When was the samaritan pentateuch written

In Samaritan Pentateuch contains different term for Moses' wife Zipporah as "Kaashet" which translates "the beautiful woman" while the standard translation and Jewish commentary suggest word "Cushi" means "black woman" or "Cushite woman.

In Samaritan Pentateuch contains the following passage after the prohibition: which roughly translates "that one doing this as sacrifice forgets and enrages God of Jacob". In Samaritan Pentateuch contains the following passage: which roughly translates "And they will take a purple covering and cover the laver and his foot, and they cover it in Tachash skins, and they put it upon a bar. The Samaritan Pentateuch uses less anthropomorphic language in descriptions of God with intermediaries performing actions the Masoretic version attributes directly to God.

Where the Masoretic describes Yahweh as a "man of war", the Samaritan has "hero of war", a phrase applied to spiritual beings, and in, the Samaritan reading "The Angel of God found Balaam" contrasts with the Masoretic "And God met Balaam.

Distinctive variants in the Samaritan are also found in certain legal texts where Samaritan practice varies from that prescribed within rabbinical halachic texts.

In about thirty-four instances, the Samaritan Pentateuch imports text from parallel or synoptic passages in other parts of the Pentateuch. These textual expansions record conversations and events that are implied or presupposed by other parts of the narrative , but not explicitly recorded in the Masoretic text. For example, the Samaritan text in the Book of Exodus on multiple occasions records Moses repeating to Pharaoh exactly what both the Samaritan and Masoretic record God instructing Moses to tell him.

The result is repetitious, but the Samaritan makes it clear that Moses spoke exactly as God commanded him. In addition to these substantial textual expansions, the Samaritan Pentateuch on numerous occasions adds subjects , prepositions, particles , appositives , and the repetition of words and phrases within a single passage to clarify the meaning of the text. Comparison with the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate The Septuagint agrees with the Samaritan in approximately of the six thousand variations from the Masoretic.

Many of these agreements reflect inconsequential grammatical details, but some are significant. For example, in the Samaritan and the Septuagint reads: In the Masoretic text, the passage reads: Some passages in the Latin Vulgate show agreements with the Samaritan against the Masoretic.

For example, in the Samaritan has "land of Moreh" while the Masoretic has "land of Moriah". The Vulgate translates this phrase as in terram visionis which implies that Jerome was familiar with the reading "Moreh", a Hebrew word whose trilateral root suggests "vision. The Talmud records Rabbi Eleazar b. Simeon condemning the Samaritan scribes: "You have falsified your Pentateuch Cyril of Alexandria , Procopius of Gaza and others spoke of certain words missing from the Jewish Bible, but present in the Samaritan Pentateuch.

Eusebius of Caesarea wrote that the "Greek translation also differs from the Hebrew, though not so much from the Samaritan" and noted that the Septuagint agrees with the Samaritan Pentateuch in the number of years elapsed from Noah's Flood to Abraham.

Christian interest in the Samaritan Pentateuch fell into neglect during the Middle Ages. The publication of a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 17th-century Europe reawakened interest in the text and fueled a controversy between Protestants and Roman Catholics over which Old Testament textual traditions are authoritative.

Roman Catholics showed a particular interest in the study of the Samaritan Pentateuch on account of the antiquity of the text and its frequent agreements with the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, two Bible translations to which Catholics have traditionally ascribed considerable authority.

Some Catholics including Jean Morin , a convert from Calvinism to Catholicism, argued that the Samaritan Pentateuch's correspondences with the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint indicated that it represents a more authentic Hebrew text than the Masoretic. Several Protestants replied with a defense of the Masoretic text's authority and argued that the Samaritan text is a late and unreliable derivation from the Masoretic.

The 18th-century Protestant Hebrew scholar Benjamin Kennicott's analysis of the Samaritan Pentateuch stands as a notable exception to the general trend of early Protestant research on the text. He questioned the underlying assumption that the Masoretic text must be more authentic simply because it has been more widely accepted as the authoritative Hebrew version of the Pentateuch: Kennicott also states that the reading Gerizim may actually be the original reading, since that is the mountain for proclaiming blessings, and that it is very green and rich of vegetation amongst other arguments.

