THE 
BECAHNOLOGI ST. 
APRIL, 1867. 
a? 
THE SAMARITANS AND THE SAMARITAN 
PENTATEUCH. 
BY D. W. M. 
(Concluded from page 369.) 
F the Samaritan Pentateuch, of which we are now 
about to speak, it would be presumptuous to fix with 
any show of authority the date of its authorship. Critics 
who have accomplished so much within the province of 
Biblical literature during the last three quarters of a cen- 
tury, have taken little pains to reconcile the divergent opi- 
nions respecting the age of the Samaritan Pentateuch. 
Nablous is said to possess a scroll, still used in public wor- 
ship, and bearing an inscription to the effect that it was 
written in honour of Aaron the High Priest by his great 
grandson Abisha, in the thirteenth year of the settlement 
of the Israelites in Canaan. This statement may be very 
summarily dismissed, whilst a protest may be entered 
against evidense being received from a source where such 
a fiction passes for fact. Kennicott, Eichhorn, Michaelis, 
and other distinguished scholars, regard the Samaritan 
Pentateuch as an inheritance from the ten tribes., The two 
principal grounds on which this theory is based are—first, 
that the Samaritan canon, which does not contain the 
prophets nor the Hagiographa, must have been formed 
before the last-mentioned books were written; secondly, 
that the Samaritan Pentateuch is written in the ancient 
[BRI letter, and not in the comparatively modern square 
character which is not older than the age of Ezra. 
More acute critics, however, contend that the absence of 
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