time to regard as remnants of the altar. And when the identification seemed to be thus nearly complete, it appeared to be confirmed by the discovery that the north side of the mountain, the only accessible side, is called "the Ascent of Ed." But the identification was disputed.
It was pointed out that Josephus says the altar was on the east side of Jordan, and that the Scripture narrative makes the tribes to cross the river at "the passage of the Children of Israel," which is supposed to describe the Jericho ford and not the ford at Damieh. For these reasons Conder now regards his idea as "only a conjecture."
It may be reasonably questioned, however, whether the identification should be given up. We are told in Joshua xxii. 10, that the altar, so high to look to, was in "the region about Jordan that is in the land of Canaan"—"in the forefront of the land of Canaan, in the region about Jordan, on the side that pertaineth to the Children of Israel." The historian takes pains to distinguish between the two sides of the river, and if one side pertained to the Children of Israel more than the other, it was surely not the eastern side. Moreover, the altar was in the land of Canaan, and the eastern boundary of Canaan was the Jordan itself (see Gen. x. 19, and page 107 of this volume). The altar was "in the forefront of the land of Canaan," at the extreme of its eastern side, and therefore close by the Jordan. The Hebrew faced the rising sun, and spoke of the south as the right hand, the north as the left, so that his forehead or forefront was to the east. It was apparently because the supposed idolatrous altar was set up on territory belonging to the western tribes that those tribes felt so insulted. The east of Jordan was unclean, but the western country was "the possession of the Lord." "Come across", they said, "into the Lord's land, if you will; but if you come, do not build rebel altars" (v. 19). Further, the
