Samaritan Pentateuch
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The Samaritan Pentateuch is the text of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, also called the Torah or Law) that is used by the Samaritans. It is written in the Samaritan alphabet, which is derived from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.
Textual critics compare the Samaritan Pentateuch with other versions of the Pentateuch in order to determine the text of the original Pentateuch and to trace the development of text-families. Scrolls among the Dead Sea scrolls have been identified as proto-Samaritan Pentateuch text-type.[1]
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[edit] The Samaritans
On their return from the Exile, the Jews refused to allow the Samaritans to participate in worship at Jerusalem. The Samaritans separated themselves socially from the Jews, who in return shunned them. Denied access to Jerusalem, Samaritan worship was centred on their temple on Mount Gerizim. This temple was razed to the ground around 100 BCE by the Jews for religious reasons. Then a system of worship was instituted by the Samaritans similar to that of the temple at Jerusalem. It was founded on the Torah, possibly on copies that had been brought by Jewish priests that had left the Jerusalem temple for that on Mount Gerizim. Thus the Pentateuch was preserved among the Samaritans, which they read as one book. The division into five books, however, was later adopted by the Samaritans, as it was by the Jews, in all their priests' copies, for the sake of convenience. This was the only portion of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) that was ever accepted by the Samaritans as having divine authority.
There is a special importance in the Abishua Scroll, which is used in the Samaritan Synagogue of Nablus, and was allegedly penned by Abisha, great-grandson of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
In 1645 a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch was brought by a traveler to the East, and published in the Paris Polyglot by Jean Morin, a Jesuit-convert from Calvinism to Catholicism, who believed that the Septuagint and the Samaritan Texts were superior to the Hebrew Masoretic text.
[edit] Differences with the Masoretic Text
The form of the letters in the manuscript copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch, called the Samaritan alphabet, is different from that of the Hebrew copies, and is probably the same as that which was in general use before the Babylonian captivity. There are other peculiarities in the writing.
There are important differences between the Hebrew and the Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch in the readings of many sentences. In about two thousand out of the six thousand instances in which the Samaritan and the Jewish texts (Masoretic text) differ, the Septuagint (LXX) agrees with the former. For example, Exodus 12:40 in the Samaritan and the LXX reads, "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, however, the same passage reads, "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."
The Samaritan version of the Ten Commandments commands to build the altar on Mt. Gerizim, which would be the site at which all sacrifices should be offered. [2]
Scholarly evaluation of the Samaritan Pentateuch has changed due to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some manuscripts of which display a text that corresponds closely to that of the Samaritan Pentateuch. This shows that, apart from the clearly Samaritan references to the worship of God on Mt. Gerizim, the distinction at that date between the Samaritan and non-Samaritan versions was not as clear-cut as previously thought.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The Canon Debate, McDonald & Sanders editors, 2002, chapter 6: Questions of Canon through the Dead Sea Scrolls by James C. VanderKam, page 94, citing private communication with Emanuel Tov on biblical manuscripts: Qumran scribe type c.25%, proto-Masoretic Text c. 40%, pre-Samaritan texts c.5%, texts close to the Hebrew model for the Septuagint c.5% and nonaligned c.25%.
- ^ Overview of the Differences Between the Jewish and Samaritan Versions of the Pentateuch
[edit] External links
- Facsimile of the entire Samaritan Pentateuch (in Hebrew)
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Samaritans: Samaritan Version of the Pentateuch
This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.
