THE SAMARITAIi PENTATEUCH. 



203 



now either passed through their hands or were copies of them. 

 For as Kennicott tells us, they would not allow any Jew to 

 keep in his possession any copies not in accordance with tlieir 

 levisioiis. The consequence is that we have no manuscripts of 

 any great age except the Samaritan MSS. 



5. In Genesis iii, 2, instead of " The woman said unto tht 

 serpent," we find in the Samaritan manuscript, " The woman 

 said unto the liar." Was there not a reference to this when our 

 Lord said (John viii, 44) of the devil, " He is a liar and the 

 father of it " ? If so this was the reading in the Hebrew copies 

 in our Lord's time. 



6. In St. Paul's quotation (Hebrews xii, 18) from Deuteronomy 

 V, 22, there are four words, " fire," " darkness," " blackness," 

 " tempest." In our present Hebrew there are only three, " fire," 

 " cloud " " thick darkness." In the Septuagint there are only 

 three, fire being omitted. But in the Samaritan there are four 

 as there are in the Epistle, thougli not exactly the same four. 



7. In Genesis xxvi, 18, the Samaritan text reads Elon the 

 Hivite" for " Elon the Hittite " ; and in xxxvi, 3, 4, 10, lo, 17, 

 Mahalath for Bnshemath. The daughter of Ishmael in Genesis 

 xxviii, 9, whom Esau married, is called Mahalath, but in Genesis 

 xxxvi, is called Basheniath in the Masoretic text, Mahalath iu 

 the Samaritan text. According to the Masoretic text in these 

 three passages there is a contradiction. Here according to 

 Wellhauseu is " the most palpable contradiction in the whole of 

 Genesis." He even goes so far as to say : " I do not shrink from 

 expressing the alternative ; either the whole critical literature 

 of the historical books of the Bible is groundless and futile, or 

 Gen. xxvi, 3, 4 scq. ; xxviii, 8 scq., originate from difierent 

 sources," Gen. xxxvi, 1-5, 9-19 {Die Comijosition des Hera- 

 teuch, ss. 51, 52). 



In the Samaritan text the contradiction disappears. There 

 are two Elons, one a Hivite, and the other a Hittite, and a 

 daughter of each Esau married. Esau had five wives — Judilh 

 the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, Bashemath the daughter of 

 lilon the Hivite ; both of whom were a grief to Isaac and 

 Kebekah, and neither of whom is recorded to have had any 

 children ; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite ; Aholibamah, 

 the daughter of Anah ; and Mahalath, tlie daughter of Ishmael. 

 These last three were the mothers of all Esau's children, 

 Bashemath in the Samaritan being always in chapter xxxvi, in 

 the genealogy replaced by Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael. 

 With these variants the supposed contradiction absolutely 

 vanishes. 



