172 REV. J. E. H. THOMSON, M.A., D.D., OX 



is clear that Xehemiah classed kis daughter among the " strange 

 women " whom it was forbidden to marry (Xeh. xiii, 27. 28). It 

 is of course possible that there may have been some amoimt of 

 intermarriage between the Assyrian emigrants and any Israelites 

 that remained in the land; but there is not the slightest hint at 

 this in history, and it seems to me far more probable that the 

 Samaritans of Xew Testament times and our own day are a mixed 

 race descended partly from the Assyrian colonists and partly 

 from the renegade Jews mentioned by Josephus ; hardly therefore 

 " genuine Israelites.'"' 



On pp. 151-2 Dr. Thomson seems to adopt the view that the " Ibri 

 character " mentioned in the quotation from the Talmud was the 

 ancient Hebrew script, and the Ashurith," what is now called the 

 square character. But if so the Talmud statement would not 

 agree with the facts. At what time could it be said that the Law 

 was given in Ashurith (square) writing, and Syrian (Aramaic) 

 tongue'' ? Also, if the '"Hediotae" are to be identified with the 

 Samaritans, it would not be true that they retained " the Ibri 

 writing and the Syrian tongue " ; for, even if the Samaritan character 

 is the Ibri," the Samaritan Pentateuch is not in Aramaic but in 

 Hehreic, the Holy tongue." 



On p. 152 it is stated that Dale'.h and Resh are not confusingly 

 alike in the Samaritan or Maccabaean." I am afraid I cannot 

 agree. The difierence in Samaritan is not more marked than in 

 the square character, and on the Moabite stone the letters are 

 sufficiently alike to be easily mistaken if not carefully formed. 

 The resemblance seems to run through most Semitic alphabets, 

 and in Svriac the letters are only distinguished by a diacritical 

 point, placed above or below. This similarity of form may 

 possibly be due to a similarity of sound. In one of the South 

 Indian languages there is a letter so nearly combining the two 

 sounds that the Tari palm is also called the Toddy palm ; and 

 I believe that negroes in their broken Encrlish often substitute 

 R for D. 



There is, however, the possibility that occasionally one of these 

 letters has been intentionally substituted for the other, as I am 

 inclined to think has been the case in the very instance cited, viz., 

 Rodanim for Dxlanim. There is a remarkable instance of such a 

 substitution in the Samaritan Pentateuch. In Exod. xxiii, 17, 



