166 



REV. J. E. H. THOMSOX, M.A., D.D., ON 



readings one may be selected. In Deut. xxxiv, Ifi., we read that the 

 Lord showed Moses the land as far as Dan. The Samaritans substi- 

 tute the following statement : "'■ And the Lord showed him all the 

 land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River 

 Euphrates, and unto the hinder sea.'' It requires no prolonged 

 consideration to decide which of the two statements is the earlier 

 and the more credible. The physical impossibility of a view from 

 Moab to the Euphrates speaks for itself. The Samaritans here have 

 rewritten the narrative under the influence of Deut. xi, 24, which 

 they have regarded as a canon of emendation. They have applied 

 it similarly in Gen. x, 19. 



3. A third class of arguments may be derived from certain lin- 

 guistic considerations. It is well known to all students of the 

 Hebrew Bible that the Pentateuch is distinguished from the later 

 books by the use of certain peculiar Jewish forms, such as a special 

 word for these epicene writings of the words for she," girl," 

 etc. In these matters, which are generally regarded as archaisms, 

 the Samaritan Pentateuch invariably substitutes the forms found 

 in the later books of the Hebrew Bible. Here it is clearly the less 

 original of the two. 



It would be easy to multiply arguments drawn from the com- 

 parison of the two texts. I pass to other matters. 



4. On p. 150 it is argued '■' that the whole Torah . . . was 

 in the possession of the Ephraimites in the reign of Jeroboam II." 

 I am unable to accept this statement in anything like its present 

 form, and I have a very definite alternative case to put up. It 

 seems to me that there are two narratives in Kings, both of which 

 I accept as absolutely historical, which entirely dispose of this ^-iew. 

 The first is 1 Kings xii, 26-33. We there read that Jeroboam I intro- 

 duced three great religious abuses, (1) the idolatry of calf -worship, 

 (2) a non-Levitical priesthood drawn from the dregs of the people, 

 and (3) a feast on the fifteenth day of a month which he devised 

 of his own heart, viz., the eighth, resembling in other respects the 

 first in Judah, i.e., Tabernacles, which falls on the fifteenth day of 

 the seventh month. These departures from the Torah incidentally 

 prove its existence, for how could such acts be regarded as making 

 Israel to sin if they were not contrary to any existing law ? It 

 seems to me, however, that the very last thing that monarch or 

 priesthood would be likely to do would be to circulate copies of the 



