Samaritan Pentateuch

It first became known to the Western world in 1631, proving the first example of the Samaritan alphabet and sparking an intense theological debate regarding its relative age versus the Masoretic Text.

[12] The Samaritans believe that it was not they, but the Jews, who separated from the authentic stream of the Israelite tradition and law, around the time of Eli, in the 11th century BCE.

[13] Another view is that the event happened somewhere around 432 BCE, when Manasseh, the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, founded a community in Samaria, as related in the Book of Nehemiah 13:28 and Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus.

Others believe that the real schism between the peoples did not take place until Hasmonean times, when the Temple on Mount Gerizim was destroyed in 128 BCE by John Hyrcanus.

[15] The script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, its close connections at many points with the Septuagint, and its even closer agreements with the present Masoretic Text, all suggest a date about 122 BCE.

[17] The adoption of the Pentateuch as the sacred text of the Samaritans before their final schism with the Judean Jewish community provides evidence that it was already widely accepted as a canonical authority in that region.

In Deuteronomy 27:4–7,[30] the Dead Sea scroll fragments bring "Gerizim" instead of "Ebal", indicating that the Samaritan version was likely the original reading.

For example, Exodus 12:40[39] in both the Samaritan and the Septuagint reads:[40] Now the sojourning of the children of Israel and of their fathers which they had dwelt in the land of Canaan and in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.In the Masoretic text, the passage reads: Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.Passages in the Latin Vulgate also show agreements with the Samaritan version, in contrast with the Masoretic version.

[42] The Vulgate translates this phrase as in terram visionis ('in the land of vision') which implies that Jerome was familiar with the reading 'Moreh', a Hebrew word whose triliteral root suggests 'vision.

'[43] The earliest recorded assessments of the Samaritan Pentateuch are found in rabbinic literature and the writings of the early Christian Church Fathers of the first millennium.

The Talmud records Eleazar ben Simeon, a Rabbinic Jew, condemning the Samaritan scribes: "You have falsified your Pentateuch... and you have not profited aught by it.

[46] 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.

[25] Some Catholics including Jean Morin argue that the Samaritan Pentateuch's correspondences with the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint indicate that it represents a more authentic Hebrew text than the Masoretic.

[49] 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:[50]We see then that as the evidence of one text destroys the evidence of the other and as there is in fact the authority of versions to oppose to the authority of versions no certain argument or rather no argument at all can be drawn from hence to fix the corruption on either side.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 (as opposed to Mount Ebal, which is barren and the mountain for proclaiming curses) amongst other arguments.

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.

"[25] Support for Kahle's thesis was bolstered by the discovery of biblical manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain a text similar to the Samaritan Pentateuch.

One Dead Sea Scroll copy of the Book of Exodus, conventionally named 4QpaleoExodm, shows a particularly close relation to the Samaritan Pentateuch:[61]The scroll shares all the major typological features with the SP, including all the major expansions of that tradition where it is extant (twelve), with the single exception of the new tenth commandment inserted in Exodus 20 from Deuteronomy 11 and 27 regarding the altar on Mount Gerizim.Frank Moore Cross has described the origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch within the context of his local texts hypothesis.

Cross states that the Samaritan and the Septuagint share a nearer common ancestor than either does with the Masoretic, which he suggested developed from local texts used by the Babylonian Jewish community.

His explanation accounts for the Samaritan and the Septuagint sharing variants not found in the Masoretic and their differences reflecting the period of their independent development as distinct local text traditions.

[63] The Samaritan Targum has a complex textual tradition represented by manuscripts belonging to one of three fundamental text types exhibiting substantial divergences from one another.

Affinities that the oldest of these textual traditions share with the Dead Sea Scrolls and Onkelos suggest that the Targum may originate from the same school which finalized the Samaritan Pentateuch itself.

Scholia of Origen's Hexapla and the writings of some church fathers contain references to "the Samareitikon" (Ancient Greek: το Σαμαρειτικόν),[63] a work that is no longer extant.

An extensive critical apparatus is included listing variant readings found in previously published manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

His work is still regarded as being generally accurate despite the presence of some errors, but it neglects important manuscripts including the Abisha Scroll which had not yet been published at the time.

[25][80] Textual variants found in the Abisha scroll were published in 1959 by Federico Pérez Castro[66] and between 1961 and 1965 by A. and R. Sadaqa in Jewish and Samaritan Versions of the Pentateuch – With Particular Stress on the Differences Between Both Texts.

1846, a Samaritan Pentateuch codex dating to 1100 CE in the critical edition Pentateuco Hebreo-Samaritano: Génesis supplemented with variants found in fifteen previously unpublished manuscripts.