SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH,
THE. The Samaritan
Pentateuch is preserved in the early type of rounded Hebrew
letters (formerly called Phone) which largely ceased to be used by the Jews
after they adopted the square Aram. characters at the time of exile. In the
course of copying and recopying the forms of some of these letters have so
changed that the Samaritan writing differs in a number of regards from the
earlier form from which it is so clearly descended.
The first copy of the Samaritan
Pentateuch to reach Europe came early in the 17th cent. when
Pietro della Valle purchased a copy of it, and also a copy of an Aram. tr. of
it, from a Samaritan whom he met in Damascus. Since that time dozens of other copies
have reached Europe. Early in the 19th cent., H. F. W. Gesenius, the noted
Hebraist, examined the Samaritan text very closely and declared that it was so
full of minor errors as to be of no use for textual study of the Bible. In more
recent years, certain other scholars have gone to the opposite extreme,
declaring that it represents a vulgar text widely circulated among the Jews as
late as the first century BC.
There has been
considerable discussion as to the time when the Pentateuch came into the hands
of the Samaritans. There is no reason why copies of the Torah might not have
been available in northern Israel when the Assyrians led a great many of its
people into exile in 721 BC. There is also no reason why the priest, whom the
king of Assyria sent at a slightly later date to teach the law of the God of
the land to those whom he had transported to this area from other regions (2
Kings 17:27), might not have brought with him a copy of the Pentateuch. In
either case the book would prob. not have been an exact copy of the official
Torah that was preserved in the Temple in Jerusalem (cf. Deut 17:18; 31:25,
26), but one of the copies belonging to private individuals or groups, or one
that had been copied and recopied in one of the local centers.
In spite of these
facts, so clearly attested in the Bible, it often has been asserted that the
Samaritans had no copy of the law until the time when Nehemiah drove away from
the Temple a grandson of the high priest who had married a daughter of the
Samaritan Sanballat (Neh 13:28). There is, however, no scriptural statement
that this renegade took a copy of the Torah from Jerusalem with him.
Some scholars insist
that the peculiarities of the Samaritan Pentateuch point to an early Jewish
text tradition distinct from that of the MT, and that most of its similarities
to the MT result from its having been influenced by it during the centuries
between 300 BC and AD 100. However, there is no evidence of a close enough
relationship between the Samaritans and the Jews during this period to suggest
that such an alteration of the Samaritan Pentateuch might have occurred at this
time. In fact, all the evidence that exists points in the opposite direction.
There is a long history of opposition between the people at Samaria and those
whose worship centered in Jerusalem. Hard feelings from the time of the divided
kingdom were prob. never entirely healed. When the Jews returned from exile the
Samaritans offered to help in building the Temple, but Zerubbabel and Joshua
vigorously repulsed them (Ezra 4:3, 10, 17). At about 300 BC Ben Sira closed
his book of Ecclesiasticus with sharp words of criticism for “the foolish men
of Shechem.” In Maccabean times, Jewish tradition represents the Samaritans as
joining with the Seleucid oppressors. A few years later John Hyrcanus destroyed
the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerizim. In the time of Christ, it was declared
that the Jews and the Samaritans have no dealings with one another (John 4:9).
The great similarity
between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the MT, despite the long period of
independent development, argues for the general accuracy of the Torah. During
the long time when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were separate there would
have been abundant opportunity for small textual changes in popular MSS that
were not copied with the extreme care devoted to the official copies at
Jerusalem. The people of northern Israel, cut off from access to Jerusalem,
would be likely to write explanatory glosses on the margins of their private
copies of the law. These glosses largely included phrases taken from other
parts of the Torah. On a number of occasions where the Samaritan Pentateuch
reports that Moses said or did something, it prefaces this statement by an
explicit declaration that it was a divine command that he should do so. When
the Lord orders Moses to deliver a message, and the MT merely says that he did
so, the Samaritan Pentateuch is apt to repeat in detail the words of the
message. Sometimes, but not usually, it agrees with the LXX. In a few places,
there is evidence of intentional alteration for doctrinal reasons, such as the
substitution of Mt. Gerizim for Mt. Ebal as the place where the law was to be
written on the stones of the altar (Deut 27:4), but these are comparatively
few.
The orthography of the
Samaritan Pentateuch is much fuller than that of the Pentateuch in the MT. This
is most readily explained as a natural development in styles of spelling. The
Masoretes preserved the Pentateuch, as far as possible, as it had originally
been written. The Books of
Chronicles, written at a later time, use the orthography of the
later period. In the course of copying, points of orthography in the Samaritan
Pentateuch were gradually changed in line with later developments. In the
fourth cave at Qumran there have been found many fragments of an early copy of
Exodus (4QExa), written in the paleo-Hebrew script, an earlier form of the type
of writing used in the present copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch. These
fragments seem to possess the same text peculiarities as the Samaritan
Pentateuch. It was prob. one of the unofficial texts that were circulated among
private individuals and groups in Pal. during the first century BC.
