THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH. 



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Bibles. They are of course without points, as there were no 

 points till long after they were written. 



There are differences of reading. In a thousand readings the 

 Samaritan agrees with the Septuagint as against the ordinary 

 Masoretic Hebrew, and in a thousand more with the Hebrew as 

 against the Septuagint, and is therefore evidently independent 

 of both. There are very important differences by which we 

 are able to remove some apparent difficulties. But the vast 

 majority of these variations are very minute differences from 

 the ordinary Hebrew, being most of them differences of spelling 

 Hebrew words, very much like the difference between " favour " 

 as we print the word in English, and " favor " as they print it 

 in the United States — very intelligible variations between two 

 branches of the same Israelitish family, the Ten Tribes and the 

 Two having; both the same mother tono'ue. 



How is it that the fact of these two independent recensions 

 has been lost sight of, and that the greater number of well 

 informed and learned men are totally ignorant of, or strangely 

 silent about, the whole matter ? 



At the beginning of last century, after some two hundred 

 years' discussion, mainly as to the value of the Samaritan readings, 

 it was supposed to have been completely settled by Kennicott. 

 But when the higher criticism was introduced, the leaders of it 

 saw that unless they could get rid of these Samaritan MSS., 

 they could not go on with it. So G-esenius, one of the main 

 originators of it, on taking his doctor's degree, wrote a dissertation 

 On the origin, cho.racter and autliority of the Samaritan Pentateuch. 

 From that day to this there has been hardly any discussion on 

 the subject. You will find it sometimes referred to, as in 

 Smith's Dictionary, 1861, where it is said that in 1815 Gesenius 

 " abolished the remnant of the authority of the Samaritan Pen- 

 tateuch." What the writer intended to convey to his readers 

 I do not know. In the same article the same writer says : 

 " Since up to this moment no critical edition of the Samaritan 

 Pentateuch, or even an examination of the Codices since 

 Kennicott, who can only be said to have begun the work, has 

 been thought of. The treatment of the whole subject remains a 

 most precarious task, and beset with unexampled difficulties at 

 every step. It is, however, this same rudimentary state of 

 investigation — after two centuries and a half of fierce discussions 

 — which has left the other and much more important question 

 of the Age and Origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch as unsettled 

 to-day as it was when it first came under the notice of European 

 scholars." 



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