The Samaritan Pentateuch , also called the Samaritan Torah ( Samaritan Hebrew : ࠕࠦࠅࠓࠡࠄ , Tūrā ), is the sacred scripture of the Samaritans . Written in the Samaritan script , it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existed during the Second Temple period . It constitutes the entire biblical canon in Samaritanism .
128-627: Some six thousand differences exist between the Samaritan and the Jewish Masoretic Text . Most are minor variations in the spelling of words or grammatical constructions , but others involve significant semantic changes, such as the uniquely Samaritan commandment to construct an altar on Mount Gerizim . Nearly two thousand of these textual variations agree with the Koine Greek Septuagint and some are shared with
256-678: A "pre-Samaritan" text of at least some portions of the Pentateuch such as Exodus and Numbers circulated alongside other manuscripts with a "pre-Masoretic" text. One Dead Sea Scroll copy of the Book of Exodus, conventionally named 4QpaleoExod, shows a particularly close relation to the Samaritan Pentateuch: The scroll shares all the major typological features with the SP, including all the major expansions of that tradition where it
384-568: A complete English translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch comparing it to the Masoretic version was published. Several biblical commentaries and other theological texts based upon the Samaritan Pentateuch have been composed by members of the Samaritan community from the fourth century CE onwards. Samaritans also employ liturgical texts containing catenae extracted from their Pentateuch. Samaritans attach special importance to
512-410: A completely satisfactory solution. There are four words having one of their letters suspended above the line. One of them, מ שה , is due to an alteration of the original משה out of reverence for Moses ; rather than say that Moses's grandson became an idolatrous priest, a suspended letter nun ( נ ) was inserted to turn Mosheh into Menasheh ( Manasseh ). The origin of the other three
640-857: A different script than the one used in the Masoretic Pentateuch, used by Jews. The Samaritan text is written with the Samaritan alphabet, derived from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet used by the Israelite community prior to the Babylonian captivity. During the exile in Babylon, Jews adopted the Ashuri script , based on the Babylonians' Aramaic alphabet , which was developed into the modern Hebrew alphabet . Originally, all manuscripts of
768-506: A dot is used to indicate the separation between words. The London Polyglot lists six thousand instances where the Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic (Jewish) text. As different printed editions of the Samaritan Pentateuch are based upon different sets of manuscripts, the precise number varies significantly from one edition to another. Only a minority of such differences are significant. Most are simply spelling differences, usually concerning Hebrew letters of similar appearance;
896-633: A finer pen) and frequently the Masorah. During the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries the Franco-German school of Tosafists influenced in the development and spread of Masoretic literature. Gershom ben Judah , his brother Machir ben Judah , Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils (Tob 'Elem) of Limoges , Rabbeinu Tam (Jacob ben Meïr), Menahem ben Perez of Joigny , Perez ben Elijah of Corbeil , Judah ben Isaac Messer Leon , Meïr Spira, and Meir of Rothenburg made Masoretic compilations, or additions to
1024-613: A grandson of Eliashib, to preside, and to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. He established a temple to Yahweh on Mount Gerizim, over which his own descendants, born into priestly blood, could minister. Josephus describes his construction of the Temple on Gerizim and says it was modeled on the Temple in Jerusalem . He also relates that many Israelites married to Samaritans moved to Samaria, causing much bewilderment in Jerusalem. In
1152-533: A particular interest in the study of the Samaritan Pentateuch on account of the antiquity of the text and its frequent agreements with the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. Some Catholics including Jean Morin , a convert from Calvinism to Catholicism, argued that the Samaritan Pentateuch's correspondences with the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint indicated that it represents a more authentic Hebrew text than
1280-518: A perfect text sanctified in its consonantal base quickly spread throughout the Jewish communities via supportive statements in Halakha , Aggadah , and Jewish thought; and with it increasingly forceful strictures that a deviation in even a single letter would make a Torah scroll invalid. Very few manuscripts are said to have survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE . This drastically reduced
1408-622: A reversed nun is found referred to as a nun hafucha by the masoretes. In some earlier printed editions, they are shown as the standard nun upside down or rotated, because the printer did not want to bother to design a character to be used only nine times. The recent scholarly editions of the Masoretic Text show the reversed nun as described by the masoretes. In some manuscripts, however, other symbols are occasionally found instead. These are sometimes referred to in rabbinical literature as simaniyot (markers). The primary set of inverted nuns
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#17327661054371536-455: A thought which some of the readers might expect them to express. The assumed emendations are of four general types: Among the earliest technical terms used in connection with activities of the Scribes are the mikra Soferim and ittur Soferim . In the geonic schools, the first term was taken to signify certain vowel-changes which were made in words in pause or after the article; the second,
1664-420: Is based entirely on Ben Asher: they are all eclectic. Aside from Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, the names of several other Masorites have come down; but, perhaps with the exception of one—Phinehas, the head of the academy, who is supposed by modern scholars to have lived about 750—neither their time, their place, nor their connection with the various schools is known. Most scholars conclude that Aaron ben Asher
1792-545: Is concise in style with a profusion of abbreviations, requiring a considerable amount of knowledge for their full understanding. It was quite natural that a later generation of scribes would no longer understand the notes of the Masoretes and consider them unimportant; by the late medieval period they were reduced to mere ornamentation of the manuscripts. It was Jacob ben Chayyim who restored clarity and order to them. In most manuscripts, there are some discrepancies between
1920-469: Is doubtful. According to some, they are due to mistaken majuscular letters; according to others, they are later insertions of originally omitted weak consonants. In fifteen passages within the Bible, some words are stigmatized; i.e., dots appear above the letters. The significance of the dots is disputed. Some hold them to be marks of erasure; others believe them to indicate that in some collated manuscripts