German scholar Wilhelm Gesenius published a study of the Samaritan Pentateuch in which biblical scholars widely embraced for the next century. He argued that the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch share a common source in a family of Hebrew manuscripts which he named the "Alexandrino-Samaritanus". In contrast to the proto-Masoretic "Judean" manuscripts carefully preserved and copied in Jerusalem , he regarded the Alexandrino-Samaritanus as having been carelessly handled by scribal copyists who popularized, simplified, and expanded the text.

Gesenius concluded that the Masoretic text is almost invariably superior to the Samaritan. In Paul Kahle published a paper which compared passages from the Samaritan text to Pentateuchal quotations in the New Testament and pseudepigraphal texts including the Book of Jubilees , the First Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses.

He concluded that the Samaritan Pentateuch preserves "many genuine old readings and an ancient form of the Pentateuch. Apart from the sectarian variants unique to the Samaritan Pentateuch such as the reference to the worship of God on Mount Gerizim, the Dead Sea Scroll texts have demonstrated that a Pentateuchal text type resembling the Samaritan Pentateuch goes back to the second century BCE and perhaps even earlier. Three Messianic passages in the Samaritan Torah:.

The direct inspired record of the woman of the well of Jacob in Shechem Nablus indicates that the Samaritans were looking for four things:. Samaritan Eschatology at the time of Jesus:. The original period of divine favor existed when the tabernacle was on Mount Gerizim in the early days of Palestinian settlement, a period of years by Samaritan calculation. The period of divine disfavor Fanutah began when Eli moved the sanctuary to Shiloh.

A human figure, the Taheb, modeled on the promise of Deut , will be the harbinger of the new era. Beyond that a cosmic eschatology has been added. As for the beginning of the Second Kingdom it is brought into connection with the schema of the six thousand years of the duration of the world.

In the anonymous, eleventh century work, the Asatir, the duration of the world is said to be six thousand years. The Pitron, a fifteenth century commentary on the Asatir, comments on this number as follows: "For from the beginning of the days of creation to the end there will be six thousand years. And the explanation of this is: From Adam until the Taheb will be six thousand years and the seventh thousand will be the Jubilee".

It is self-evident that this 'world scheme' is not of Samaritan origin. Rabbinic sources are aware of it and it is to be noted both in bSanh. Furthermore, through the harmonising of the three eschatological themes of Rhwth, Taheb and the Second Kingdom by late Samaritan theological thinking the Second Kingdom became an intermediate stage only.

The Second Kingdom is thought of as a lasting, unspecified, earthly, universal, ideal realm. It thus becomes a link between the earthly and the cosmic eschatology. Samaritan Eschatology today:. A similar evolution of messianic theology has occurred among the Jews living today. According to the final systematization of Samaritan eschatology the millennium lies between the appearance of the Taheb, the end of the world, the resurrection and the Day of Vengeance.

The time of the Taheb, the earthly eschatology, is characterized by several political expectations. The Hebrew language will be dominant whereas the language of the Arabs will be confused. This goes together with the liberation of the Samaritans from foreign oppression. There will be no more foreign rulers, but the Samaritans themselves will take over the government.

Other peoples will become their subjects. Mt Gerizim will be liberated from foreign occupation and will regain its cultic purity. The goal of all of that is peace for the whole world and the glorification of the truth. As far as individual eschatology is concerned, the belief in individual life after death connected with punishment and reward is essential to Samaritan eschatology.

This includes the belief in resurrection at a later stage of Samaritanism. The eschatological destination of the righteous and the wicked is seen to be different. It is in this respect that notions of Gan Eden and Gehinnom have a place in Samaritan eschatology. The final judgement will take place on the Day of Vengeance and Recompense. The innocent will pass into the Garden of Eden and the wicked will be burned in the fire. The 'fire' is the regular term for the place of eschatological punishment.

It is interesting to note that the Samaritans do use the terms Gehin-nom and Sheol, the latter term appearing in the Samaritan Pentateuch whereas Gehinnom does not.

Its om-mission may not be so surprising when one recalls that it originally designated a valley in Jerusalem. The word Gehinom is only used in late texts e. To a certain degree the same may be true of the name Sheol for it appears as the place for eschatological punishment no earlier than late medieval texts e.

