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EEV. J. IVERACfl MUNRO^ M.A., ON 



the applause that had been given was a proof of what he had said. 

 He added that the paper should now be discussed by competent 

 men, and he hoped the Higher Critics would take due note of it. 



Dr. Thirtle said : The paper just read brings before us a subject 

 of profound importance, in its bearing upon the antiquity and 

 authenticity of the books which compose the Pentateuch. We 

 have listened to strong and cogent reasons for maintaining that the 

 Samaritan Pentateuch goes back to pre-exilic times. The book is 

 demanded for use several centuries before the days of Ezra, when 

 some would suggest its possible origination. Our attention has been 

 directed to circumstances which indicate that, while Hezekiah was 

 still reigning in Judah, the constituent books of the Pentateuch 

 had been adapted to the special prejudices and practices of the 

 people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. If at that time there 

 was a garbled recension of the Pentateuch, then assuredly there 

 was also the authentic Pentateuch Ij^ing at the back of the version. 

 The existence of counterfeit coin implies the antecedent existence 

 of coin that is standard and true. 



I may be allowed to call attention in this connection to a point 

 which strongly confirms the view presented. In the February issue 

 of the Expository Times, Dr. ^I. Gaster, Chief Eabbi of Spanish and 

 Portuguese Jewish Congregations, had an article entitled "The 

 Feast of Jeroboam and the Samaritan Calendar." Therein he made 

 a clear deduction from a careful examination of copies of the 

 Samaritan Calendar, now in his possession. It seems that, as in the 

 case of the Jews, there is a double calendar, the one based on lunar 

 months and the other on solar months : and that in the one case, as in 

 the other, it is the custom, at intervals, to adjust the difference 

 between the two cycles by intercalating a month. While, however, 

 the Jewish practice has been to intercalate a month after Tebet, 

 making that which is ordinarily the twelfth month to become the 

 thirteenth, the Samaritan Calendar discloses a system of intercalating 

 a month after the sixth, called by the Jews Elul, and thus con- 

 stituting a second Tishri, the month which is ordinarily the seventh 

 becoming the eighth for the year so affected. In this latter month 

 they then hold the Feast of Tabernacles, which among the Jews is 

 uniformly a fixture of the seventh month. Whence comes this 

 practice ? Dr. Gaster traces it to the time of Jeroboam, to whose 

 account it is definitely placed in i Kings xii, 31-33, where we read 