2048-526: Is extant (twelve), with the single exception of the new tenth commandment inserted in Exodus 20 from Deuteronomy 11 and 27 regarding the altar on Mount Gerizim. Frank Moore Cross has described the origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch within the context of his local texts hypothesis. He views the Samaritan Pentateuch as having emerged from a manuscript tradition local to the Land of Israel . The Hebrew texts that form
2176-469: Is found surrounding the text of Numbers 10:35–36. The Mishna notes that this text is 85 letters long and dotted. This demarcation of this text leads to the later use of the inverted nun markings. Saul Lieberman demonstrated that similar markings can be found in ancient Greek texts where they are also used to denote 'short texts'. During the Medieval period, the inverted nuns were actually inserted into
2304-523: Is largely a reworking of the Tiberias . Levita compiled likewise a vast Masoretic concordance, Sefer ha-Zikronot , which still lies in the National Library at Paris unpublished. The study is indebted also to R. Meïr b. Todros ha-Levi (RaMaH), who, as early as the 13th century, wrote his Sefer Massoret Seyag la-Torah (correct ed. Florence, 1750); to Menahem Lonzano , who composed a treatise on
2432-592: Is probably a traditional account of the origin of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim . Josephus records the marriage of Manasseh and Sanballat's daughter from Nehemiah 13:28 as actually having taken place and causing the founding of the temple. In the Elephantine papyri and ostraca , CAP 30, Sanballat is said to have had two sons, Delaiah bar Sanballat and Shelemiah bar Sanballat. The Jews of Elephantine asked Sanballat's sons for help rebuilding
2560-673: Is the earliest translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its creation was motivated by the same need to translate the Pentateuch into the Aramaic language spoken by the community which led to the creation of Jewish Targums such as Targum Onkelos . Samaritans have traditionally ascribed the Targum to Nathanael, a Samaritan priest who died c. 20 BCE . The Samaritan Targum has a complex textual tradition represented by manuscripts belonging to one of three fundamental text types exhibiting substantial divergences from one another. Affinities that
2688-487: The Abisha Scroll used in the Samaritan synagogue of Nablus. It consists of a continuous length of parchment sewn together from the skins of rams that, according to a Samaritan tradition, were ritually sacrificed. The text is written in gold letters. Rollers tipped with ornamental knobs are attached to both ends of the parchment and the whole is kept in a cylindrical silver case when not in use. Samaritans claim it
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#17327661054372816-645: The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, which include the oldest known versions of the Torah . In Deuteronomy 27:4–7, the Dead Sea scroll fragments bring "Gerizim" instead of "Ebal", indicating that the Samaritan version was likely the original reading. Other differences between the Samaritan and the Masoretic (Jewish) texts include: In Numbers 12:1, the Samaritan Pentateuch refers to Moses ' wife as kaashet , which translates as 'the beautiful woman', while
2944-636: The Israelite tradition and law, around the time of Eli , in the 11th century BCE. Modern scholarship connects the formation of the Samaritan community with events which followed the Babylonian captivity . One view is that the Samaritans are the people of the Kingdom of Israel who separated from the Kingdom of Judah . Another view is that the event happened somewhere around 432 BCE, when Manasseh,
3072-694: The Latin Vulgate . Throughout their history, Samaritans have used translations of the Samaritan Pentateuch into Aramaic , Greek, and Arabic , as well as liturgical and exegetical works based upon it. It first became known to the Western world in 1631, proving the first example of the Samaritan alphabet and sparking an intense theological debate regarding its relative age versus the Masoretic Text. This first published copy, much later labelled as Codex B by August von Gall [ de ] , became
3200-818: The Peshitta (a Syriac translation made in the second century CE) occasionally present notable differences from the Masoretic Text, as does the Samaritan Pentateuch , the text of the Torah preserved by the Samaritans in Samaritan Hebrew . Fragments of an ancient 2nd–3rd-century manuscript of the Book of Leviticus found near an ancient synagogue's Torah ark in Ein Gedi have identical wording to
3328-578: The two tablets containing the Ten Commandments . They believe that they preserve this divinely composed text uncorrupted to the present day. Samaritans commonly refer to their Pentateuch as ࠒࠅࠔࠈࠄ ( Qušṭā , 'Truth'). Samaritans include only the Pentateuch in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh . A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon
3456-504: The "land of Moreh" (Hebrew: מוראה ), while the Jewish Pentateuch has "land of Moriah " (Hebrew: מריה ). The Samaritan "Moreh" describes the region around Shechem and modern-day Nablus , where the Samaritans' holy Mount Gerizim is situated, while Jews claim the land is the same as Mount Moriah , in Jerusalem. The Vulgate translates this phrase as in terram visionis ('in the land of vision') which implies that Jerome
3584-553: The 10th century. However, codification of the base consonants appears to have begun earlier, perhaps even in the Second Temple period . The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran , dating from c. 150 BCE – 75 CE , shows that in this period there was no uniform text. According to Menachem Cohen , the Dead Sea scrolls showed that "there was indeed a Hebrew text-type on which the Septuagint-translation
3712-591: The 24 books of the Hebrew Bible ( Tanakh ) in Rabbinic Judaism . The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora . Referring to the Masoretic Text, masorah specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of
3840-546: The Arabic text is accompanied by the original Samaritan Hebrew in a parallel column and sometimes the Aramaic text of the Samaritan Targum in a third. Later Arabic translations also appeared; one featured a further Samaritan revision of Saadia Gaon's translation to bring it into greater conformity with the Samaritan Pentateuch and others were based upon Arabic Pentateuchal translations used by Christians. In April 2013,
3968-623: The English translation of the Old Testament for the King James Version (though not always followed). Next to Ibn Adoniyah, the critical study of the Masorah has been most advanced by Elia Levita , who published his famous "Massoret ha-Massoret" in 1538. The Tiberias of the elder Johannes Buxtorf (1620) made Levita's researches more accessible to a Christian audience. The eighth introduction to Walton's Polyglot Bible