The Pentateuchal usage of Sheol does not yet include the connotation of eschatological punishment. The late, but apparently full terminological agreement with what is found in the intertestamental period does not permit the conclusion that these very detailed notions are quite so old among the Samaritans. On the contrary, the late use of this terminology would rather point to the fact that Samaritanism, due to the time of its origin, did not follow the specific developments of the Jewish creed which, ultimately, were adopted by Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

Gan Eden is conceived as the eschatological habitat designed for the righteous. In eschatological geography it is Mt Gerizim with which the future, like the lost paradise, is connected. Further study:. See full outline on Jewish messianic expection at the time of Christ. See: Messianic expectation in Dead Sea scrolls and coins.

Three False Samaritan Messiahs at the time of Christ:. Dositheus the Samaritan 30 AD :. While in accord with the Samaritan views in the main, he differs from them particularly in regard to the prophetic books, which he recognizes as more or less inspired, rejecting merely the Judaic hopes founded on the Davidic dynasty, while at the same time he makes ample use of the pseudepigraphic literature that seems then to have been widely read, but was lost sight of thereafter in the rabbinic schools.

Very little is known of him; and the uncertainty of the reports is increased by his being confounded with an older Dositheus, the teacher of Zadok, who founded the sect of the Sadducees. He was probably a contemporary of Jesus, or perhaps a little later. In those days of great religious excitement he presented himself to the Samaritans as the prophet promised in Deut.

Pummer, p , AD. Others, again, among whom is Dositheus the Samaritan, condemning such an interpretation, think that in the position in which a man is found on the Sabbath-day, he is to remain until evening. Moreover, the not carrying of a burden on the Sabbath-day is an impossibility; and therefore the Jewish teachers have fallen into countless absurdities, saying that a shoe of such a kind was a burden, but not one of another kind; and that a sandal which had nails was a burden, but not one that was without them; and in like manner what was borne on one shoulder was a load , but not that which was carried on both.

Unnamed False Messiah in 36 AD. The timing is the same time of the great persecution and scattering of Acts This man lived in the same place and time of Simon the Sorcerer of Acts 8. The man [false messiah] who excited them to it, was one who thought lying a thing of little consequence [spoke lies] , and who contrived everything so, that the multitude might be pleased [ attracted a great following ]; so he bade them get together upon Mount Gerizzim, which is by them looked upon as the most holy of all mountains, and assured them that, when they were come thither, he would show them those sacred vessels which were laid under that place, because Moses put them there.

So Pilate, when he had tarried ten years in Judea, made haste to Rome, and this in obedience to the orders of Vitellius, which he durst not contradict; but before he could get to Rome, Tiberius was dead. All other characteristics of SP were already found in early texts such as the so-called pre-Samaritan Qumran texts.

At the same time, SP also differs in small details from these Qumran texts. The paucity of information on the pre-Samaritan texts does not allow us to make precise statements on all the types of differences. What characterized the ancient scribes of SP and the pre-Samaritan texts is the freedom with which they approached the biblical text during the last pre-Christian centuries as opposed to the tradition of meticulous copying that characterized other texts.

In contrast, at a second stage, after the content of the Samaritan tradition had been fixed, SP was copied with great precision, like the texts belonging to the MT group. The best-preserved pre-Samaritan text is 4QpaleoExodm, of which large sections of forty-four columns from Exodus have been preserved. Significant sections of several additional texts have also been found. Gerizim for Mt.

From the Samaritan perspective, Shechem was already the chosen place in the time of Abraham, whereas from the historical perspective of Deuteronomy, the choice of God's place Jerusalem yet lay in the future, after the conquest of the land and the election of David.

Singular is wrong since God chose his sanctuary to dwell at Shiloh for years before Jerusalem: Jeremiah Judges clearly identifies Mt. Gerizim beside Shechem. While the numbers in the MT show that Terah was when Abraham was born and that Abraham left Haran at age 75 after Terah died at age , the Jews incorrectly interpreted the birth of Abraham when Terah was What this meant in their interpretation, was that Tarah continued to live in Haran for another 60 years after Abraham left for Canaan.

This was always problematic until the Christian Bible explicitly stated that Abraham did not leave Haran until after the death of Terah at age see Acts The Samaritans fudged the numbers for the life span of Terah from down to in order to have Terah die before Abraham left Haran.

So in the Samaritan corrupted chronology they incorrectly have Abraham born when Terah was 70 and Terah dying at age when Abraham leaves for Canaan at age But today we are certain that Terah was years old when Abraham was born which creates a huge problem for the Samaritan Pentateuch because this means Terah dies when Abraham is only 15 years old and now Abraham continues to live in Haran for another 60 years after Terah dies before he leaves for Canaan.