Bibliography
H. F. W. Gesenius, De
pentateuchi samaritani (1815); A. von Gall, Der Hebräische Pentateuch der
Samaritaner (1914-1918, reprinted 1966); P. W. Skehan, “Exodus in the Samaritan
Recension from Qumrân,” JBL, 74 (1955), 182-187; J. D. Purvis, The Samaritan
Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (1968).
International
Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
sa-mar’-i-tan:
I. KNOWLEDGE OF
SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH
1. In Older Times
2. Revived Knowledge
II. CODICES AND SCRIPT
1. Nablus Roll
2. The Script
3. Peculiarities of
Writing
4. The Tarikh
5. The Mode of
Pronunciation
6. Age of the Nablus
Roll
III. RELATION OF THE
SAMARITAN RECENSION TO THE MASSORETIC TEXT AND TO THE SEPTUAGINT
1. Relation to the
Massoretic Text: Classification of Differences
(1) Examples of
Accidental Variations
(a) Due to Mistakes of
Sight
(b) Variations Due to
Mistakes of Hearing
(c) Changes Due to
Deficient Attention
(2) Intentional
(a) Grammatical
(b) Logical
(c) Doctrinal
2. Relation of
Samaritan Recension to Septuagint
(1) Statement of
Hypotheses
(2) Review of These
Hypotheses
IV. BEARING ON THE
PENTATEUCHAL QUESTION
V. TARGUMS AND
CHRONICLE
LITERATURE
The existence of a
Samaritan community in Nablus is generally known, and the fact that they have a
recension of the Pentateuch which differs in some respects from the Massoretic
has been long recognized as important.
1. In Older Times:
Of the Greek Fathers
Origen knew of it and notes two insertions which do not appear in the
Massoretic Text--Nu 13:1 and 21:12, drawn from De 1:2 and 2:18. Eusebius of
Caesarea in his Chronicon compares the ages of the patriarchs
before Abraham in the Septuagint with those in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the
Massoretic Text. Epiphanius is aware that the Samaritans acknowledged the
Pentateuch alone as canonical. Cyril of
Jerusalem notes agreement of Septuagint and Samaritan in Ge
4:8. These are the principal evidences of knowledge of this recension among the
Greek Fathers. Jerome notes some omissions in the Massoretic Text and supplies
them from the Samaritan Text. The Talmud shows that the Jews retained a
knowledge of the Samaritan Pentateuch longer, and speaks contemptuously of the
points in which it differs from the Massoretic Text. Since the differences
observed by the Fathers and the Talmudists are to be seen in the Samaritan
Pentateuch before us, they afford evidence of its authenticity.
2. Revived Knowledge:
After nearly a
millennium of oblivion the Samaritan Pentateuch was restored to the knowledge
of Christendom by Pietro de la Valle who in 1616 purchased a copy from the
Samaritan community which then existed in Damascus. This copy was presented in
1623 to the Paris Oratory and shortly after published in the Paris Polyglot
under the editorship of Morinus, a priest of the Oratory who had been a
Protestant. He emphasized the difference between the Massoretic Text and
Samaritan Pentateuch for argumentative reasons, in order to prove the necessity
for the intervention of the church to settle which was Scripture. A fierce
controversy resulted, in which various divines, Protestant and Catholic, took
part. Since then copies of this recension have multiplied in Europe and
America. All of them may be regarded as copies ultimately of the Nablus roll.
These copies are in the form, not of rolls, but of codices or bound volumes.
They are usually written in two columns to the page, one being the Targum or
interpretation and this is sometimes in Aramaic and sometimes in Arabic. Some
codices show three columns with both Targums. There are probably nearly 100 of
these codices in various libraries in Europe and America. These are all written
in the Samaritan script and differ only by scribal blunders.
II. Codices and
Script.
1. Nablus Roll:
The visitor to the
Samaritans is usually shown an ancient roll, but only rarely is the most
ancient exhibited, and when so exhibited still more rarely is it in
circumstances in which it may be examined.
Dr. Mills, who spent
three months in the Samaritan community, was able to make a careful though
interrupted study of it. His description (Nablus and the Modern Samaritans,
312) is that "the roll is of parchment, written in columns, 13 inches
deep, and 7 1/2 inches wide. The writing is in a fair hand, rather small; each
column contains from 70 to 72 lines, and the whole roll contains 110 columns.
The name of the scribe is written in a kind of acrostic, running through these
columns, and is found in the Book of Deuteronomy The roll has the appearance of
very great antiquity, but is wonderfully well preserved, considering its
venerable age. It is worn out and torn in many places and patched with
re-written parchment; in many other places, where not torn, the writing is
unreadable. It seemed to me that about two-thirds of the original is still
readable. The skins of which the roll is composed are of equal size and measure
each 25 inches long by 15 inches wide." Dr. Rosen’s account on the
authority of Kraus (Zeitschr. der deulschmorgenl. Gesellsch., XVIII, 582)
agrees with this, adding that the "breadth of the writing is a line and
the space between is similar." Both observers have noted that the
parchment has been written only on the "hair" side. It is preserved
in a silk covering enclosed in a silver case embossed with arabesque ornaments.
