THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS. 



151 



interpolation from post-Exilic hands), this implies that the 

 knowledge of the Law has to be carried back to a yet earlier 

 period. 



It may, however, be objected that if Esar-haddon's priests 

 brought the Law, why did they not bring more of the books 

 admitted by the Jews to the Canon, especially Joshua ? When 

 the situation is considered, the answer is simple. What the 

 colonists wished was the ritual by which they might propitiate 

 the tutelary God of the land which they had been sent to in- 

 habit ; Joshua did not contain any directions as to the sacrificial 

 victims, Or the mode in which they were to be offered ; it was, 

 therefore, not needed. There would, however, be another reason. 

 If we are correct in our idea that a large number of Israelites 

 were left in the land, the story of the conquest of Canaan was a 

 narrative liable to excite this Israelite remnant to rebel against 

 " the Great King, the King of Assyria." There would be yet 

 stronger reasons of this sort to exclude Judge* and Samuel. 

 Moreover, the Law was under the custody of the priests, whereas 

 the other books were prophetic. Not only was there no sympathy 

 between the priests and the prophets in the Northern Kingdom, 

 but the prophets, as a class, would be suspect by the Assyrian 

 police. This exclusion of Joshua, it may be remarked, decisively 

 negatives the theory that Joshua is an integral part of the Law ; 

 in other words, it shows that we have to do, not with a Hexateuch 

 but with a Pentateuch. 



It seems clear that the Samaritans received again from the 

 priests of Esar-haddon the Law which they had lost in conse- 

 quence of the Assyrian conquest and the deportation of all more 

 lettered people. But what they received was what they 

 previously had had. They thus did not get it from Jerusalem, 

 nor from the Jews. 



There is another line of proof which may be followed when it is 

 endeavoured to assign a date to the Samaritan recension. Any 

 one who has seen a Samaritan manuscript, not to say examined 

 it, observes at once that the characters in which it is written are 

 widely different from the square characters in which our ordinary 

 Hebrew Bibles are printed. The Jews themselves admit that the 

 Samaritan script is older than the Ashurith which they use for 

 the sacred Torah. The Talmudic account is fairly familiar 

 to all Semitic scholars {San, pp. 216, 22a). " The Law was first 

 given to Israel in the Ihri character and the Holy tongue ; again, 

 it was given in Ashurith writing and Syrian tongue. The 