Had the Samaritans just left the text alone, they never would have been caught red handed with irrefutable proof Abraham was not 15 years old when Terah died , that they deliberately corrupted the Samaritan Pentateuch chronology in Gen 5 and in Genesis See: Terah died at not years old. The Samaritan Pentateuch contains various kinds of harmonising alterations, especially additions to one passage on the basis of another one that, by definition, are secondary.

These alterations appear inconsistently i. The Samaritan Pentateuch was not sensitive to differences between parallel laws within the Pentateuch which, as a rule, have remained intact, while differences between parallel narrative accounts, especially in the speeches in the first chapters of Deuteronomy and their "sources", were closely scrutinised.

The most frequent type of harmonising alterations happens when one of two differing parallel verses in the Samaritan Pentateuch is adapted to the other.

As a rule, however, the Samaritan Pentateuch puts both parallel verses or parallel details after each other in the earlier of the two texts. Thus the parallel verses from Deut are added in Exodus after and within v. For similar additions. In this way the nature of the book of Deuteronomy as a "repetition of the law" mishnah torah in Jewish sources has been reinforced, since on a strictly formal level Deuteronomy can only "repeat" something if it is also found verbatim in an earlier book.

Another kind of harmonising change concerns the addition of details in the Samaritan Pentateuch with which the reader should actually be familiar, even though they are not explicitly mentioned in the Bible. In Exod , for example, the Israelites murmur against Moses after he has led them through the Red Sea: "Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, 'Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians?

Another illustration is Gen , where Jacob relates a dream not mentioned in any earlier verses in the Massoretic text; in the Samaritan Pentateuch, however, the account of this dream is added after That name may be somewhat misleading since these particular Qumran MSS are neither Samaritan pace Baillet nor sectarian in any way.

This term is used, as in other cases cf. The prominent characteristic which these texts have in common is the occurrence of major harmonising elements such as evidenced in the Samaritan Pentateuch see above. The Exodus text adds, for example, details after based on ; after based on ; and after based on , all agreeing with the Samaritan Pentateuch and all referring to the explicit execution of the divine commands to Moses and Aaron telling them to warn Pharaoh before each plague.

A similar type of text is quoted in 4Q, 4Q both biblical "paraphrases" , and 4Q Test. All these form a typologically similar group, related in character, yet sometimes different in content. As for differences, the texts except for 4QpaleoExod m are written in square Hebrew characters. Also, they lack the distinctive phonetic features of the Samaritan Pentateuch. As for similarities they share the SP's linguistic simplifications, its harmonisations in minor matters, as well as its non-characteristic readings, although differing in many details in these areas.

The spelling of 4QpaleoExod m is fuller than that of the Samaritan Pentateuch, while that of the other texts is not. They are not sectarian in any way. Moreover, they contain various readings not known from other sources. At the same time, these pro-to-Samaritan texts share a sufficient amount of significant details with the Samaritan Pentateuch to demonstrate the close relationship with that text.

In the same way as the proto-Samaritan texts relate to each other, the Samaritan Pentateuch is akin to all of them, although that text is a bit remote from them because of its subsequent ideological and phonetic developments.

There are no actual changes in the Bible text of the Ten Commandments, just added text that is replicated from other places. False accusations of Samaritans changing the text of the Torah, when they did not:. The Lord is a warrior. This alleged variant is a fiction created by scholars who did incomplete and poor research and should be rejected as such. The Samaritans many have taken steps to avoid viewing God in human terms and occasionally would alter the text to remove these Anthropisms but the evidence leads us to conclude this was not the case.

Exod is found in stone inscriptions and is used as a favorite text in liturgies. After all, it is implied that the blast of air came from God. So the entire concept that the Samaritans removed God-man imagery is weak. He has not made you and established you? If the Samaritans actually removed some Anthropisms of God they did a lousy and inconsistent job of it. This leads us to conclude in this case the variants are interpretive not a change in text. The entire idea that the Samaritans removed the God-man imagery from their Torah is a fiction created by scholars who did incomplete and poor research.

