The Hebrew Pentateuch in Samaritan characters

This is the Hebrew Pentateuch in Samaritan characters which are practically the archaic Hebrew letters. It, as well as a Samaritan version which must be distinguished from it, was first brought to the knowledge of Europeans in 1616. Some sixteen MSS. of it are known. Its origin is disputed. According to some it dates from the days of the Schism in B.C. 975; their arguments are briefly these: The Pentateuch was known to the Ten Tribes, but after the Schism they would not have accepted it from the hated Judeans. This hatred was maintained by the Samaritans after the Restoration, yet we find them in the time of Esdras desiring to have a part in the building of the Temple. This can only be explained on the supposition that they had the Pentateuch, and it is noteworthy that this latter is in archaic Hebrew characters, and must therefore date from a time antecedent to the introduction of the square characters about the time of Esdras. Others, however, and with greater probability, refer the Samaritan Pentateuch to the days of Darius Codomannus, B.C. 330, and explain its possession by the Samaritans by supposing that it was taken over to them by Manasses the priest who was driven out by Nehemiah 13:28; it is pointed out, too, that the Samaritans were not the same as the Ten Tribes, but their successors; that they were anxious to be identified with the Jews, hence their anxiety to share in the building of the Temple; hence, too, their acceptance of the Pentateuch only, since all the other Books spoke of David and Sion, and were thus opposed to the claims of Gerizim.

The critical value of the Samaritan Pentateuch is great. The number of discrepancies, many of them only trifling between the Massoretic Hebrew text and the Samaritan text, is enormous; and in many of these the Samaritan text agrees with the LXX with which, too, it appears to have been assimilated though retaining many peculiar readings of its own. The most probable conclusion from a comparison of the three texts is that each is derived from an earlier form of the Hebrew text than that which we now possess.


by
Very Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M.
Doctor in Sacred Scripture,
Member of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and
late Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the Collegio Angelico, Rome.