The Samaritan Pentateuch is the text of the Pentateuch (also called the Torah or Law) used by the Samaritans.
The Samaritans
On the return from the Exile, the Jews refused the Samaritans participation in worship at Jerusalem. The Samaritans separated themselves socially from Jews, who in return shunned them. Denied access to Jerusalem, Samaritan worship was centred on their temple on Mount Gerizim. This temple was razed to the ground around 100 BCE by the Jews for religious reasons. Then a system of worship was instituted by the Samaritans similar to that of the temple at Jerusalem. It was founded on the Torah, copies of which had been multiplied in Kingdom of Israel as well as in the Kingdom of Judah. Thus the Pentateuch was preserved among the Samaritans, which they read as one book. The division into five books, however, was later adopted by the Samaritans, as it was by the Jews, in all their priests' copies, for the sake of convenience. This was the only portion of the Hebrew Bible that was ever accepted by the Samaritans as having divine authority.
There is a special importance of the Abisha Scroll, which is used in the Samaritan Synagogue of Nablus, allegally penned by Abisha, great grandson of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
In 1645 a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch was brought by traveler to the East, and published in the Paris Polyglot by Jean Morin, a Jesuit, convert from Calvinism to Catholicism, who passed to believe the theory that the Septuagint and the Samaritan Texts were superior to the Hebrew Masoretic text.
Differences with the Masoretic Text
The form of the letters in the manuscript copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch, called the Samaritan alphabet, is different from that of the Hebrew copies, and is probably the same as that which was in general use before the Babylonian captivity. There are other peculiarities in the writing.
There are important differences between the Hebrew and the Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch in the readings of many sentences. In about two thousand instances in which the Samaritan and the Jewish texts (Masoretic text) differ, the Septuagint (LXX) agrees with the former. For example, Exodus 12:40 in the Samaritan and the LXX reads, "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel and of their fathers which they had dwelt in the land of Canaan and in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years." In the Masoretic text, however, the same passage reads, "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."
The Samaritan version of the Ten Commandments commands to build the altar on Mt. Gerizim, which would be the site at which all sacrifices should be offered.
See also
External link
This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.