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4096-593: The Greek of Aquila of Sinope and Theodotion and what we now know as the Masoretic Text are minimal. Relatively small variations between different Hebrew texts in use still clearly existed though, as witnessed by differences between the present-day Masoretic Text and versions mentioned in the Gemara , and often even halachic midrashim based on spelling versions which do not exist in the current Masoretic Text. The current received text finally achieved predominance through
4224-656: The Hebrew into the Greek; rather they testify to a different pre-Christian form of the Hebrew text". On the other hand, some of the fragments conforming most accurately to the Masoretic Text were found in Cave ;4. Tannaitic sources relate that a standard copy of the Hebrew Bible was kept in the court of the Second Temple for the benefit of copyists and that there were paid correctors of biblical books among
4352-431: The Hebrew scriptures already existed by the end of the Second Temple period . Which is closest to a theoretical Urtext is disputed, as is whether such a singular text ever existed. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century BCE, contain versions of the text which have some differences with today's Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint (a Koine Greek translation made in the third and second centuries BCE) and
4480-520: The Hebrew word masorah "tradition" . Originally masoret , a word found in Book of Ezekiel 20:37 (there from אסר "to bind" for "fetters"). According to the majority of scholars, including Wilhelm Bacher , the form of the Ezekiel word masoret "fetters" was applied by the Masoretes to the מסר root meaning "to transmit", for masoret "tradition." (See also Aggadah § Etymology .) Later,
4608-590: The Horonite , a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived more than one hundred years before the Sanballat mentioned by Josephus. The adoption of the Pentateuch as the sacred text of the Samaritans before their final schism with the Judean Jewish community provides evidence that it was already widely accepted as a canonical authority in that region. Manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch are written in
4736-511: The Jewish version and the Jewish commentaries suggest that the word used was Kushi , meaning 'black woman' or ' Cushite woman'. For the Samaritans, therefore, Moses had only one wife, Zipporah , throughout his whole life, while Jewish sources generally understand that Moses had two wives, Zipporah and a second, unnamed Cushite woman. Several other differences are found. The Samaritan Pentateuch uses less anthropomorphic language in descriptions of God, with intermediaries performing actions that
4864-425: The Jewish version attributes directly to God. Where the Jewish text describes Yahweh as a "man of war" (Exodus 15:3), the Samaritan has "hero of war", a phrase applied to spiritual beings. In Numbers 23:4, the Samaritan text reads "The Angel of God found Balaam ", in contrast with the Jewish text, which reads "And God met Balaam." In Genesis 50:23, the Jewish text says that Joseph 's grandchildren were born "upon
4992-478: The Jews were building the walls, they were angry, and Sanballat addressed the army of Samaria with a contemptuous reference to "these feeble Jews." Tobiah appeased him by saying that a fox (or a jackal) climbing on their wall would break it down. Nehemiah and his builders, the Jews, vigorously hurried the work, while Sanballat and his associates organized their forces to fight against Jerusalem. Nehemiah prepared to meet
5120-496: The Kethiv-Qere readings and more. These observations are also the result of a passionate zeal to safeguard the accurate transmission of the sacred text. Even though often cited as very exact, the Masoretic "frequency notes" in the margin of Codex Leningradiensis contain several errors. The Masorah magna , in measure, is an expanded Masorah parva . Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) includes an apparatus referring
5248-409: The Masorah into the margin, he compiled at the close of his Bible a concordance of the Masoretic glosses for which he could not find room in a marginal form, and added an elaborate introduction – the first treatise on the Masorah ever produced. Due to its wide distribution, and in spite of its many errors, this work is frequently considered as the textus receptus of the Masorah. It was also used for
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5376-462: The Masorah may be divided into three periods: (1) creative period, from its beginning to the introduction of vowel-signs; (2) reproductive period, from the introduction of vowel-signs to the printing of the Masorah (1525); (3) critical period, from 1525 to the present time. The materials for the history of the first period are scattered remarks in Talmudic and Midrashic literature, in
5504-568: The Masorah of the Pentateuch entitled "Or Torah"; and in particular to Jedidiah Norzi , whose "Minḥat Shai" contains valuable Masoretic notes based on a careful study of manuscripts. Sanballat the Horonite Sanballat the Horonite ( Hebrew : סַנְבַלַּט Sanḇallaṭ ) – or Sanballat I – was a Samaritan leader, official of the Achaemenid Empire , and contemporary of the Israelite leader Nehemiah who lived in
5632-434: The Masoretes included a standard division of the text into books, sections, paragraphs, verses, and clauses; fixing of the orthography, pronunciation, and cantillation; introduction or final adoption of the square characters with the five final letters ; some textual changes to guard against blasphemy (though these changes may pre-date the Masoretes – see Tikkune Soferim below); enumeration of letters, words, verses, etc., and
5760-539: The Masoretic Concordance. The Small Masorah consists of brief notes with reference to marginal readings, to statistics showing the number of times a particular form is found in Scripture, to full and defective spelling, and to abnormally written letters. The Large Masorah is more copious in its notes. The Final Masorah comprises all the longer rubrics for which space could not be found in the margin of
5888-526: The Masoretic Text and the old Greek. However, despite these variations, most of the Qumran fragments can be classified as being closer to the Masoretic Text than to any other text group that has survived. According to Lawrence Schiffman , 60% can be classed as being of proto-Masoretic type, and a further 20% Qumran style with a basis in proto-Masoretic texts, compared to 5% proto- Samaritan type, 5% Septuagintal type, and 10% non-aligned. Joseph Fitzmyer noted
6016-567: The Masoretic Text. The Masoretic Text is the basis for most Protestant translations of the Old Testament such as the King James Version , English Standard Version , New American Standard Bible , and New International Version . After 1943 , it has also been used for some Catholic Bibles , such as the New American Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible . Some Christian denominations instead prefer translations of
6144-510: The Masoretic notes are those that detail the Qere and Ketiv that are located in the Masorah parva in the outside margins of BHS. Given that the Masoretes would not alter the sacred consonantal text, the Kethiv-Qere notes were a way of "correcting" or commenting on the text for any number of reasons (grammatical, theological, aesthetic, etc.) deemed important by the copyist. The earliest tasks of
