102 The Fundamentals Israel—this omission to name the great city, then of his- toric and sacred fame, which they wished to exalt and glorify, seems very strange indeed. According to the theories of 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 “Yahvist,” supposed to have been written in the Southern Kingdom, and to have been imbued with all its prejudices, consecrating Bethel by a notable theophany (Gen. 28:16, 19), whilst in all that he is supposed to have written in the Pentateuch he never once even names his own Jerusalem. And so the “priestly writer” also, to whom a shrine like Bethel ought to be anathema, is found nevertheless conse- crating Bethel with another theophany: “Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him Bethel” (Gen. 35:14, 15), and he never even names Jerusalem. What is the explanation of all this? What is the inner meaning of this absence of the name Jerusalem from the Pentateuch ? Is it not this: that at the time the Pentateuch was written, Jerusalem, with all her sacred glories, had not entered yet into the life of Israel. The second remarkable peculiarity to which attention is called is: THE ABSENCE OF ANY MENTION OF SACRED SONG FROM THE RITUAL OF THE PENTATEUCH This is in glaring contrast to the ritual of the second temple, in which timbrels, harps, and Levite singers bore a conspicuous part. Yet it was just in the very time of the second temple that the critics allege that a great portion of the Pentateuch was composed. How is it then that none of these things occur in the Mosaic ritual? It might have been ex- pected that the priests in post-exilic times would have sought to establish the highest possible sanction for this musical ritual, by representing it as having been ordained by Moses.
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