2. The Script:
The reader on opening
one of the codices of the Samaritan Pentateuch recognizes at once the
difference of the writing from the characters in an ordinary Hebrew Bible. The
Jews admit that the character in which the Samaritan Pentateuch is written is
older than their square character. It is said in the Talmud (Sanhedhrin 21b):
"The law at first was given to Israel in `ibhri letters and in the holy
tongue and again by Ezra in the square (’ashurith) character and the Aramaic
tongue. Israel chose for themselves the ’ashurith character and the holy
tongue: they left to the hedhyoToth ("uncultured") the `ibhri
character and the Aramaic tongue--`the Cuthaeans are the hedhyoToth,’ said
Rabbi Chasda." When Jewish hatred of the Samaritans, and the contempt of
the Pharisees for them are remembered, this admission amounts to a
demonstration. The Samaritan script resembles that on the Maccabean coins, but
is not identical with it. It may be regarded as between the square character
and the angular, the latter as is seen in the manuscript and the Siloam
inscription. Another intermediate form, that found on the Assouan papyri, owes
the differences it presents to having been written with a reed on papyrus. As
the chronology of these scripts is of importance we subjoin those principally
in question.
The study of these
alphabets. will confirm the statement above made that the Samaritan alphabet
is, in evolution, between the square character and the angular, nearer the
latter than the former, while the characters of the Assouan papyri are nearer
the former than the latter. Another point to be observed is that the letters
which resemble each other in one alphabet do not always resemble in another. We
can thus, from comparison of the letters liable to be confused, form a guess as
to the script in which the document containing the confusion written.
3. Peculiarities in
Writing:
In inscriptions the
lapidary had no hesitation, irrespective of syllables, in completing in the
next line any word for which he had not sufficient room. Thus, the beginnings
and endings of lines were directly under each other, as on the MS. In the
papyri the words are not divided, but the scribe was not particular to have the
ends of lines directly under each other. The scribe of the square character by
use of literae dilatabiles secured this without dividing the words. The
Samaritan secured this end by wider spacing. The first letter or couple of
letters of each line are placed directly under the first letter or letters of
the preceding line--so with the last letters--two or three--of the line, while
the other words are spread out to fill up the space. The only exception to this
is a paragraph ending. Words are separated from each other by dots; sentences
by a sign like our colon. The Torah is divided into 966 qisam or paragraphs.
The termination of these is shown by the colon having a dot added to it, thus:.
Sometimes this is reinforced by a line and an angle. These qisam are often
enumerated on the margin; sometimes, in later manuscripts in Arabic numerals. A
blank space sometimes separates one of these qisam from the next.
4. The Tarikh:
When the scribe wished
to inform the reader of his personality and the place where he had written the
manuscript he made use of a peculiar device. In copying he left a space vacant
in the middle of a column. The space thus left is every now and then bridged by
a single letter. These letters read down the column form words and sentences
which convey the information. In the case of the Nablus roll this tarikh occurs
in Deuteronomy and occupies three columns. In this it is said, "I Abishua,
son of Pinhas (Phinehas), son of Eleazar, son of Aharun (Aaron) the priest,
have written this holy book in the door of the tabernacle of the congregation
in Mt. Gerizim in the 13th year of the rule of the children of Israel in the
land of Canaan." Most of the codices in the libraries of Europe and
America have like information given in a similar manner. This tarikh is usually
Hebrew, but sometimes it is in the Samaritan Aramaic. Falsification of the date
merely is practically impossible; the forgery must be the work of the first
scribe.
5. The Mode of
Pronunciation:
Not only has the
difference of script to be considered, but also the different values assigned
to the letters. The names given to the letters differ considerably from the
Hebrew, as may be seen above. There are no vowel points or signs of
reduplication. Only B and P of the BeGaDH-KePHaTH letters are aspirated. The
most singular peculiarity is that none of the gutturals is pronounced at all--a
peculiarity which explains some of the names given to the letters. This
characteristic appears all the more striking when it is remembered how
prominent gutturals are in Arabic, the everyday language of the Samaritans. The
Genesis 1:1-5 are subjoined according to the Samaritan pronunciation, as taken
down by Petermann (Versuch einer hebr. Formenlehre, 161), from the reading of
Amram the high priest: Barashet bara Eluwem it ashshamem wit aarets. Waarets
ayata-te’u ube’u waashek al fani .... turn uru Eluwem amra, efet al fani ammem
waya’mer Eluwem ya’i or way’ai or wayere Eluwem it a’ or ki tov wayabdel Eluwem
bin a’ir ubin aashek uyikra Eluwem la’or yom ula ’ashek qara lila. Uyai `erev
uyai beqar yom a’ad.
