THE PENTATEUCH OP THE SAMARITANS. 



169 



books, which they wrote in the newer fount of script learned and 

 practised in Babylonia. 



There is much further in Dr. Thomson's most interesting paper 

 which invites comment. I must confine myself, however, to an 

 expression of general agreement with his conclusions, and the hope 

 that the uncertainty and obscurity in which so much of the history 

 of this people is involved may at some future time be removed. 



Professor H. LanghorneOrchard,M.A., B.Sc, writes: — Our hearty 

 thanks are due to the author of this scholarly and interesting paper. 

 The reasoning is clear, cogent, convincing. The gross improbability 

 (and even absurdity) of the down-grade criticism of the Samaritan 

 Pentateuch is well shown, and the author has made out a strong 

 case for his own theory. Daleth and Resh, Mem and Nun, are 

 unimpeachable witnesses. Their evidence is conclusive ; so also 

 is that furnished by the absent gutturals and by human nature. 



We shall thoroughly concur with the last sentence in the paper. 



The Rev. Chancellor Lias, M.A., writes : — I will commence 

 with a few criticisms, and then I will express my opinion of the great 

 value of this paper. We know far too little of the Samaritan 

 Pentateuch. The mere comparison of the Pentateuch in the original 

 with the Authorized and Revised Versions is sufiicient to show at what 

 a low level Hebrew scholarship remains when compared with other 

 studies at the present day. I am inclined to think that Dr. Thomson 

 exaggerates the claim of the Israelites in Palestine (p. 144) tobe genuine. 

 No doubt this was due, as Dr. Thomson contends {ibid.), to the 

 hostility of Josephus. When he lived, the hostility of the Jews 

 to the Samaritans, which had been pronounced ever since the days 

 of Nehemiah and Sanballat, had had time to become chronic. 

 Then Dr. Thomson remarks on the substitution of Daleth and Resh 

 between the Samaritan and the Massorite text. I had not thought 

 that it had begun so early. I had understood that the Jews brought 

 the square characters back with them from Babylon, where they 

 were then in use. But of course Dr. Thomson will have consulted 

 new sources of information since I glanced at the subject — I never 

 did more. But Dr. Thomson has never remarked on Ps. xxii, 16, 

 where the Massoretes have substituted "as a lion " for " they 

 pierced." A very bold emendation. But few English people are 