6272-533: The Masoretic notes is primarily Aramaic but partly Hebrew. The Masoretic annotations are found in various forms: (a) in separate works, e.g., the Oklah we-Oklah ; (b) in the form of notes written in the margins and at the end of codices. In rare cases, the notes are written between the lines. The first word of each biblical book is also as a rule surrounded by notes. The latter are called the Initial Masorah;
6400-517: The Masoretic text must be more authentic simply because it has been more widely accepted as the authoritative Hebrew version of the Pentateuch: We see then that as the evidence of one text destroys the evidence of the other and as there is in fact the authority of versions to oppose to the authority of versions no certain argument or rather no argument at all can be drawn from hence to fix the corruption on either side. Kennicott also states that
6528-484: The Masoretic. Several Protestants replied with a defense of the Masoretic text's authority and argued that the Samaritan text is a late and unreliable derivation from the Masoretic. The 18th-century Protestant Hebrew scholar Benjamin Kennicott 's analysis of the Samaritan Pentateuch stands as a notable exception to the general trend of early Protestant research on the text. He questioned the underlying assumption that
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#17327661054376656-520: The Pentateuch. The oldest was an adaptation of Saadia Gaon 's mid-900s Tafsir Rasag or Arabic targum of the Masoretic Text. Although the text was modified to suit the Samaritan community, it still retained many unaltered Jewish readings. By the 11th or 12th century, a new Arabic translation directly based upon the Samaritan Pentateuch had appeared in Nablus . Manuscripts containing this translation are notable for their bilingual or trilingual character;
6784-650: The Promised Land and build an altar on Mount Ebal , while the Samaritan text says that such altar, the first built by the Israelites in the Promised Land, should be built on Mount Gerizim. A few verses afterwards, both the Jewish and the Samaritan texts contain instructions for the Israelites to perform two ceremonies upon entering the Promised Land : one of blessings, to be held on Mount Gerizim, and one of cursings, to take place on Mount Ebal. In 1946,
6912-502: The Samaritan Pentateuch consisted of unvocalized text written using only the letters of the Samaritan alphabet. Beginning in the 12th century, some manuscripts show a partial vocalization resembling the Jewish Tiberian vocalization used in Masoretic manuscripts. More recently, manuscripts have been produced with full vocalization. The Samaritan Pentateuchal text is divided into 904 paragraphs. Divisions between sections of text are marked with various combinations of lines, dots or an asterisk;
7040-510: The Samaritan Pentateuch preserves "many genuine old readings and an ancient form of the Pentateuch." Support for Kahle's thesis was bolstered by the discovery of biblical manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls , which contain a text similar to the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Dead Sea Scroll texts have demonstrated that a Pentateuchal text type resembling the Samaritan Pentateuch goes back to the second century BCE and perhaps even earlier. These discoveries have demonstrated that manuscripts bearing
7168-404: The Samaritan Pentateuch useful for textual criticism . Cyril of Alexandria , Procopius of Gaza , and others spoke of certain words missing from the Hebrew Text, but present in the Samaritan Pentateuch. Eusebius wrote that the "Greek translation [of the Bible] also differs from the Hebrew, though not so much from the Samaritan" and noted that the Septuagint agrees with the Samaritan Pentateuch in
7296-418: The Samaritan version in approximately 1,900 of the 6,000 instances in which it differs from the Masoretic (Jewish) text. Many of these agreements reflect inconsequential grammatical details, but some are significant. For example, Exodus 12:40 in both the Samaritan and the Septuagint 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
7424-482: The Samaritans' place of worship. The Samaritan version of the Ten Commandments includes the command that an altar be built on Mount Gerizim on which all sacrifices should be offered. The Samaritan Pentateuch contains the following paragraph, which is absent from the Jewish version: And when it so happens that L ORD God brings you to the land of Canaan, which you are coming to possess, you shall set up there for you great stones and plaster them with plaster and you write on
7552-418: The Scribes" ( tikkune Soferim ; Midrash Genesis Rabbah xlix. 7), assuming that the Scribes actually made the changes. This view was adopted by the later Midrash and by the majority of Masoretes. In Masoretic works these changes are ascribed to Ezra ; to Ezra and Nehemiah ; to Ezra and the Soferim ; or to Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah , Haggai , and Baruch . All these ascriptions mean one and the same thing: that
7680-430: The Septuagint as it matches quotations in the New Testament . The oldest manuscript fragments of the final Masoretic Text, including vocalications and the masorah, date from around the 9th century. The oldest-known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex , dates from the early 11th century. The Aleppo Codex , once the oldest-known complete copy but missing large sections since the 1947 Civil war in Palestine , dates from
7808-430: The Septuagint sharing variants not found in the Masoretic and their differences reflecting the period of their independent development as distinct local text traditions. On the basis of archaizing and pseudo-archaic forms, Cross dates the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch as a uniquely Samaritan textual tradition to the post- Maccabean age. The Samaritan Targum , composed in the Samaritan variety of Western Aramaic ,
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#17327661054377936-424: The Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex , dates from the early 11th century CE. The differences attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of
8064-412: The Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. According to a view based on the biblical Book of Ezra (Ezra 4:11), the Samaritans are the people of Samaria who parted ways with the people of Judah (the Judahites) in the Persian period . The Samaritans believe that it was not they, but the Jews, who separated from the authentic stream of
8192-428: The Temple at Elephantine , which had been damaged or destroyed by rioters. According to Yitzakh Magen (2007), Sanballat appears to have been the scion of a veteran Samaritan family of the Israelite remnant originating in Horon, perhaps to be identified with the village of Huwara at the foot of Mount Gerizim . In Magen's reconstruction, he was commander of a garrison force who rose to be appointed governor of Samaria,
