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THE KING’S BUSINESS
of writers, on the conservative side of the question at any rate, has been at last arrested; and the crucial signifi cance of these points has at length be gun to be perceived. Now again I once more press these points—and with renewed persistence —trusting that in the slackening ven eration for German sceptics, a hearing may be obtained, even amongst the critics themselves, for the logic of san ity and common sense. NOT IN PENTATEUCH. The first occurrence of this name of the sacred city (Jerusalem) in the Old Testament is found in Joshua x, 1: “Now it came to pass when Adoni- zedec, King of Jerusalem, had heard how Joshua had taken Ai,” etc. In the Pentateuch the city is only once named (Gen. xiv) and then it is called Salem—an abbreviation of its cunei form name, “Uru-Salem.” Now on the traditional view of the Pentateuch the non-occurrence of the name presents no difficulty. The rea son why shrines like Shechem, Hebron, Beersheba, and Bethel, are mentioned in Genesis with such distinguished honour, is simply no doubt because they really were sacred places of ven erable antiquity; consecrated perhaps by reason of the patriarchs having so journed there and erected their altars for sacrifice and worship, whilst at Je rusalem they had not. But from the point of view of mod ern critics, who hold that the Penta teuch was in great part composed to glorify the priesthood of Jerusalem, and that the Book of Deuteronomy in particular was found (some say com posed) to establish Jerusalem as the central and only acceptable shrine for the worship of Israel, this omission to name the great city then of sacred and historic fame which they wished to ex alt and glorify, seems very strange in
deed. According to the critics the composers of the Pentateuch had a very free hand to write whatsoever they wished—and they are held to have freely exercised it. It seems strange then to find the so-called “Yahvist,” supposed to have written in the South ern Kingdom, and to have been imbued with all its prejudices, consecrating Bethel by a notable theophany (Gen. xxvii, 16-39) whilst in all that he is supposed to have written in the Penta teuch he never, even once, names his own Jerusalem. Between Bethel and Ai is the alter which, according to him, appears to be most dear to Abraham,- and he makes Jacob say: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not . . . and he called the name of that place Bethel.” (Gen. xxviii, 16-19). But what is still more singular, the so-called priestly writer “P,” said to have written in Exilic times, is also found consecrating Bethel by a re markable theophany in a passage which is attributed by Kuenen to “P2” (Hex- ateuch, p. 185) : “And God went up from him in the place where he spake with him . . . and Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him Bethel.” (Gen. xxxv, 13-35). And whilst he thus glorified Bethel, this priestly writer, to whom Jerusalem with her priesthood is assumed to have been the ideal shrine, strange to say, never once in all his writings in the Pentateuch, even names Jerusalem. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,” wails the plaintive Psalm of the Captivity, “let my right hand forget her cunning.” Was Jerusalem forgotten in Exilic days, with all her sacred and pathetic story? If not, how strange that she is never named. Still more remarkable, however, is the non-occurrence of the name “Je rusalem” in the Book of Deuteron omy, because, according to the critics, the Book of Deuteronomy was found s (some say composed) in the reign of
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