104 The Fundamentals worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.” After this it occurs in a number of the remaining books of the Bible, and with increasing frequency. The pre-Samuelitic period of the history of Israel is thus differentiated from the post-Samuelitic period by this circumstance, that in connection with the former period this title is never used, whilst in con- nection with the latter it is used, and with growing fre- quency—at all stages of the history, even down to the end of the Book of Malachi; occurring altogether 281 times. Now the theory of the criticism of the present day is that the Pentateuch was composed, edited, and manipulated, during a period of more than four hundred years, by motley groups and series of writers, of differing views, and various tendencies. One writer composed one part, and one composed another; these parts were united by a different hand; and then another composed a further pa r t; and this by yet another was united to the two that went before; and after this another por- tion was composed by yet another scribe, and afterwards was joined on to the three. Matter was absorbed, interpolated, harmonized, smoothed over, colored, edited from various points of view, and with different—not to say opposing—motives. And yet when the completed product—t he Pentateuch—coming out of this curious literary seething pot is examined, it is found to have this remarkable characteristic, that not one of the manifold manipulators—n either “J ”, nor “E”, nor “JE”, nor “D”, nor “RD”, nor “P ”, nor “P2”, nor “P3”, nor “P4”, nor any one of the “Redactors of P ”, who were innumerable— would appear to have allowed himself to be betrayed even by accident into using this title, “Lord of hosts”, so much in vogue in the days in which he is supposed to have written; and the Pentateuch, devoid as it is of this expression, shows an unmistakable mark that it could not possibly have been composed in the way asserted by the criticism, because it would have been a literary impossibility for such a number of writers, extending over hundreds of years, to have one
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