8320-415: The Temple court, at variance with each other. The differences between the three were resolved by majority decision. This may describe a previous period, although Solomon Zeitlin argues it is not historical. An emphasis on minute details of words and spellings, already used among the Pharisees as basis for argumentation, reached its height with the example of Rabbi Akiva (died 135 CE). The idea of
8448-412: The Text-Critical Masorah. The close relation which existed in earlier times (from the Soferim to the Amoraim inclusive) between the teacher of tradition and the Masorete, both frequently being united in one person, accounts for the Exegetical Masorah. Finally, the invention and introduction of a graphic system of vocalization and accentuation gave rise to the Grammatical Masorah. The most important of
8576-458: The cancellation in a few passages of the "vav" conjunctive, where it had been wrongly read by some. The objection to such an explanation is that the first changes would fall under the general head of fixation of pronunciation, and the second under the head of Qere and Ketiv (i.e. "What is read" and "What is written"). Various explanations have, therefore, been offered by ancient as well as modern scholars without, however, succeeding in furnishing
8704-429: The changes were assumed to have been made by the Men of the Great Assembly . The term tikkun Soferim ( תקון סופרים ) has been understood by different scholars in various ways. Some regard it as a correction of biblical language authorized by the Soferim for homiletical purposes. Others take it to mean a mental change made by the original writers or redactors of Scripture; i.e. the latter shrank from putting in writing
8832-424: The differences between the two are found in more or less complete Masoretic lists and in quotations in David Ḳimḥi, Norzi, and other medieval writers. The differences between Ben Naphtali and Ben Asher number about 875, nine-tenths of which refer to the placing of the accents, while the rest relate to vowels and consonantal spelling. The differences between the two Masoretes do not represent solely personal opinions;
8960-402: The face of the L ORD God of you. The mountain this is across the Jordan behind the way of the rising of the sun, in the land of Canaan who is dwelling in the desert before the Galgal , beside Alvin-Mara, before Sechem . Another important difference between the Samaritan Torah and the Jewish (Masoretic) Torah is in Deuteronomy 27:4. According to the Jewish text, the Israelites were told to enter
9088-422: The first half of the 20th century, the radical nationalist poet and political activist Uri Zvi Greenberg – considered the spiritual mentor of Revisionist Zionism and of the present Israeli settlers on the West Bank – regularly used the term "The Sanballats" or "The Sanballat Gang" (כנופית הסנבלטים) as a catch-all term of abuse for antisemites and Palestinian nationalists as well as for political opponents from
9216-550: The first mention of such notes is found in the case of R. Meïr (c. 100–150 CE). Early rabbinic sources, from around 200 CE, mention several passages of Scripture in which the conclusion is inevitable that the ancient reading must have differed from that of the present text. The explanation of this phenomenon is given in the expression "Scripture has used euphemistic language" ( כנה הכתוב ), i.e. to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropopathism . Rabbi Simon ben Pazzi (3rd century) calls these readings "emendations of
9344-457: The first of the Israelites to achieve this rank, sometime before Nehemiah's return from exile, and arrival in Judea in 444 BCE. He thought a sacred site was necessary to unite Samaria and its populations. The Levite priesthood had migrated to Judea, and the priests of Baal were idolatrous. He chose from tradition Mount Gerizim, over whose site he chose a high priest from a noble family in Jerusalem,
9472-407: The following regarding the findings at Qumran Cave 4 in particular: "Such ancient recensional forms of Old Testament books bear witness to an unsuspected textual diversity that once existed; these texts merit far greater study and attention than they have been accorded till now. Thus, the differences in the Septuagint are no longer considered the result of a poor or tendentious attempt to translate
9600-416: The god Sīn in the context of Sanballat's name has since been mistakenly confused with the unrelated English noun sin in some popular English commentaries on Nehemiah. Other earlier commentators had sometimes taken Sanballat as being a military rank rather than a name. Sanballat is best known from the Book of Nehemiah , which casts him as one of the chief opponents of the Jewish governor Nehemiah during
9728-715: The high priest Eliashib , and with Jeshua's great-grandson who had betrothed his son to a daughter of Sanballat, may form part of the context for the "vision" of Joshua the High Priest in a heavenly tribunal between the angel of the Lord and a satan figure in Zechariah 3 . This connection between priestly intermarriage with the Samaritans and Sanballat's family in Nehemiah 13:28 to the "dirty clothes" of Joshua in Zechariah 3
9856-634: The hostility of Sanballat and his allies. They were aggrieved that the welfare of the Jews should be fostered. In Nehemiah 2 :19, it says, "When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard, they mocked us and held us in contempt and said, 'What is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?'" Nehemiah resented their insinuation and told them they had no right in Jerusalem or interest in its affairs. As soon as Sanballat and his associates heard that Nehemiah and
9984-536: The knees of Joseph", while the Samaritan text says they were born "in the days of Joseph". In about thirty-four instances, the Samaritan Pentateuch has repetitions in one section of text that was also found in other parts of the Pentateuch. Such repetitions are also implied or presupposed in the Jewish text, but not explicitly recorded in it. For example, the Samaritan text in the Book of Exodus on multiple occasions records Moses repeating to Pharaoh exactly what God had previously instructed Moses to tell him, which makes
10112-524: The latter's efforts to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and carrying out his reforms among the Jews. In Jewish tradition , he was called "the Horonite," (from "Horon", possibly identified with present-day Huwara ) and was associated with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian . His home was evidently in Samaria. According to Nehemiah, when he and his escort arrived in Jerusalem, their return aroused
10240-558: The marginal Masorah and the final Masorah. The category of marginal Masorah is further divided into the Masorah parva (small Masorah) in the outer side margins and the Masorah magna (large Masorah), traditionally located at the top and bottom margins of the text. The Masorah parva is a set of statistics in the outer side margins of the text. Beyond simply counting the letters, the Masorah parva consists of word-use statistics, similar documentation for expressions or certain phraseology, observations on full or defective writing, references to
