SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH, a recension of the commonly received Hebrew text of the Mosaic law, in use with the Samaritans, and their only canonical book of the Ohl Testament.. Some vague allusions in some of the church fathers (Origen. Jerome, Euse bins), and one' or two more distinct, lint less generally known Talinudical utterances respecting this recension, were all the information available up to the early part of the 17th c. (1616), when Pietro della Valle acquired a complete codex from the Samaritans in Damascus. Since then, the of manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch, with and without translations (in Arabic), has considerably increased in European libraries; and fragments, consisting of special books or chapters, are of the most frequent occur rence. In fact, writing portions of Samaritan Pentateuch on the oldest of skins, would, in the face of the great demand for the article on the part of ignorant European, espe cially English, travelers, appear to be a favorite and lucrative pastime, if not an established trade and business, among the modern Samaritans.
These MSS. are written in the Samaritan character, a kind of ancient Hebrew writ ing, probably in use before, and partly after the Babylonish exile, and vary in size from octavo to folio, the writing being proportionately smaller or larger. Their material is vellum, or cotton paper, and the ink used is black, with the exception of the NabMs MS., which is written in gold. There are neither vowels, accents, nor diacritical points, the single words are divided from each other by dots. None of the MSS. that have reached Europe are older than the 10th century. The Samaritan Pentateuch was first edited by J. Morinus in the Paris Polyglott (pt. iv. 1632) from one codex (whence it found its way into Walton), and was last re-edited, written in the square Hebrew characters, by 13. Blayney, Oxford, 1790. The first publication of this strange document, and prin cipally the Evereitatione8 Reelesiastkm, with which J. Morinus accompanied it, mark a certain epoch in modern biblical investigation; for, incredible as it now appears, it was placed by Morinus and his followers far above the received Hebrew text, which was said to have been corrupted from it. As reasons for this, were adduced its supposed superior " lucidity and harmony," and its agreement with the Septuagint in many:places.
This opinion, which could only have been entertained by men devoid of knowledge, was zealously cherished, and fiercely combated for exactly 200 years, when the first proper and scientific investigation (by Geseuius) set it at rest, once for all, among the learned world at least. This absurd notion chiefly owed its popularity to the anti-Jewish as well as anti-Protestant tendency of its supporters, to whom every attack against the received form of the text—that text upon which alone the reformers professed to take their stand, was an argument in favor of the Roman Catholic dogma as to the " rule of faith" (q This boasted superiority en blue, gradually dwindled down to two or three passages, in which the Samaritan reading scented preferable, and even these have now been disposed of in favor of the authorized Masoretic text. The variants, which Gesenius was the first to arrange systematically, present simply- the ordinary aspect of partly conscious, partly unconscious corruptions. They arose, for the greatest part, from an imperfect knowl edge of the first elements of grammar and exegesis. Others owe their existence to a studied design of conforming certain passages to the Samaritan mode of thought, speech, and faith, more especially to show that Mt. Gerizim was the spot chosen by Jehovah for his temple. There are, however, only two essential alterations respecting the Mosaic ordinances themselves to be found, one, Exod. xiii. 7, where the Samaritan Pentateuch has "six days shalt thou eat unleavened bread," instead of "seven"; and Dent. xxiii. 17, where our "shall be no" is altered into "shall not live." A chronological peculiarity deserves special mention—viz., that no one in the antediluvian times begets his first son in the Samaritan Pentateuch after the age of 150, either the father's or the son's age being altered in proportion; after the deluge, however, the opposite method is followed of adding 50 or 100 years to the father's years before the begetting of a sou. We will only further add that anthropomorphisms. as well as anthropopathisms, are most carefuly expunged, and that in Dent. xxvii. 4, Gerizim is wilfully substituted for Dail.