6. Age of the Nablus
Roll:
There is no doubt that
if the inscription given above is really in the manuscript it is a forgery
written on the skin at the first. Of its falsity also there is no doubt. The
Tell el-Amarna Letters sent from Canaan and nearly contemporary with the
Israelite conquest of the land were impressed with cuneiform characters and the
language was Babylonian. Neglecting the tarikh, we may examine the matter
independently and come to certain conclusions. If it is the original from which
the other manuscripts have been copied we are forced to assume a date earlier
at least than the 10th century AD, which is the date of the earliest Hebrew MS.
The script dates from the Hasmoneans. The reason of this mode of writing being
perpetuated in copying the Law must be found in some special sanctity in the
document from which the copies were made originally. Dr. Mills seems almost
inclined to believe the authenticity of the tarikh. His reasons, however, have
been rendered valueless by recent discoveries. Dr. Cowley, on the other hand, would
date it somewhere about the 12th century AD, or from that to the 14th. With all
the respect due to such a scholar we venture to think his view untenable. His
hypothesis is that an old manuscript was found and the tarikh now seen in it
was afterward added. That, however, is impossible unless a new skin--the
newness of which would be obvious--had been written over and inserted. Even the
comparatively slight change implied in turning Ishmael into Israel in the
tarikh in the Nablus roll necessitates a great adjustment of lines, as the
letters of the tarikh must read horizontally as well as perpendicularly. If
that change were made, the date would then be approximately 650 AD, much older
than Cowley’s 12th century. There is, however, nothing in this to explain the
sanctity given to this MS. There is a tradition that the roll was saved from
fire, that, it leaped out of the fire in the presence of Nebuchadnezzar. If it
were found unconsumed when the temple on Mt. Gerizim was burned by John
Hyrcanus I, this would account for the veneration in which it is held. It would
account also for the stereotyping of the script. The angular script prevailed
until near the time of Alexander the
Great. In it or in a script akin to it the copy of the Law must have
been written which Manasseh, the son-in-law of Sanballat, brought to Samaria.
The preservation of such a copy would be ascribed to miracle and the script
consecrated.
III. Relation of the
Samaritan Recension to the Massoretic Text and to the Septuagint.
1. Relation to
Massoretic Text: Classification of Differences:
While the reader of
the Samaritan Pentateuch will not fail to observe its practical identity with
the Massoretic Text, closer study reveals numerous, if minor, differences.
These differences were
classified by Gesenius. Besides being illogical, his classification is faulty,
as founded on the assumption that the Samaritan Pentateuch text is the later.
The same may be said of Kohn’s. We would venture on another classification of
these variations, deriving the principle of division from their origin. These
variations were due either to
(1) Accident: The
first of these classes arose from the way in which books were multiplied in
ancient days. Most commonly one read and a score of scribes, probably slaves,
wrote to this dictation. Hence, errors might arise.
(a) when from
similarity of letters the reader mistook one word for another.
(b) If the reader’s
pronunciation was not distinct the scribes might mis-hear and therefore write
the word amiss.
(c) Further, if the
reader began a sentence which opened in a way that generally was followed by
certain words or phrases, he might inadvertently conclude it, not in the way it
was written before him, but in the customary phrase. In the same way the scribe
through defective attention might also blunder. Thus the accidental variations
may be regarded as due to mistakes of sight, hearing and attention.
(2) Intentions:
Variations due to intention are either
(a) grammatical, the
removal of peculiarities and conforming them to usage, or
(b) logical, as when a
command having been given, the fulfillment is felt to follow as a logical
necessity and so is narrated, or, if narrated, is omitted according to the
ideas of the scribe;
(c) doctrinal changes
introduced into the text to suit the doctrinal position of one side or other.
Questions of propriety also lead to alterations--these may be regarded as
quasi-doctrinal.
(1) Examples of
Accidental Variations.
(a) Due to Mistakes of
Sight:
The cause of mistakes
of sight is the likeness of differing letters. These, however, differ in
different scripts, as may be proved by consideration of the table of alphabets.
Some of these mistakes found in connection with the Samaritan Pentateuch appear
to be mistakes due to the resemblance of letters in the Samaritan script. Most
of these are obvious blunders; thus, in Ge 19:32, we have the meaningless
tabhinu instead of ’abhini, "our father," from the likeness of the
Samaritan "t" to "a." In Ge 25:29 we have tsazedh instead
of yazedh, "to seethe," because of the likeness of a Samaritan
"ts", to "y" or "i". These, while in Blayney’s
transcription of Walton’s text, are not in Petermann or the Samaritan Targum.
