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REV. CANON GARRATT, M.A., ON 



period nearly 300 years previous to that at which, according to 

 modern critics, any part of it was written. 



The question may naturally occur to some how we can collate 

 the Samaritan MSS. without being able to read the character in 

 which they are written and having access to the eighteen copies 

 in Europe. The answer is that in Kennicott's great Bible all 

 the variants are given in Hebrew characters on a page opposite 

 to the text ; and there is also a Samaritan Pentateuch in Hebrew 

 characters, a handsome book, printed 1790 at the Clarendon Press. 



We must now look at a few of the variations in the Samari- 

 tan recension. The number is very large indeed, but an 

 immense number are simply variations of no more consequence 

 than the difference in printing the word " favour " in England 

 and in the United States. But there are many of very great 

 interest, of which I can only give a few specimens. Time 

 forbids my doing more. 



1. In Genesis ii, 1, there is both in the Septuagint and in the 

 Samaritan a word not in the Hebrew. The Greek word is en, 

 the Samaritan Hebrew " Out of the ground yet again God 

 formed every beast of the field, etc." Tlie word implies a previous 

 creation of animals, and couples the first and second chapters as 

 inseparable and as consecutive. 



2. The words Jehovah and Eloliim are so frequently reversed 

 in the Masoretic and Samaritan texts as to make any Elohistic 

 and Jehovistic theory impossible. 



3. In Genesis iv, 8, for "And Cain talked with Abel his 

 brother," the Samaritan reads : " And Cain said unto Abel his 

 brother, Let us go into the field," in which the Septuagint 

 agrees with the Samaritan. The words cannot mean " talked 

 with Abel his brother " as in the Authorised Version, nor can they 

 mean as in the text of the Ee vised Version, "told Abel his 

 brother." They can only mean what the Eevisers have put in 

 the margin : " Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go into the 

 field." But this is in the Samaritan and the Septuagint, not in 

 our Hebrew copies. 



The Samaritan text sometimes explains quotations, showing 

 what the Hebrew was in the time of our Lord and His Apostles. 



4. In Genesis ii, 24, it is said in our Hebrew and English 

 Bibles, "They shall be one fesh." But in Mark x, 7, our Lord 

 Himself quotes it thus, " They two shall be one flesh." This is 

 the Samaritan as well as the Greek reading. With this, Kenni- 

 cott says, Philo and all the ancient versions agree. Of course 

 this alteration must have been made while the Masorites had 

 possession of the manuscripts. All the Hebrew MS. we have 



