Tabernacle in the Wilderness 29 faultiness of its present text and its general inexactness as a translation, is surely not great—it can be urged that the entire clause containing the words “tent of meeting” is found alike in the old Syriac or Peshito version, in the Vulgate, and in the only extant Targum (that of Jonathan Ben Uzziel) on this particular passage; all of which very ancient author ities* render it as certain as anything of a textual nature could well be made, that the old original text in 1 Sam. 2:22 was exactly as it is now in our present-day Hebrew Bible. And, finally, as perhaps the crowning feature of this array of evidence for the genuineness of the text under considera tion, it can be affirmed that, for English readers at least, there exists one authority, easy to be consulted, which would seem to put beyond all reasonable doubt the genuineness of this text. That authority is our Revised English Version of the Scriptures—a literary work that in point of scholarship and general reliability stands perhaps second to none produced in recent years. And now, if anybody will take the trouble to consult this Revised Version, he will see that this entire disputed passage is retained, or that the many eminent schol ars, both English and American, who wrought on this trans lation are agreed that the words, “tent pf meeting,” or ohel moed, as in Hebrew, are genuine, and properly belong to this passage. Such being the case, the critics are put in a bad plight; and anyway it does not argue much to the credit of their hypothesis when, in order to carry it through, it becomes necessary so often to make the claim of interpolation. Of course, anyone can make what he pleases of any passage of Scripture, provided he only has the privilege of doctoring it *The .Targum on Samuel, which is attributed to Jonathan Ben Uzziel, is commonly believed to have been produced some time during the first century; the Peshito version of the Scriptures is thought to have been made somewhat later, probably in the second century; while the Latin Vulgate, by Jerome, was completed between the years 390 and 405 A. D.
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