It is, in the absence of a critical edition, exceedingly difficult to do more than specu late on the age and origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and opinions remain indeed Widely divergent. The principal opinions on the subject are, briefly, either that it came into the hands of the Samaritans as a natural inheritance from the Jewish people, whom they succeeded at the time of the Babylonish exile; or that it was brought to them by Manasse (Jos. Ant. xi. 8, s. 2, 4), when the Samaritan sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim was founded: or, again, that the Israelitish priest sent by the king of Assyria to instruct the new settlers in the religion of the country, brought it with him. Of other more or less isolated opinions, only that one deserves farther notice, that it was a late and faulty recension, into which glosses from the LXX. (Septuagint) were received. This agreement between the LXX. and the Samaritan Pentateuch, to which we have already alluded, has likewise given rise to many speculations and suggestions. The foremost of these are that the LXX. have been translated from the Samaritan Pentateuch; that mutual inter polations have taken place; that both versions were formed from Hebrew codices, differ ing among themselves, a' well as from the authorized recension; and that many wilful corruptions have been superadded at a later time; finally, that the Samaritan has been altered fora the LXX. There is also a translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch (which
is Hebrew) into the Samaritan idiom; it is ascribed by the Samaritans to their high priest, Nathaniel, who died 20 years before Christ. It was probably a kind of popular version, like the Targums (q.v.), and was composed, very likely, shortly before the destruction of the second temple. The translation is done in the most slavish and incompetent manner. Another Arabic version is due to Abu Said, in Egypt (1070), based op Saadiah's translation ; and to this Samaritan-Arabic translation, a Syrian, Abu Barachat, wrote, in 1208, a commentary, which is some;imcs erroneously taken to be an independent Syriac version of the Samaritan Pentateuch. Among the principal modern writers on the Samaritan Pentateuch arc Gesenius, Kirchheim, and Deutsch.