Meaning of SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH

The Samaritans possessed the Hebrew Pentateuch mentioned by Jerome, Eusebius and other so-called Church Fathers. In 1616 Pietro della Valle managed to buy a copy from the Samaritans of Damascus, which passed in 1623 to the Oratory Library in Paris.

By the end of the 18th century, another fifteen more or less complete copies had arrived in Europe, to which others would later be added. Morin (Morinus), who published the Samaritan Pentateuch in 1632, considered that the Samaritan text was far superior to that of the Masoretes (See MASORETES).

For almost two centuries there were controversies about this issue. In 1815, Gessenius, a famous Hebraist, having thoroughly examined the Samaritan text, declared that it was in fact much inferior to the Masoretic text, and of mediocre critical value.

The majority of the Samaritan scrolls, containing the complete Pentateuch or certain parts of it, are not considered earlier than the 10th century CE; one or two of them, preserved in Nablus (ancient Shechem) are considered older. The various Samaritan scrolls are written in characters analogous to those on the coins of the time of the Maccabees, which the Jews used before the introduction of square Hebrew, although there are differences.

The Samaritan text frequently differs from the Hebrew text of the Masoretes. In Deut. 27:4, Moses orders the people to set up, when they have crossed the Jordan, large stones on Mount Ebal, and whitewash them, to write the Law on them.

In order to increase veneration for their sacred mountain, the Samaritans replaced the term Ebal with Gerizim in their text; There are other minor variants. Most of them come from accidental scribal errors, although there are some that have to be attributed to deliberate alterations.

There are about 2,000 passages in which the Samaritan text agrees with the LXX and not with the Hebrew readings, indicating that the LXX translators worked with a Hebrew text closely analogous to that of the Samaritans.

The date on which the Samaritans came into possession, and the circumstances in which they did so, become a very interesting and weighty issue in the question of the antiquity of the Pentateuch.

According to an ancient tradition that is still very accredited, they copied it from a sacred writing that existed before the schism of 931 BC. (under Rehoboam). According to another tradition, the Pentateuch would have come to them with the priest in charge of instructing the settlers brought from Assyria to repopulate Samaria after the deportation of the Israelites, around the year 722 BC. (2 Kings 17:28).

It is also thought that the Samaritan Pentateuch may have been brought there by a renegade priest at the time of the construction of the temple of Gerizim (Ant. 11:7-8). But even accepting a date as late as that of Senballat and Manasseh, that is, the time of Nehemiah (cf. Neh. 13:28), there are important consequences regarding the antiquity of the Pentateuch:

This fact would not only certify that the Pentateuch already existed in its entirety then, but also that it was not and could not be a compilation of those times. Manasseh, who was of the line of the high priest, was excluded from this role because he refused to separate from his pagan wife as the Law demanded.

Instead of protesting against the Law as not genuine, he went on to maintain his yoke over his Samaritan supporters. This behavior can only be explained by Manasseh's firm conviction of the genuineness of the Pentateuch. Be that as it may, the Pentateuch existed then, and was preserved in an independent copy line by the Samaritans.

The Samaritan Pentateuch should not be confused with a version of the Pentateuch in the Samaritan dialect of the early Christian era. The Samaritans also possess an Arabic version of the Pentateuch dated to the 11th or 12th centuries AD, and other biblical writings.