Samaritan Pentateuch

Samaritan Pentateuch - On the return from the Exile, the Jews refused the Samaritans' participation with them in the worship at Jerusalem, and the latter separated from all fellowship with them, and built a temple for themselves on Mount Gerizim. This temple was razed to the ground around 100 BCE. Then a system of

Related Topics:
Samaritan - Jerusalem - Mount Gerizim

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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, although they never called it by this name, but always "the Law," which they read as one book. The division into five books, as we now have it, however, was adopted by the Samaritans, as it was by the Jews, in all their priests' copies of "the Law," for the sake of convenience. This was the only portion of the Hebrew Bible which was accepted by the Samaritans as of divine authority.

Related Topics:
Torah - Kingdom of Israel - Kingdom of Judah - Pentateuch - Jew - Hebrew Bible

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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.

Related Topics:
Samaritan alphabet - Hebrew - Babylonian captivity

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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 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

Related Topics:
Septuagint - Exodus

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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 New Testament, when quoting from the Old Testament, agrees as a rule with the Samaritan text, where that differs from the Jewish.

Related Topics:
Canaan - Egypt - Masoretic text - New Testament

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