The above examples are mistakes in Samaritan manuscripts, but there are
mistakes also in the Massoretic Text. In Ge 27:40 the Revised Version (British
and American) rendering is "When thou shalt break loose, thou shalt shake
his yoke from off thy neck." This rendering does violence to the sense of
both verbs and results in a tautology. In the Hiphil the first verb rudh ought
to mean "to cause to wander," not "to break loose," and the
second verb paraq means "to break," not "to shake off." The
Samaritan has "When thou shalt be mighty, thou shalt break his yoke from
off thy neck." The Massoretic Text mistake may be due to the confounding
of the Samaritan "a" with a "t", and the transposition of a
Samaritan "d" and "b". The verb ’adhar, "to be
strong," is rare and poetic, and so unlikely to suggest itself to reader
or scribe. The renderings of the Septuagint and Peshitta indicate confusion.
There are numerous cases, however, where the resembling letters are not in the
Samaritan script, but sometimes in the square character and sometimes in the
angular. Some characters resemble each other in both, but not in the Samaritan.
The cases in which the resemblance is only in letters in the square script may
all be ascribed to variation in the Massoretic Text. Cases involving the
confusion of waw and yodh are instances in point. It may be said that every one
of the instances of variation which depends on confusion of these letters is
due to a blunder of a Jewish scribe, e.g. Ge 25:13, where the Jewish scribe has
written nebhith instead of nebhdyoth (Nebaioth) as usual; 36:5, where the
Jewish scribe has ye`ish instead of ye`ush (Jeush), as in the Qere. In Ge
46:30, by writing re’othi instead of ra’ithi, the Jewish scribe in regard to
the same letters has made a blunder which the Samaritan scribe has avoided.
When d and r are confused, it must not be ascribed to the likeness in the
square script, for those letters are alike in the angular also. As the square
is admitted to be later than the date of the Samaritan script, these confusions
point to a manuscript in angular. There are, however, confusions which apply
only to letters alike in angular. Thus, binyamim, invariably in the Samaritan
Pentateuch Benjamin, binyamin, is written Benjamin; also in Ex 1:11 pithon
instead of pithom, but "m" and "n" are alike only in the
script of the Siloam inscription. In De 12:21, the Samaritan has leshakken, as
the Massoretic Text has in 12:11, whereas the Massoretic Text has lasum. A
study of the alphabets on p. 2314 will show the close resemblance between waw
(w) and kaph (k) in the Siloam script, as well as the likeness above mentioned
between "m" and "n". This points to the fact that the manuscripts
from which the Massoretic Text and the Samaritan were transcribed in some
period of their history were written in angular of the type of the Siloam
inscription, that is to say of the age of Hezekiah.
(b) Variations Due to
Mistakes of Hearing:
The great mass of
these are due to one of two sources, either on the one hand the insertion or
omission of waw and yodh, so that the vowel is written plenum or the reverse,
or, on the other hand, to the mistake of the gutturals. Of the former class of
variations there are dozens in every chapter. The latter also is fairly
frequent, and is due doubtless to the fact that in the time when the originals
of the present manuscripts were transcribed the gutturals were not pronounced
at all. Ge 27:36 shows ’aleph (’) and he (h) interchanged, he (h) and cheth
(ch) in Ge 41:45, cheth (ch) for `ayin (`) in Ge 49:7, and ’aleph (’) and `ayin
(`) in Ge 23:18, in many Samaritan manuscripts, but the result is meaningless.
This inability to pronounce the gutturals points to a date considerably before
the Arab domination. Possibly this avoidance of the gutturals became
fashionable during the Roman rule, when the language of law was Latin, a
language without gutturals. A parallel instance may be seen in Aquila, who does
not transliterate any gutturals. This loss of the gutturals may be connected
with the fact that in Assyrian ’aleph (’) is practically the only guttural. The
colonists from Assyria might not unlikely be unable to pronounce the gutturals.
(c) Changes Due to Deficient Attention:
Another cause of
variation is to be found in reader or scribe not attending sufficiently to the
actual word or sentence seen or heard. This is manifested in putting for a word
its equivalent. In Ge 26:31 the Samaritan has lere`ehu, "to his
friend," instead of as the Massoretic Text le’achiw, "to his
brother," and in Ex 2:10 Samaritan has na`ar for yeledh in Massoretic
Text. In such cases it is impossible to determine which represents the original
text. We may remark that the assumption of Gesenius and of such Jewish writers
as Kohn that the Massoretic Text is always correct is due to mere prejudice.
More important is the occasional interchange of YHWH and ’Elohim, as in Ge
28:4, where Samaritan has YHWH and the Massoretic Text ’Elohim, and Ge 7:1
where it has ’Elohim against YHWH in the Massoretic Text. This last instance is
the more singular, in that in the 9th verse of the same chapter the Massoretic
Text has ’Elohim and the Samaritan YHWH. Another class of instances which may
be due to the same cause is the completion of a sentence by adding a clause or,
it may be, dropping it from failure to observe it to be incomplete, as Ge
24:45. If the Massoretic Text be the original text, the Samaritan adds the
clause "a little water from thy pitcher"; if the Samaritan, then the
Massoretic Text has dropped it.
(2) Intentional.