10368-585: The mid-to-late 5th century BC. He and his family are mentioned in the contemporary Elephantine papyri and ostraca . In Hebrew the name is Sanḇallaṭ ( Hebrew : סַנְבַלַּט ). Eberhard Schrader , cited in Brown–Driver–Briggs , considered that the name in Akkadian was Sīn-uballiṭ ( Akkadian : * 𒌍𒋾𒆷 , 30.TI.LA ) from the name of the Sumerian moon god Sīn meaning "Sīn gave life". The name of
10496-549: The next century. He argued that the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch share a common source in a family of Hebrew manuscripts which he named the "Alexandrino-Samaritanus". In contrast to the proto-Masoretic "Judean" manuscripts carefully preserved and copied in Jerusalem , he regarded the Alexandrino-Samaritanus as having been carelessly handled by scribal copyists who popularized, simplified, and expanded
10624-569: The notes on the side margins or between the columns are called the Small ( Masora parva or Mp) or Inner Masorah (Masora marginalis); and those on the lower and upper margins, the Large or Outer Masorah ( Masora magna or Mm[Mas.M]). The name "Large Masorah" is applied sometimes to the lexically arranged notes at the end of the printed Bible, usually called the Final Masorah, ( Masora finalis ), or
10752-448: The number of variants in circulation and also gave a new urgency that the text must be preserved. Few manuscripts survive from this era, but a short Leviticus fragment recovered from the ancient En-Gedi Scroll , carbon-dated to the 3rd or 4th century CE, is completely identical to the consonantal Masoretic Text preserved today. New Greek translations were also made. Unlike the Septuagint, large-scale deviations in sense between
10880-485: The number of years elapsed from Noah's Flood to Abraham . Christian interest in the Samaritan Pentateuch fell into neglect during the Middle Ages . The publication of a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 17th-century Europe reawakened interest in the text and fueled a controversy between Protestants and Roman Catholics over which Old Testament textual traditions are authoritative. Roman Catholics showed
11008-676: The officers of the Temple. The Letter of Aristeas claims that a model codex was sent to Ptolemy by the High Priest Eleazar , who asked that it be returned after the Septuagint was completed. Josephus describes the Romans taking a copy of the Law as spoil, and both he and Philo claim no word of the text was ever changed from the time of Moses. In contrast, an Amoraic narrative relates that three Torah scrolls were found in
11136-501: The oldest of these textual traditions share with the Dead Sea Scrolls and Onkelos suggest that the Targum may originate from the same school which finalized the Samaritan Pentateuch itself. Others have placed the origin of the Targum around the beginning of the third century or even later. Extant manuscripts of the Targum are "extremely difficult to use" on account of scribal errors caused by a faulty understanding of Hebrew on
11264-477: The opposition and continued the work on the walls. Five different times, Sanballat and his confederates challenged Nehemiah and the Jews to meet them for a conversation in the plain of Ono . Nehemiah was equal to the emergency and attended strictly to his work. Then Sanballat, with Jews in Jerusalem who were his confederates, attempted to entrap Nehemiah in the Temple ; but the scheme failed. Sanballat's Jewish allies, however, kept Sanballat and Tobiah informed as to
11392-473: The other, examining, however, standard codices of other schools and noting their differences. The Masorah for the most part ended in the 10th century with Aaron ben Moses ben Asher and Ben Naphtali who were the leading Masoretes of the time. Ben Asher wrote a standard codex (the Aleppo Codex ) embodying his opinions. Ben Naphtali likely did as well, though it has not survived. However,
11520-501: The part of the Targum's translators and a faulty understanding of Aramaic on the part of later copyists. Scholia of Origen 's Hexapla and the writings of some church fathers contain references to "the Samareitikon " ( Ancient Greek : το Σαμαρειτικόν ), a work that is no longer extant. Despite earlier suggestions that it was merely a series of Greek scholia translated from the Samaritan Pentateuch, scholars now concur that it
11648-408: The post-Talmudical treatises Masseket Sefer Torah and Masseket Soferim , and in a Masoretic chain of tradition found in ben Asher's Diḳduḳe ha-Ṭe'amim, § 69 and elsewhere. Jacob ben Hayyim ibn Adonijah , having collated a vast number of manuscripts, systematized his material and arranged the Masorah in the second Bomberg edition of the Bible ( Venice , 1524–1525). Besides introducing
11776-451: The progress of the work in Jerusalem. With the hand of the Lord upon Nehemiah, along with Nehemiah's far-sighted policy and cunning, he was kept out of the hands of these neighbor-foes. In his reforms, so effectively carried out, he discovered that one of the grandsons of the current high priest Eliashib had married a daughter of this Sanballat and was thus son-in-law of the chief enemy of the Jews. Nehemiah also found that Eliashib had leased
11904-488: The prose books of the Bible were hardly ever written in stichs, the copyists, in order to estimate the amount of work, had to count the letters. According to some this was (also) to ensure accuracy in the transmission of the text with the production of subsequent copies that were done by hand. Hence the Masoretes contributed the Numerical Masorah. These notes are traditionally categorized into two main groups,
12032-448: The reader to the large Masorah, which is printed separately. The final Masorah is located at the end of biblical books or after certain sections of the text, such as at the end of the Torah. It contains information and statistics regarding the number of words in a book or section, etc. Thus, Book of Leviticus 8:23 is the middle verse in the Pentateuch. The collation of manuscripts and the noting of their differences furnished material for
12160-404: The reading Gerizim may actually be the original reading, since that is the mountain for proclaiming blessings, and that it is very green and rich of vegetation (as opposed to Mt. Ebal, which is barren and the mountain for proclaiming curses) amongst other arguments. German scholar Wilhelm Gesenius published a study of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 1815 which biblical scholars widely embraced during
12288-469: The reason that such faulty readings would belong to Qere and Ketiv, which, in case of doubt, the majority of manuscripts would decide. The last two theories have equal probability. In nine passages of the Masoretic Text are found signs usually called inverted nuns , because they resemble the Hebrew letter nun ( נ ) written in some inverted fashion. The exact shape varies between different manuscripts and printed editions. In many manuscripts,
12416-717: The reputation of the Masoretes , schools of scribes and Torah scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries in the Rashidun , Umayyad , and Abbasid Caliphates , based primarily in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem and in Mesopotamia (called "Babylonia"). According to Menachem Cohen, these schools developed such prestige for the accuracy and error-control of their copying techniques that their texts established an authority beyond all others. Differences remained, sometimes bolstered by systematic local differences in pronunciation and cantillation . Every locality, following
