Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 60:240 (Oct 1903)
Article: The Samaritan Pentateuch
Author: William Eleazar Barton

BSac 60:240 (Oct 1903) p. 601

The Samaritan Pentateuch

Rev. William E. Barton

For several years prior to my tour of Palestine in 1902, I had noted with interest the accounts, in books on biblical antiquities, of the Holy Scroll at Nâblus. This manuscript, containing the Pentateuch, is believed to be the oldest manuscript in existence of any portion of the Bible. As the priests show it with great reluctance, and are supposed to exhibit it, even to their own people, only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, I was anxious that they should not substitute for it, at the time of my visit, the more recent parchment which on ordinary occasions they display. My friend, Mr. E. K. Warren, chairman of the World’s Sunday-school Convention Committee of Arrangements, had visited Palestine the year before, and had seen the ancient scroll. He gave me a letter of introduction to the High Priest, written on his business letter-head, which rather formidable-looking document I found of service on my arrival in Nâblus. As my visit opened interesting personal relations with the High Priest, and has led me to some subsequent study of the Samaritans and of their Pentateuch, I shall give somewhat in detail an account of this interesting people, and of the contribution which their ver-

BSac 60:240 (Oct 1903) p. 602

sion of the Pentateuch may afford to our knowledge of the Old Testament. I am the more confident of the timeliness of such an article, because recent books on textual criticism indicate a revival of interest in the Samaritan

LEAF FROM OLD SAMARITAN MANUSCRIPT.

version, and also because popular interest has lately been turned to the discovery of an old Samaritan Pentateuch in Damascus, which is said to have been written in 735 a.d. This manuscript is reported to be now in Cairo. I have recently learned that one of the younger priests of the Samaritan synagogue was imprisoned by the High Priest some months ago, on the suspicion of having stolen and sold an ancient manuscript from the synagogue there. Some people in Syria believe this newly-discovered Pentateuch to be the missing codex. This manuscript, if genuine in its date, would be several hundred years earlier than the oldest Old Testament manuscript in the British Museum; but it is still quite modern as compared with the

BSac 60:240 (Oct 1903) p. 603

Holy Scroll of Nâblus, which the Samaritans declare was written by the grandson of Aaron, and modern scholars believe must be nearly as old as the Christian era.

The Samaritan sect has never been large or widely scattered. Two hundred years ago there were colonies in Damascus, Cairo, and ...