The number of manuscripts in Europe grad ually grew to sixteen. During the prt.aent cen tury another but very fragmentary copy was ac quired by the Gotha Library. A copy of the en tire ( ?) Pentateuch, with Targum (Samaritan Version) in parallel columns, quarto, on parch ment, was brought from Nabulus by Mr. Grove, in 1861, for the Comte de Paris, in whose library it is.
(2) Description. Respecting the external con dition of these manuscripts, it may be observed that their sizes vary from 12M0 to folio, and that no scroll, such as the Jews and the Samaritans use in their synagogues, is to be found among them. Their material is vellum, or cotton paper; the ink used is black in all cases, save the scroll used by the Samaritans at A'dbufus, the letters of which are in gold. There are neither vowels, accents, nor diacritical points. The individual words are separated from each other by a dot. Greater or smaller divisions of the text are marked by two dots placed one above the other, and by an asterisk. A small line above a consonant indi cates a peculiar meaning of the word, an unusual form, a passive, and the like; it is, is fact, a con trivance to bespeak attention. The whole Penta teuch is divided into nine hundred and sixty four paragraphs, or Kozzin, the termination of which is indicated by these figures, =, .•., or < .
(3) Authors. (1) According to the Samaritans themselves (De Sacy, Men:. 3; Paulus; Winer), their high-priest Nathaniel, who died about 20 B. C., is its author. Gesenius puts its date a few years after Christ. Juynboll thinks that it had long been in use in the second post-Christian cen tury. Frankel places it in the post-Mohammedan time. Other investigators date it from the time of Esarhaddon's priest (Schwarz), or either shortly before or after the foundation of the Tem ple on Mount Gerizim. It seems certain, how ever, that it was composed before the destruc tion of the second Temple; and being intended, like the Targums, for the use of the people ex clusively, it was written in the popular Samaritan idiom, a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac.
(2) To Iap.apetrock The hatred between the Samaritans and the Jews is supposed to have caused the former to prepare a Greek translation of their Pentateuch in opposition to the LXX of the Jews. In this way at least the existence of
certain fragments of a Greek version of the Samaritan Pentateuch, preserved in some MSS. of the LXX, together with portions of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, etc., is accounted for. These fragments are supposed to be alluded to by the Greek Fathers under the name EalLapeiritc6v. It is doubtful, however, whether it ever existed (as Gcsenius. Winer, Juynboll, suppose) in the shape of a complete translation, or only desig nated (as Castellus, Voss, Herbst, hold) a certain number of scholia translated from the Samaritan version. Other critics again (Havernick, Heng stenherg, etc.) see in it only a corrected edition of certain passages of the LXX.
(3) In 107o an Arabic Version of the Samaritan Pentateuch was made by Abu Said in Egypt, on the basis of the Arabic translation of Saadjah haggaon. Like the original Samaritan it avoids anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms, re placing the latter by euphemisms, besides occa sionally making some slight alterations, more es pecially in proper nouns. It is extant in several MS. copies in European libraries. (For a further treatment of this subject see SAMARITAN PENTA TEUCH.) 9. Slabonic Version. This translation, em bracing the Old and New Testaments, was made by Cyril of Thessalonica and his brother Method ius, who invented the Slavic alphabet. In the Old Testament the Septuagint was followed ; and in the New the original Greek, in MSS. belonging to the Constantinople family. According to Al ter, the Old Testament portion was originally made from the V etus I tala, and altered in the fourteenth century from Greek MSS. Perhaps the entire text of the version has been revised after the Latin. The translation is very literal, so that the idiom of the Slavonic is often violated for the sake of retaining the Greek construction. Of the readings adopted by Griesbach, this ver sion has at least three-fourths. In consequence of its excellence, it is considered of great value in the criticism of the Greek Testament. The edition of the entire Bible published at Ostrog, 1581, is the basis of all succeeding impressions.