(a) Grammatical:
The variations from
the Massoretic Text most frequently met with in reading the Samaritan
Pentateuch are those necessary to conform the language to the rules of ordinary
grammar. In this the Samaritan frequently coincides with the Qere of the
Massoretic Text. The Kethibh of the Massoretic Text has no distinction in
gender between hu’ in the 3rd personal pronoun singular--in both masculine and
feminine it is hu’. The Samaritan with the Qere corrects this to hi’. So with
na`ar, "a youth"--this is common in the Kethibh, but in the Qere when
a young woman is in question the feminine termination is added, and so the
Samaritan writers also. It is a possible supposition that this characteristic
of the Torah is late and due to blundering peculiar to the manuscript from
which the Massoretes copied the Kethibh. That it is systematic is against its
being due to blunder, and as the latest Hebrew books maintain distinction of
gender, we must regard this as an evidence of antiquity. This is confirmed by
another set of variations between the Samaritan and the Massoretic Text. There
are, in the latter, traces of case-endings which have disappeared in later
Hebrew. These are removed in the Samaritan. That case terminations have a
tendency to disappear is to be seen in English and French The sign of the
accusative, ’eth, frequently omitted in the Massoretic Text, is generally
supplied in Samaritan. A short form of the demonstrative pronoun plural (’el
instead of ’ellah) is restricted to the Pentateuch and 1Ch 20:8. The syntax of
the cohortative is different in Samaritan from that in the Massoretic Hebrew.
It is not to be assumed that the Jewish was the only correct or primitive use.
There are cases where, with colloquial inexactitude, the Massoretic Text has
joined a plural noun to a singular verb, and vice versa; these are corrected in
Samaritan. Conjugations which in later Hebrew have a definite meaning in
relation to the root, but are used in the Massoretic Text of the Torah in quite
other senses, are brought in the Samaritan Pentateuch into harmony with later
use. It ought in passing to be noted that these pentateuchal forms do not occur
in the Prophets; even in Jos 2:15 we have the feminine 3rd personal pronoun; in
Jud 19:3 we have na`arah.
(b) Logical:
Sometimes the context
or the circumstances implied have led to a change on one side or another. This
may involve only the change of a word, as in Ge 2:2, where the Samaritan has
"sixth" instead of "seventh" (Massoretic Text), in this
agreeing with the Septuagint and Peshitta, the Jewish scribe thinking the
"sixth day" could only be reckoned ended when the "seventh’ had
begun. In Ge 4:8, after the clause, "And Cain talked with (said to) Abel
his brother," the Samaritan, Septuagint and Peshitta add, "Let us go
into the field." From the evidence of the VSS, from the natural meaning of
the verb ’amar, "to say," not "to speak," from the natural
meaning also of the preposition ’el, "to," not "with" (see
Gesenius), it is clear that the Massoretic Text has dropped the clause and that
the Samaritan represents the true text. If this is not the case, it is a case
of logical completion on the part of the Samaritan. Another instance is the
addition to each name in the genealogy in Ge 11:10-24 of the sum of the years
of his life. In the case of the narrative of the plagues of Egypt a whole
paragraph is added frequently. What has been commanded Moses and Aaron is
repeated as history when they obey. (c) Doctrinal:
There are cases in
which the text so suits the special views of the Samaritans concerning the
sanctity of Gerizim that alteration of the original in that direction may be
supposed to be the likeliest explanation. Thus there is inserted at Ge 20:6, 7
a passage from De 27:2 slightly modified: Gerizim being put for Ebal, the
object of the addition being to give the consecration of Gerizim the sanction
of the Torah. Kennicott, however, defends the authenticity of this passage as
against the Massoretic Text. Insertion or omission appears to be the result of
doctrinal predilection. In Nu 25:4,5 the Samaritan harmonizes the command of
Yahweh with the action of Moses. The passage removed has a bloodthirsty
Moloch-like look that might seem difficult to defend. On the other hand, the
Jewish hatred of idolatry might express itself in the command to "take all
the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun,"
and so might be inserted. There are cases also where the language is altered
for reasons of propriety. In these cases the Samaritan agrees with the Qere of
the Massoretic Text.
These variations are
of unequal value as evidences of the relative date of the Samaritan recension
of the Pentateuch. The intentional are for this purpose of little value; they
are evidence of the views prevalent in the northern and southern districts of
Palestine respectively. Only visual blunders are of real importance, and they
point to a date about the days of Hezekiah as the time at which the two
recensions began to diverge. One thing is obvious, that the Samaritan, at least
as often as the Massoretic Text, represents the primitive text.
2. Relation of
Samaritan Recension to Septuagint:
(1) Statement of
Hypotheses.
The frequency with
which the points in which the Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Massoretic
Text agree with those in which the Septuagint also differs has exercised
scholars. Castelli asserts that there are a thousand such instances. It may be
noted that in one instance, at any rate, a passage in which the Samaritan and
the Septuagint agree against the Massoretic Text has the support of the New Testament.