The variant of in Ex ; ,8 can be explained through translation equivalents. Harmonization is not an exclusively Samaritan or pre-Samaritan phenomenon. In broad strokes, scribal harmonizations fall into two patterns. First, details from one parallel passage may be inserted into the other to "fill out" the passage missing those details. Second, details in one parallel passage may be changed in order to bring it into agreement with the other, thus eliminating the impression of contradictions Both of these procedures are found in the pre-Samaritan text group and the SP.

The Samaritan Pentateuch, Robert T. Genesis Chronological variants of the Samaritan Pentateuch. Primeval Chronology of Genesis 5. Correct original. Corrupted in AD. Age at Son's Birth. Remaining Years. We know for certain that Shem was not firstborn as per Gen and that Ham was the youngest as per Gen which obviously makes Japheth the oldest. In Gen English translators are split on which of Shem and Japheth were the oldest.

Genesis says the flood occurred when Noah was years old. Primeval Chronology of Genesis Year at Birth. Life 9. Gen 11 Yrs 3. Creation 4. Flood 6. This is an interpretive variance, not a textual one in spite of the fact that Jews from BC to the present wrongly maintain that Terah was 70 when Abraham was born.

Had the Samaritans just left the text alone, they never would have been caught red handed with irrefutable proof Abraham was not 15 years old when Terah died , that they deliberately corrupted the Samaritan Pentateuch chronology in Gen 5, However they are added in the SP. The SP adds the total life years lived for each person in the Gen 11 chronology. This is a corruption of the original text. The Samaritan Pentateuch as a large textual insert after the tenth commandment to covet and before the next section on slavery in both Ex 20 and Deut 5.

In every verse in the Torah in which Jerusalem is alluded to as the central place of worship, the Samaritans have inserted in its stead, sometimes by way of allusion, their own center, Mount Gerizim, one word in their orthography. This change is particularly evident in both versions of the Decalogue with the Samaritan tenth commandment referring to the sanctity of Mount Gerizim.

The commandment is made up entirely of verses occurring elsewhere in the Torah: Deut. The addition includes the reading of SP in Deut. The same change based on the Samaritan ideology pertains to the frequent Deuteronomic formulation, "the site which the Lord will choose," alluding to Jerusalem. From the Samaritan perspective, however, Shechem had already been chosen at the time of the patriarchs Gen.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And you shall write on them all the words of this law. And you shall rejoice before Shehmaa your Eloowwem. And when all the people saw, they trembled and stood at a distance.

Deut —27 And we heard His voice from the midst of the fire. And tell us all that Shehmaa our Eloowwem says to you, and we will hear and do it.

Deut And Shehmaa spoke to Mooshe, saying. Who will wish that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me, and all the days keep my commandments. Deut I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren and will put my words in his mouth. And he shall speak to them all that I will command him.

V18f And it shall be that the man who will not hear his words which he will v18g speak in my name, I will require it from him. But the prophet who will dare with malignity to speak a word on my behalf which I have not commanded him to speak, and he speaks on behalf of other gods, that prophet shall die.

Deut Go say to them, return to your tents. You have seen that I have spoken with you from the heavens. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law. You shall lift up no iron on them. You shall build the altar of Shehmaa your Eloow-wem of complete stones. And you shall rejoice before Sheh-maa your Eloowwem. Before Ashkem [Shechem].

Archeological Literary Texts:. Exod —17 your [father] and your mother [so that your days on the soil which YHWH your God gives you are lengthened. You shall not kill. You shall not rob. You shall not give] L2 false evidence [against] your [neigh]bour. You shall not covet the wife of [your] neigh[bour, or his house, or his servant, or his maid, or his ass, or anything of what belongs to your neighbour.

Deut —31 Go and tell them: Go back to [your tents! You, however, stay here with me, for I am going to explain to you all the commandments, the laws] L4 and the statutes, which you shall teach them, so that they shall do them in the land which [I give them so that they can possess it …] L5 And the people did return, each man to his tent. Exod —26 You have seen that I have spoken with you from the heavens. You shall not make [alongside me gods of silver or gods of gold, do not make them!

You shall construct for me an earthen altar, and sacrifice] L7 on it your holocausts and your peace-offerings, your flocks [and your cattle. In any place where I make you commemorate my name , I shall come to you and bless you. If] L8 you construct [an altar of stone] for me, you are not to chisel it in the manner of blocks of stone, for by [passing] your chisel [over each one of them you will desecrate it.