12544-447: The seven Books of Moses". Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy as we know them but Numbers was really three separate volumes: Numbers 1:1–10:35 followed by Numbers 10:35–36 and the third text from there to the end of Numbers. The 85 letter text is also said to be denoted because it is the model for the fewest letters which constitute a 'text' which one would be required to save from fire due to its holiness. The history of
12672-474: The son-in-law of Sanballat, went off to found a community in Samaria, as related in the Book of Nehemiah 13:28 and Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus . Josephus himself, however, dates this event and the building of the temple at Shechem to the time of Alexander the Great . Others believe that the real schism between the peoples did not take place until Hasmonean times, when the Temple on Mount Gerizim
12800-478: The source of most Western critical editions of the Samaritan Pentateuch until the latter half of the 20th century; today the codex is held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France . Some Pentateuchal manuscripts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls have been identified as bearing a "pre-Samaritan" text type. Samaritans believe that God authored their Pentateuch and gave Moses the first copy along with
12928-547: The stigmatized words were missing, hence that the reading is doubtful; still others contend that they are merely a mnemonic device to indicate homiletic explanations which the ancients had connected with those words; finally, some maintain that the dots were designed to guard against the omission by copyists of text-elements which, at first glance or after comparison with parallel passages, seemed to be superfluous. Instead of dots some manuscripts exhibit strokes, vertical or else horizontal. The first two explanations are unacceptable for
13056-572: The stones all words of this law. And it becomes for you that across the Jordan you shall raise these stones, which I command you today, in mountain Gerizim. And you build there the altar to the L ORD God of you. Altar of stones. Not you shall wave on them iron. With whole stones you shall build the altar to L ORD God of you. And you bring on it ascend offerings to L ORD God of you, and you sacrifice peace offerings, and you eat there and you rejoice before
13184-558: The storerooms of the temple to Tobiah, thus depriving the Levites of their share of the offerings in Nehemiah's absence. The high priest (and/or possibly his son Jehoiada and the unnamed grandson) was driven out of Jerusalem on the ground that he had defiled the priesthood ( Nehemiah 13:28 ). It has been speculated that the business dealings of Sanballat with the descendants of Joshua the High Priest , in particular with Jeshua's grandson,
13312-584: The subject, which are all more or less frequently referred to in the marginal glosses of biblical codices and in the works of Hebrew grammarians. Traditionally, a ritual Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) could contain only the Hebrew consonantal text – nothing added, nothing taken away. The Masoretic codices , however, provide extensive additional material, called masorah , to show correct pronunciation and cantillation , protect against scribal errors, and annotate possible variants. The manuscripts thus include vowel points , pronunciation marks and stress accents in
13440-430: The substitution of some words for others in public reading. Since no additions were allowed to be made to the official text of the Bible, the early Masoretes adopted other methods: e.g., they marked the various divisions by spacing, and gave indications of halakic and haggadic teachings by full or defective spelling, abnormal forms of letters, dots, and other signs. Marginal notes were permitted only in private copies, and
13568-516: The tabernacle on Mount Gerizim, in the year thirteen of the Israelites' possession of the Land of Canaan according to its boundaries [all] around; I praise YHWH. Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text ( MT or 𝕸; Hebrew : נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה , romanized : Nūssāḥ hamMāsōrā , lit. 'Text of the Tradition';) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of
13696-501: The text and the masorah, suggesting that they were copied from different sources or that one of them has copying errors. The lack of such discrepancies in the Aleppo Codex is one of the reasons for its importance; the scribe who copied the notes, presumably Aaron ben Moses ben Asher , probably wrote them originally. In classical antiquity, copyists were paid for their work according to the number of stichs (lines of verse). As
13824-465: The text exist, but none written in the original Hebrew or in translation predates the Middle Ages . The scroll contains a cryptogram, dubbed the tashqil by scholars, which Samaritans consider to be Abishua's ancient colophon: I am Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the Priest , unto them be accorded the grace of YHWH and His glory—I wrote this holy book at the entrance of
13952-406: The text look repetitious, in comparison with the Jewish text. In other occasions, the Samaritan Pentateuch has subjects , prepositions, particles , appositives , including the repetition of words and phrases within a single passage, that are absent from the Jewish text. The Samaritan Torah contains frequent agreements with the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate . The Septuagint text agrees with
14080-454: The text of the early Rabbinic Bibles published by Bomberg in the early 16th century. The talmud records that the markings surrounding Numbers 10:35-36 were thought to denote that this 85 letter text was not in its proper place. Bar Kappara considered the Torah known to us as composed of seven volumes in the Gemara "The seven pillars with which Wisdom built her house (Prov. 9:1) are
14208-477: The text was also called moseirah , by a direct conjugation of מסר "to transmit," and the synthesis of the two forms produced the modern word masorah. According to a minority of scholars, including Caspar Levias , the intent of the Masoretes was masoret "fetter [upon the exposition of the text ]", and the word was only later connected to מסר and translated as "tradition". Other specific explanations are provided: Samuel David Luzzatto argued that masoret
14336-515: The text, and is arranged alphabetically in the form of a concordance. The quantity of notes the marginal Masorah contains is conditioned by the amount of vacant space on each page. In the manuscripts it varies also with the rate at which the copyist was paid and the fanciful shape he gave to his gloss. There was accordingly an independent Babylonian Masora which differed from the Palestinian in terminology and to some extent in order. The Masora