In Ga 3:17, the apostle Paul, following the Samaritan and Septuagint against
the Massoretic Text, makes the "430 years" which terminated with the
exodus begin with Abraham. As a rule the attention of Biblical scholars has
been so directed to the resemblances between the Samaritan and the Septuagint
that they have neglected the more numerous points of difference. So impressed
have scholars been, especially when Jews, by these resemblances that they have
assumed that the one was dependent on the other. Frankel has maintained that
the Samaritan was translated from the Septuagint. Against this is the fact that
in all their insulting remarks against them the Talmudists never assert that
the "Cuthaeans" (Samaritans) got their Torah from the Greeks.
Further, even if they only got the Law through Manasseh, the son-in-law of
Sanballat, and even if he lived in the time of Alexander the Great, yet this
was nearly half a century before the earliest date of the Septuagint. Again,
while there are many evidences in the Septuagint that it has been translated
from Hebrew, there are none in the Samaritan that it has been translated from
Greek The converse hypothesis is maintained by Dr. Kohn with all the emphasis
of extended type. His hypothesis is that before the Septuagint was thought of a
Greek translation was made from a Samaritan copy of the Law for the benefit of
Samaritans resident in Egypt. The Jews made use of this at first, but when they
found it wrong in many points, they purposed a new translation, but were so
much influenced by that to which they were accustomed that it was only an
improved edition of the Samaritan which resulted. But it is improbable that the
Samaritans, who were few and who had comparatively little intercourse with
Egypt, should precede the more numerous Jews with their huge colonies in Egypt,
in making a Greek translation. It is further against the Jewish tradition as
preserved to us by Josephus. It is against the Samaritan tradition as learned
by the present writer from the Samaritan high priest. According to him, the
Samaritans had no independent translation, beyond the fact that five of the
Septuagint were Samaritan. Had there been any excuse for asserting that the
Samaritans were the first translators, that would not have disappeared from
their traditions.
(2) Review of These
Hypotheses.
The above
unsatisfactory explanations result from deficient observation and unwarranted
assumption. That there are many cases where the Samaritan variations from the
Massoretic Text are identical with those of the Septuagint is indubitable. It
has, however, not been observed by those Jewish scholars that the cases in
which the Samaritan alone or the Septuagint alone (one or the other) agrees
with the Massoretic Text against the other, are equally numerous. Besides,
there are not a few cases in which all three differ. It ought to be observed
that the cases in which the Septuagint differs from the Massoretic Text are
much more numerous than those in which the Samaritan differs from it. One has
only to compare the Samaritan, Septuagint and Massoretic Text of any half a
dozen consecutive chapters in the Pentateuch to prove this. Thus neither is
dependent on the others. Further, there is the unwarranted assumption that the
Massoretic Text represents the primitive text of the Law. If the Massoretic
Text is compared with the VSS, it is found that the Septuagint, despite the
misdirected efforts of Origen to harmonize it to the Palestinian text, differs
in very many cases from the Massoretic Text. Theodotion is nearer, but still
differs in not a few cases. Jerome is nearer still, though even the text behind
the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 AD) is not identical with the
Massoretic Text. It follows that the Massoretic Text is the result of a process
which stopped somewhere about the end of the 5th century AD. The origin of the
Massoretic Text appears to have been somewhat the result of accident. A
manuscript which had acquired a special sanctity as belonging to a famous rabbi
is copied with fastidious accuracy, so that even its blunders are perpetuated.
This supplies the Kethibh. Corrections are made from other manuscripts, and
these form the Qere. If our hypothesis as to the age of the Nablus roll is
correct, it is older than the Massoretic Text by more than half a millennium,
and the manuscript from which the Septuagint was translated was nearly a couple
of centuries older still. So far then from its being a reasonable assumption
that the Septuagint and Samaritan differ from the Massoretic Text only by
blundering or willful corruption on the part of the former, the converse is at
least as probable. The conclusion then to which we are led is that of Kennicott
(State of Hebrew Text Dissertation, II, 164) that the Samaritan and Septuagint
being independent, "each copy is invaluable--each copy demands our pious
veneration and attentive study." It further ought to be observed that
though Dr. Kohn points to certain cases where the difference between the
Massoretic Text and the Septuagint is due to confusion of letters only possible
in Samaritan character, this does not prove the Septuagint to have been
translated from a Samaritan MS, but that the manuscripts of the Massoretic Text
used by the Septuagint were written in that script. Kohn also exhibits the
relation of the Samaritan to the Peshitta. While the Peshitta sometimes agrees
with the Samaritan where it differs from the Massoretic Text, more frequently
it supports the Massoretic Text against the Samaritan.
IV. Bearing on the
Pentateuchal Question.