Nor are you to climb to my altar by steps, in case you reveal your nakedness] L9 on it. Blank cf. Exod —10 These are the statutes [which] you are to pro[pound to them. When you purchase a Hebrew slave he will serve for six years, but on the seventh he shall go away free] L10 [for nothing. If] he came in alone he will go away alone; i[f he was married, his wife will go with him.

If his master gave him a wife and she bore him sons or daughters] L11 [the wife and her children will be] for his [m]aster and he [will go away alone.

But if the slave should say clearly: I love my master, my wife and my children; I do not wish to go away free,] L12 [his master] will [lead him before God, place him near the door or the jambs … His master will pierce] L13 his ear with an awl, [and he will serve him for ever. When a man sells his daughter as a slave-girl, she is not to leave as the slaves leave. If she turns out to be unpleasant in the eyes of her master, who had intended her for himself, he shall allow her to be] L14 redeemed; [he cannot sell her] to a [foreign] peo[ple, …] L15 […] n[ot …] Dead Sea Scroll, 4Q 4QRP a , 4QReworked Pentateuch a Frags.

It is important to remember that 4Q is a Jewish document, not a Samaritan one. Also, it lacks the inclusion of Mt. If this were a Samaritan manuscript these two items would not be overlooked. Exodus 16 features a "tashkil" colophon, or, statement of responsibility , written vertically, in characteristic Samaritan manner, one letter on top of the other, to avoid possible confusion with the biblical text proper.

A second colophon further on in the manuscript is also written vertically and extends over several pages of Deuteronomy: "I, Abraham son of Israel son of Ephraim son of Joseph the Nasi, King of Israel Melekh Yisrael , wrote this copy of the Holy Torah myself for my children in the th year of the Islamic ascendancy, corresponding to the 3,th year of Israelite settlement in the land of Canaan, anno mundi It is the 74th Torah that I have written and I am now sixty years old.

I give thanks to the Lord and entreat him to prolong the life of my children and grandchildren that they may study from it. Amen, amen, amen. By the time this manuscript was written, however, Crusader fortunes were on the wane. Beaten back to the coastal strip and the cities of Acre, Jaffa, and Ascalon, the Samaritans' center at Nablus was back in Muslim hands, with Jerusalem itself only just recovered from the Saracens in Abraham ben Israel's son lived in Jamnia, and there is a good chance, therefore, that the "King of Israel" did so too.

Ironically, this obscure village was also the seat of the Romans' Rabbanite nasi, the traditional birthplace of Rabbinic Judaism known in Hebrew as Yavneh. See also B. Kedar in The Samaritans Alan Crown, ed. Acquisition: Purchased by the Lenox Library from W. Scott Watson in Physical Description Extent: p. Show filters Hide filters. Show Only Public Domain.

Date Range to. Sort by: Title Date created Date digitized Sequence. Front endpaper. Frankel, Vorstudien , p. Early Christian writers, on the other hand, speak of it with respect, in some cases even preferring its authority to that of the Mosaic text. Eusebius of Caesarea, noticing the agreement in the chronology of the Sept. Jerome in Preface to Kings also mentions this fact, and in his comment on Ga he upholds the genuineness of its text over that of the Masoretic one, but in his Quoest.

Down to within the last two hundred and fifty years, however, no copy of this divergent code of laws had reached Europe, and it began to be pronounced a fiction, and the plain words of the Church fathers — the better known authorities — who quoted it were subjected to subtle interpretations. Suddenly, in , Pietro della Valle, one of the first discoverers also of the cuneiform inscriptions, acquired a complete codex from the Samaritans in Damascus.

In it was presented by Achille Harley de Sancy to the Library of the Oratory in Paris, and in there appeared a brief description of it by J.

Morinus in his preface to the Roman text of the Sept. Three years later, shortly before it was published in the Paris Polyglot — whence it was copied, with a few emendations from other codices, by Walton-Morinus, the first editor, wrote his Exercitationes Ecclesiasticoe in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum , in which he pronounced the newly found codex, with all its innumerable variants from the Masoretic text, to be infinitely superior to the latter; in fact, the unconditional and speedy emendation of the received text thereby was urged most authoritatively.

And now the impulse was given to one of the fiercest and most barren literary and theological controversies, of which more anon. Between and six additional copies, partly complete, partly incomplete, were acquired by Usher; five of which he deposited in English libraries, while one was sent to De Dieu, and has disappeared mysteriously.

