There is yet another error of Dr. Colenso which we cannot pass by in silence. It is true, the blunder to which we refer has little to do with his argument. But it has much to do with the question whether he is a competent authority on the sacred text, even when he speaks with special emphasis and with unhesitating confidence. “Supposing that ‘all the congregation’ of adult males ... had hastened to take their stand ... in front, not merely of the _door_, but of the whole _end_ of the tabernacle in which the door was”, etc. It is clear that the writer of this passage was under the impression (which, indeed, he conveys not only by his words, but still more by his italics—for they _are_ his) that _the whole end_ of the tabernacle was wider than the _door_. Now if he had taken the pains to read even an English translation of the sacred book which he so rashly presumed to condemn, he never could have fallen into so great a mistake. He would have seen that the _whole eastern end_ of the tabernacle was left open, and that the open space was covered only by a curtain which extended across from side to side. Consequently, if mention were really made of a door, it must have been this curtain itself that was called by that name. But if Dr. Colenso had gone a little further, and had consulted any Hebrew lexicon, he would have discovered that the sacred writer does not speak of a _door_, but rather of a _doorway_. The tabernacle had in fact no _door_ properly so called. The word פתח (_pethach_), which is used by the sacred writers when speaking of the tabernacle, signifies, as Gesenius explains it, _an opening_, _an entrance_. It means, therefore, the whole end of the tabernacle, which was left _open_ to the court when the curtain was drawn. In Hebrew the idea of _a door_ is expressed by דלת (_deleth_). When treating of this word, Gesenius, having first explained its meaning, pointedly remarks: “It differs from פתח, which denotes the doorway which the door closes”. It is quite certain, therefore, that the _door_ and the _whole end of the tabernacle_, which Dr. Colenso so emphatically contrasts, were in reality one and the same thing. It is time, however, that we pass to another of Dr. Colenso’s arguments:— “ ‘_And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole bullock, shall he (the Priest) carry forth without the camp, unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire. Where the ashes are poured out there shall he be burned_’—(_Lev._, iv. 11, 12).