Josephus (Ant., XI,
viii, 2) makes Sanballat contemporary with Alexander the Great, and states that
his son-in-law Manasseh came to Samaria and became the high priest. Although it
is not said by Josephus, it is assumed by critics that he brought the completed
Torah with him. This Manasseh is according to Josephus the grandson of Eliashib
the high priest, the contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, and therefore
contemporary with Artaxerxes Longimanus. Nehemiah (13:28) mentions, without
naming him, a grandson of Eliashib, who was son-in-law of Sanballat, whom he
chased from him. It is clear that Josephus had dropped a century out of his
history, and that the migration of Manasseh is to be placed not circa 335 BC,
but circa 435 BC. Ezra is reputed to be, if not the author of the Priestly Code
in the Pentateuch, at all events its introducer to the Palestinians, and to
have edited the whole, so that it assumed the form in which we now have it. But
he was the contemporary of Manasseh, and had been, by his denunciation of
foreign marriages, the cause of the banishment of Manasseh and his friends. Is
it probable that he, Manasseh, would receive as Mosaic the enactments of Ezra,
or convey them to Samaria? The date of the introduction of the Priestly Code
(P), the latest portion of the Law, must accordingly be put considerably
earlier than it is placed at present. We have seen that there are visual
blunders that can be explained only on the assumption that the manuscript from
which the mother Samaritan roll was copied was written in some variety of
angular script. We have seen, further, that the peculiarities suit those of the
Siloam inscription executed in the reign of Hezekiah, therefore approximately
contemporary with the priest sent by Esarhaddon to Samaria to teach the people
"the manner of the God of the land." As Amos and Hosea manifest a
knowledge of the whole Pentateuch before the captivity, it would seem that this
"Book of the Law" that was "read (Am 4:5, the Septuagint)
without," which would be the source from which the priest sent from
Assyria taught as above "the manner of the God of the land," would
contain all the portions--J, E, D, and P--of the Law. If so, it did not contain
the Book of Josh; notwithstanding the honor they give the conqueror of Canaan,
the Samaritans have not retained the book which relates his exploits. This is
confirmed by the fact that the archaisms in the Massoretic Text of the
Pentateuch are not found in Josh. It is singular, if the Prophets were before
the Law, that in the Law there should be archaisms which are not found in the
Prophets. From the way the divine names are interchanged, as we saw, sometimes
’Elohim in the Samaritan represents YHWH in the Massoretic Text, sometimes vice
versa, it becomes obviously impossible to lay any stress on this. This
conclusion is confirmed by the yet greater frequency with which this
interchange occurs in the Septuagint. The result of investigation of the
Samaritan Pentateuch is to throw very considerable doubt on the validity of the
critical opinions as to the date, origin and structure of the Pentateuch
V. Targums and
Chronicle.
As above noted, there
are two Targums or interpretations of the Samaritan Pentateuch, an Aramaic and
an Arabic. The Aramaic is a dialect related to the Western Aramaic, in which
the Jewish Targums were written, sometimes called Chaldee. It has in it many
strange words, some of which may be due to the language of the Assyrian
colonists, but many are the result of blunders of copyists ignorant of the
language. It is pretty close to the original and is little given to paraphrase.
Much the same may be said of the Arabic Targum. It is usually attributed to Abu
Said of the 13th century, but according to Dr. Cowley only revised by him from
the Targum of Abulhassan of the 11th century. There is reference occasionally
in the Fathers to a Samaritikon which has been taken to mean a Greek version.
No indubitable quotations from it survive--what seem to be so being really
translations of the text of the Samaritan recension. There is in Arabic a wordy
chronicle called "The Book of Joshua."
It has been edited by Juynboll. It may be dated in the 13th century. More
recently a "Book of Joshua" in Hebrew and written in Samaritan
characters was alleged to be discovered. It is, however, a manifest forgery;
the characters in which it is written are very late. It is partly borrowed rom
the canonical Josh, and partly from the older Samaritan Book of Joshua with
fabulous additions. The Chronicle of Abulfatach is a tolerably accurate account
of the history of the Samaritans after Alexander the Great to the 4th century
AD.
LITERATURE.
The text in the
Samaritan script is found in the polyglots--Paris and London. Walton’s text in
the London Polyglot is transcribed in square characters by Blayney, Oxford,
1790. The English works of importance of recent times are Mills, Nablus and the
Samaritans, London, 1864; Nutt, Fragments of a Samaritan Targum, London, 1874;
Montgomery, The Samaritans, Philadelphia, 1907 (this has a very full
bibliography which includes articles in periodicals); Iverach Munro. nodetitle and
Modern Criticism, 1911, London. In Germany, Gesenius’ dissertation, De
Pentateuchi Samaritani origine, etc., Jena, 1815, has not quite lost its value;
Kohn, De Pentateucho Samaritano, Leipzig, 1865; Petermann, Versuch einer hebr.
Formenlehre nach der Aussprache der heutigen Samaritaner, Leipzig, 1868. There
are besides articles on this in the various Biblical Dictionaries and
Encyclodedias. In the numerous religious and theological periodicals there have
been articles on the Samaritan Pentateuch of varying worth. The Aramaic Targum
has been transcribed in square characters and edited by Brull (Frankfort,
1875).
