186 



EEV. J. IVERACH MUNRO, M.A., ON 



Why would the Samaritans revise their Pentateuch at all if 

 they received it after the return of the Jews from the exile ? 

 There is no assignable reason for such a course known to me. 

 When we. ask, further, why they would have revised it to the 

 Hebrew of Hezekiah's time, and understand what such an 

 undertaking involved, we see not only that there was no reason 

 for their undertaking such a task, ljut we also see that they 

 would have found it impossible. Consider that there would 

 have been involved a most careful study of Hebrew literature, so 

 that the deviation from the Hebrew of Hezekiah's time would 

 be no more than was required by that variation in the J^orthern 

 Kingdom which the reception of it in the cii cumstances recorded 

 in II Kings xvii involved, and this by men who certainly 

 received not one piece of writing of that time as sacred, and if 

 not as sacred, then as certainly they would not receive it at all. 

 The hypothesis then that they received the Pentateuch after the 

 time of the exile is shattered on this rock that, the careful study 

 of the Hebrew of Hezekiah and the nice adjustment to that, with 

 the exception mentioned, and the avoidance of the snares and 

 pitfalls of Ezra and Neheniiah and the writer of the Chronicles 

 are all involved, a task the attempt at wliich would have 

 involved herculean labour v^^ithout one reason for it, in fact in 

 the circumstances a pure impossibility utterly beyond the 

 powers of those whom Gesenius styled " criticastri." 



The other features of the revision, in so far as they hold good, 

 and prove to be intentional, all point to a very powerful influence 

 at work, with the result that in c(;rtain directions it is so thorough 

 that Gesenius himself bears witness to it. For example, com- 

 menting on the Iburth class of changes — " Eeadings either 

 supplemented or corrected from parallel places " — he says, On 

 this class, as will easily appear, the Samaritan critics bestowed 

 remarkable labour, as the sacred text bears out from its every 

 part ; nothing that appears to be required for the full expression 

 of the text is ever left out." 



The rigorous and thorough aspect of the revision on these 

 points again demands an explanation. What influence could 

 have been strong enough to carry the revisers through so 

 remarkable an achievement ? What motive would the 

 Samaritans have had to change a sacred text ? Whence could 

 tliey have got the necessary familiarity with that text to fit 

 them for doing so thoroughly such a delicate task, especially when 

 they had to keep in view what has already been shown — that 

 these changes had to be expressed in the Hebrew of Hezekiah's 

 time ? We know^ of neither motive nor power adequate. 



