Samaritan Pentateuch. 417 
first, to supply seeming deficiencies where the original is 
concise ; second, to interpret obscurities with respect to the 
meaning of which the Samaritan and the Seventy mostly 
agree; third, to remove grammatical irregularities; and, 
fourth, to alter the chronology of events about the time of 
the deluge. In the last respect the Septuagint differs like- 
wise from the Hebrew, whilst the want of agreement be- 
tween the Samaritan and the Septuagint is no less mani- 
fest. Amongst the readings in the Samaritan which differ. 
from the original Hebrew text, there is one that seems to 
us amply justified. We refer to Gen. ii. v. 2. We read in 
the original : “God completed the work of creation on the 
seventh day. and rested on the seventh day.’ But the 
Samaritan has it: “God completed the work of creation 
on the szxth day and rested on the seventh day.” 
At the time when Luther made his famous German trans- 
lation of the Bible, and even when the authorized English 
version was executed, nothing was known in Europe of the 
existence of a Samaritan Pentateuch, differing in various 
respects from the volume received by the Jews, and, 
through them, by the Christian world. References had 
been made to it in the early ages, by the writers of the 
Talmud and by the Fathers of the Christian church, and 
both the Synagogue and the church pronounced it—what 
later mature criticism has proved it to be—a forgery. It 
was first brought to Europe by Harlaeus Sancius, and it 
was printed by Morinus in Paris in the year 1631. An 
English clergyman named Huntingdon, obtained another 
copy from Nablous in 1670. Several others followed, and 
the last which has made its appearance here, is a splendid 
copy with Targum in parallel columns. Mr. Grove brought 
it from the east for the Count of Paris, in whose possession 
it remdins. 
As every thing that is new creates an excitement and 
becomes the fashion for a time, the introduction of the 
Samaritan Pentateuch into Europe in the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, turned the heads of many, and, for a 
while, some fair scholars, more sanguine than critical con- 
vinced that they were now in the possession of the genuine 
work of Moses, preached it up as infinitely superior in 
literal correctness to the Masoretic text. At this time, a 
fierce and bitter strife was raging between the Romish and 
the reformed churches, and it is painful to be obliged 
to state—for the truth must be told—that not a few eminent 
Romish biblical scholars, who must have seen from the very 
M M 2 
