THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS. 



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The Samaritan Pentateuch. The main interest in this 

 disappearing fragment of a nation is the fact that they possess 

 a recension of the Pentateuch peculiar to themselves. While 

 in all essential points it agrees with the ordinary Massoretic 

 recension it differs from it in numerous comparatively unim- 

 portant respects. Whence did they get it ? and when ? Did 

 they get it from Jerusalem after Ezra had brought back the last 

 important body of repatriated captives ? This is the Critical 

 contention ; this explains how the Samaritans had the " Priestly 

 Code " which they maintain was brought from Babylon by 

 Ezra. 



In regard to the time when the Samaritans got the " Tor ah " 

 (to give the book in question its Jewish name), one account is 

 drawn from Josephus. He (Ant. XI, viii, 2) says that Manasseh, 

 the brother of Jaddua the High Priest, excited the anger of the 

 religious of Jerusalem by marrying the daughter of Sanballat, 

 the Governor of Samaria, and was compelled to betake himself 

 thither. He adds that many of the priests and Levites were 

 entangled in such marriages. For his son-in-law Sanballat got 

 permission to erect a temple on Mount Gerizim in which Manasseh 

 officiated as High Priest. It is not said that Manasseh conveyed 

 with him to Samaria a copy of the Law as completed by Ezra. 

 Of course, were there no other reason to doubt the story, 

 Manasseh might have brought a copy of the Pentateuch. But 

 is the story true ? It appears to be a repetition of what happened 

 in the time of Nehemiah's Governorship when he chased the 

 grandson of Eliashib the High Priest, who also had married the 

 daughter of Sanballat. The Assouan papyri refer to the sons of 

 Sanballat as exercising authority in Samaria. This applies to 

 the time of Darius Nothus, the son of the Artaxerxes who had 

 sent Nehemiah to Jerusalem. It could not be the same Sanballat 

 that had been governor under Artaxerxes, who was governor now 

 in the reign of Darius Codomannus. It is unlikely that the 

 Assyrian name would be repeated in the family when the 

 Assyrian Empire had disappeared. Moreover, it is hardly credible 

 that, after the drastic treatment meted out to Samaritan marriages 

 by Ezra and Nehemiah, within a century a great number of the 

 Levites would have repeated the offence. Josephus' account of 

 events of this period is confused to the last degree. We need 

 not dwell further on it ; suffice it to say that the narrative of 

 Josephus is here utterly unhistoricaL 



Most critics agree that it was in the reign of Artaxerxes that 



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