14464-422: The text, short annotations in the side margins, and longer more extensive notes in the upper and lower margins and collected at the end of each book. These notes were added because the Masoretes recognized the possibility of human error in copying the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes were not working with the original Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible and corruptions had already crept into the versions they copied. From
14592-579: The text. Gesenius concluded that the Samaritan text contained only four valid variants when compared to the Masoretic text. In 1915, Paul Kahle published a paper which compared passages from the Samaritan text to Pentateuchal quotations in the New Testament and pseudepigraphal texts including the Book of Jubilees , the First Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses . He concluded that
14720-504: The tradition of its school, had a standard codex embodying its readings. In the talmudic academies in Babylonia , the school of Sura differed from that of Nehardea ; and similar differences existed in those of Syria Palaestina as against that at Tiberias, which in later times increasingly became the chief seat of learning. In this period living tradition ceased, and the Masoretes in preparing their codices usually followed one school or
14848-516: The two rivals represent different schools. Like the Ben Ashers there seem to have been several Ben Naftalis. The Masoretic lists often do not agree on the precise nature of the differences between the two rival authorities; it is, therefore, impossible to define with exactness their differences in every case; and it is probably due to this fact that the received text does not follow uniformly the system of either Ben Asher or Ben Naphtali. Ben Asher
14976-480: The underlying basis for the Septuagint branched out from the Israelite tradition as Israelites emigrated to Egypt and took copies of the Pentateuch with them. Cross states that the Samaritan and the Septuagint share a nearer common ancestor than either does with the Masoretic, which he suggested developed from local texts used by the Babylonian Jewish community. His explanation accounts for the Samaritan and
15104-491: The use of more matres lectionis (symbols indicating vowels) in the Samaritan Pentateuch, compared with the Masoretic; different placement of words in a sentence; and the replacement of some verbal constructions with equivalent ones. A comparison between both versions shows a preference in the Samaritan version for the Hebrew preposition al where the Masoretic text has el . The most notable substantial differences between both texts are those related to Mount Gerizim ,
15232-413: Was a Karaite rather than a Rabbinical Jew, though there is evidence against this view. The two rival authorities, ben Asher and ben Naphtali, practically brought the Masorah to a close. Very few additions were made by the later Masoretes, styled in the 13th and 14th centuries Naqdanim , who revised the works of the copyists, added the vowels and accents (generally in fainter ink and with
15360-586: Was a complete Greek translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch either directly translated from it or via the Samaritan Targum. It may have been composed for the use of a Greek-speaking Samaritan community residing in Egypt. With the displacement of Samaritan Aramaic by Arabic as the language of the Samaritan community in the centuries following the Muslim conquest of the Levant , they employed several Arabic translations of
15488-485: Was a synonym for siman by extended meaning ("transmission[ of the sign]" became "transmitted sign") and referred to the symbols used in vocalizing and punctuating the text. Ze'ev Ben-Haim argued that masoret meant "counting" and was later conjugated as moseirah "thing which is counted", referring to the Masoretic counts of the letters, words, and verses in the Bible, discussed in Qiddushin 30a. The language of
15616-456: Was based and which differed substantially from the received MT." The scrolls show numerous small variations in orthography , both as against the later Masoretic Text, and between each other. It is also evident from the notings of corrections and of variant alternatives that scribes felt free to choose according to their personal taste and discretion between different readings. The text of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Peshitta read somewhat in-between
15744-415: Was destroyed in 128 BCE by John Hyrcanus . The script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, its close connections at many points with the Septuagint , and its even closer agreements with the present Masoretic Text , all suggest a date about 122 BCE. Excavation work undertaken since 1982 by Yitzhak Magen has firmly dated the temple structures on Gerizim to the middle of the fifth century BCE, built by Sanballat
15872-487: Was familiar with the reading 'Moreh', a Hebrew word whose triliteral root suggests 'vision.' The earliest recorded assessments of the Samaritan Pentateuch are found in rabbinic literature and the writings of the early Christian Church Fathers of the first millennium. The Talmud records Eleazar ben Simeon , a Rabbinic Jew , condemning the Samaritan scribes: "You have falsified your Pentateuch... and you have not profited aught by it." Some early Christian writers found
16000-608: Was first asserted by Rav Pappa (300–375) and in Christian circles by Jerome . It is also noted by medieval Jewish commentators David Kimhi , Rashi and Moses ibn Ezra , though ibn Ezra after considering the connection rejects it. Josephus ( Antiquities xi. 7, § 2.) places Sanballat later on in Persian history, during the reign of Darius III (336–331 BCE). He likely confused this Sanballat with one of his successors, possibly Sanballat II or Sanballat III . Josephus's story
16128-481: Was four hundred and thirty years. In the Masoretic (Jewish) text, the passage reads: Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. Passages in the Latin Vulgate also show agreements with the Samaritan version, in contrast with the Masoretic (Jewish) version. For instance, in Genesis 22:2, the Samaritan Pentateuch places the binding and near-sacrifice of Isaac in
16256-452: Was penned by Abishua , great-grandson of Aaron ( 1 Chronicles 6:35 ), thirteen years after the entry into the land of Israel under the leadership of Joshua , son of Nun, although contemporary scholars describe it as a composite of several fragmentary scrolls each penned between the 12th and 14th centuries CE. Other manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch consist of vellum or cotton paper written upon with black ink. Numerous manuscripts of
16384-457: Was the last of a distinguished family of Masoretes extending back to the latter half of the 8th century. Despite the rivalry of ben Naphtali and the opposition of Saadia Gaon , the most eminent representative of the Babylonian school of criticism, ben Asher's codex became recognized as the standard text of the Hebrew Bible. Notwithstanding all this, for reasons unknown neither the printed text nor any manuscript which has been preserved
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