby Samwil was the great high place), should be received with caution, standing, as it does, quite alone and belonging to an age which, though early, was marked by ignorance and by the most improbable conclusions.” Some additional facts, as given by Rev. W. Shaw Caldecott (ibid, pp. 60-62), are as follows: “El-Jib is built upon an isolated oblong hill standing in a plain or basin of great fertility. The northern end of the hill is covered over with old massive ruins, which have fallen down in every direction, and in which the villagers now live. Across the plain to the south is the lofty range of Neby Samwil. * * * Gibeon was one of the four towns in the division of Benjamin given as residences for the sons of Aaron (Josh. 21:17). It was thus already inhabited by priests, and this, added to its other advantages, made it, humanly speaking, a not unsuitable place for the capital of the new kingdom. No remains of (very ancient) buildings have been discovered, such as those of er- Ramah and Tell el-FulL”
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