Another codex, now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, was brought to Italy in Peiresc procured two more, one of which was placed in the Royal Library of Paris, and one in the Barberini at Rome. Thus the number of MSS. During the present century another, but very fragmentary, copy was acquired by the Gotha Library. A copy of the entire? Pentateuch, with Targum? Samaritan version , in parallel columns 4to , on parchment, was brought from Nablus by Mr.

Grove in , for the count of Paris, in whose library it is. Single portions of the Samaritan Pentateuch, in a more or less defective state, are now of no rare occurrence in Europe. Of late the St. The letters, which are of a size corresponding to that of the book, exhibit none of those varieties of shape so frequent in the Masoretic text; such as majuscules, minuscules, suspended, inverted letters, etc.

Their material is vellum or cotton paper; the ink used is black in all cases save in the oldest scroll of the Samaritans at Nablits, the letters of which are in purple. There are neither vowels, accents, nor diacritical points. The individual words are separated from each other by a dot.

Greater or smaller divisions of the text are marked by two dots placed one above the other, and by an asterisk. A small line above a consonant indicates a peculiar meaning of the word, an unusual form, a passive, and the like; it is, in fact, a contrivance to bespeak attention.

Kirchheim, p. At the end of each MS. Yet their dates are not always trustworthy when given, and very difficult to be conjectured when entirely omitted, since the Samaritan letters afford no internal evidence of the period in which they were written.

To none of the MSS. The scroll used in Nabls bears — so the Samaritans pretend — the following inscription:. I praise Jehovah. Deutsch, who copied here Kirchheim p. As it stands now it would lead to the supposition that Le of the Samaritan Pentateuch corresponds to in the Hebrew text.

Letter of Meshalmah ben-Ab Sechuah, Cod. But no European has fully succeeded in finding it in this scroll, however great the pains bestowed upon the search comp. Eichhorn, Einleit. It would appear, however see archdeacon Tattam's notice in the Parthenon , No.

Levysohn, who was attached to the Russian staff in Jerusalem, has found the inscription in question "going through the middle of the body of the text of the Decalogue, and extending through three columns. Eichhorn, ibid. Nevertheless, Lieut. Conder speaks as if he had actually seen the inscription on the venerable MS.

Tent Work in Palestine , 1, This venerable roll is written on parchment, in columns thirteen inches deep and seven and a half inches wide.

The writing is in a good hand, but not nearly so large or beautiful as in many book copies which they possess. Each column contains from seventy to seventy-two lines, and the whole roll contains a hundred and ten columns. The skins of which the roll is made are of equal size, and each measures twenty-five inches in length by fifteen inches in width. In many places it is worn out and patched with rewritten parchment, and in many other places where not torn the writing is illegible.

About two thirds of the original writing is still readable. The name of the scribe, we are told, is written in a kind of acrostic, and forms part of the text running through three columns of the book of Deuteronomy.

In whatever light this statement may be regarded, the roll has the appearance of very great antiquity. Critical Character.

Morin, which placed the Samaritan Pentateuch far above the received text in point of genuineness — partly on account of its agreeing in many places with the Sept.

Characteristically enough, however, this was set at rest once for all by the very first systematic investigation of the point at issue. It would now appear as if the unquestioning rapture with which every new literary discovery was formerly hailed, the innate animosity against the Masoretic Jewish text, the general preference for the Sept. There was, indeed, another cause at work, especially in the first period of the dispute; it was a controversial spirit which prompted J.

Morin and his followers, Cappellus and others, to prove to the Reformers what kind of value was to be attached to their authority — the received form of the Bible, upon which, and which alone, they professed to take their stand.

It was now evident that nothing short of the Divine Spirit, under the influence and inspiration of which the Scriptures were interpreted and expounded by the Roman Church, could be relied upon. Of higher value were. Houbigant, however, with unexampled ignorance and obstinacy, returned to Morinus's first notion — already generally abandoned — of the unquestionable and thorough superiority. He, again, was followed more or less closely by Kennicott, Alex. Aquilino, Lobstein, Geddes, Bertholdt, and others.

The discussion was taken up once more on the other side, chiefly by Ravius, who succeeded in finally disposing of this point of the superiority Exercitatt.