The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch

The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch Timothy H. Lim 1. The Quest for the Samaritan Pentateuch he study of the formation of the sacred Scriptures of the Samaritans has received renewed interest in the light of the recognition that some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are textually harmonistic, classiied and described by some as “the pre-Samaritan” text-type.1 Something of a scholarly consensus has emerged on the second century BCE dating of the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch.2 he text-type of these scrolls (e.g., 4QpaleoExodm, It is a pleasure to dedicate this article to Peter W. Flint, whose discussions of the Samaritan Pentateuch in relation to the pre-Samaritan biblical scrolls are found in he Dead Sea Scrolls (Nashville: Abingdon, 2013), 40–46, and his coauthored textbook, written with James C. VanderKam, he Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: heir Signiicance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 91–95. his topic is a itting tribute to a scholar who has devoted his career to the understanding of the Bible, especially the Psalter and the book of Isaiah, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is with sadness that this dedication should now also be made in his memory: may you rest in peace. 1. Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 114–17. his designation has been questioned by Esther Eshel and Hanan Eshel (“Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls,” in Emanuel: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov, ed. Shalom M. Paul et al, VTSup 94 [Leiden: Brill, 2003], 215–40), who argue that while these scrolls relect features of textual harmonization characteristic of the Samaritan Pentateuch, they do not include the speciic sectarian readings that mark out a scroll as Samaritan. he Eshels state: “It is therefore preferable to label the texts that underwent harmonistic revision ‘harmonistic texts’” (Eshel and Eshel, “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation,” 221). 2. So Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles, he Samaritan Pentateuch: An Introduction to Its Origin, History, and Signiicance for Biblical Studies, RBS 72 (Atlanta: -89- 04.ReadingBible.indd 89 9/26/17 9:46 PM 90 Lim 4QNumb, 4QDeutn, 4Q158) characteristic of the Palestinian recension, has been paleographically dated to the time when John Hyrcanus destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim.3 It was during this time, so it is thought, that the Samaritans chose the harmonistic text-type of the Pentateuch and added a layer of sectarian readings that accentuated the importance of Mount Gerizim. But how could the text-critical study of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls lead to the view that the Samaritan community chose the Pentateuch as their canon? It is the community that explicitly or implicitly deines the list of authoritative Scriptures; canon is the construct of a community. he harmonistic scrolls were not found in some Samaritan genizah that evidenced their authoritative status for that group, but among the collection of one or more Jewish sects associated with the Essenes and the site of Qumran. Text-critical studies, therefore, need to be supplemented by a sociohistorical discussion of what may be known about the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch within Samaritan tradition and communities. 2. Early Notices of the Samaritan Pentateuch here is no ancient source that describes the process by which the Samaritans chose the irst ive books of the Hebrew Bible as their canon. his absence is neither surprising nor unique to the history of the Samaritan Pentateuch. here is a similar paucity of information on the formation of the Jewish Torah and canon.4 Rabbinic literature mentions the “Cutheans” several times. his designation refers to the Samaritans, following the name given to them in 2 Kgs Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 14–16; and Gary Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans: he Origins and History of heir Early Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 177. All three scholars, however, argue that the scholarly consensus needs to be reconsidered and that the origins of the Samaritan Pentateuch predate the second century. 3. Eshel and Eshel (“Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation”) built on and updated the paleographical work of James D. Purvis, he Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect, HSM 2 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), and suggested that the Samaritan script developed from the Paleo-Hebrew script used by Jews in the second century BCE. 4. See Timothy H. Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). 04.ReadingBible.indd 90 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 91 17.5 he rabbinic discussions center on the Cutheans’ variant readings in the Torah, their observance of the written laws, and their scrupulous observance of rituals. Sifre Deuteronomy 56:1 reports a dispute over the area speciied by Deut 11:26–30: some rabbis argue that the land on which the Israelites are to pronounce their blessing is in Samaria, whereas others reject this view by interpreting the clause that Mount Gerizim and Ebal are on “the other side of the Jordan” (‫ )בעבר הירדן‬indicates the Transjordan.6 he dispute involves various arguments, including a charge by R. Eleazar b. R. Yose that the Samaritan scribes have falsiied the Torah, by adding “Shechem” to “the oak of Moreh” (Deut 11:30; compare Gen 12:6), without any exegetical gain. he Babylonian Talmud mentions the Samaritans several times; for example, as illustrated by a discussion on table fellowship in b. Ber. 47b. he text stipulates that when there are two guests, the pair needs to wait for one another; the one breaking the bread stretches out his hand irst. However, if there are three, then they need not wait. At this point, it is speciied that a Cuthean may be counted as one of the three, since the Cutheans tithe their produce in the proper way and “are very scrupulous about any injunction written in the Torah” (b. Ber. 47b). In b. Hul. 3b–5a the Rabbis declared that “the slaughtering of the Cuthean is valid” under certain circumstances. here are diferences of opinion, however, on whether the unleavened bread of the Cuthean may be eaten by an Israelite on Passover. Rabbi Eliezer says that it may not be eaten, because the Cutheans do not know the precepts of an Israelite; whereas R. Simon b. Gamaliel holds that they are fastidious in the observance of the precept, even more so than the Israelite (see b. Qidd. 76a; b. Ber. 47b). he dispute revolves around the issue of whether a Cuthean observes the written and unwritten laws of the Torah. he clearest statements of the canon of the Samaritans, however, come from patristic sources. Epiphanius describes that which distinguishes the Samaritan from the Jew: 5. For a description of Jewish legislation against the Samaritans in the extratalmudic tractate, Masseket Kutim, see James Montgomery, he Samaritans: he Earliest Jewish Sect; heir History, heology, and Literature (Philadelphia: Winston, 1907), 196–203. 6. See Reuven Hammer, Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, YJS 24 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). 04.ReadingBible.indd 91 9/26/17 9:46 PM 92 Lim he irst diference between them and the Jews is that they were given no text of the prophets ater Moses but only the Pentateuch, which was given to Israel’s descendants through Moses, at the close of their departure from Egypt. (By “Pentateuch” I mean Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; in Hebrew their names are Bereshith, Elleh shmoth, Vayyiqra, Vayidabber and Elleh hadvarim). (Pan. 9.2.1)7 he bishop of Salamis’s notice, dated to 374 or 375, leaves no doubt of which books were included in the Samaritan Pentateuch, by naming their titles twice: in Greek and in Hebrew, the latter in transliteration.8 He, moreover, excludes the books of the prophets as part of the Samaritan canon. Another early reference is found in Origen’s Contra Celsum, in which we ind the passing comment: “And even if the Samaritans and Sadducees, who accept only the books of Moses, say that the Messiah has been prophesied in those books, yet even so the prophecy was not spoken in Jerusalem, which in Moses’ time had not been mentioned” (Cels. 1.49).9 he date is 248 CE, and the context is the church father’s dispute with the pagan philosopher Celsus about the Christian belief in the Bible’s prophecy concerning Jesus.10 Celsus had invoked an imaginary Jew as interlocutor to interject that a certain prophet had said once in Jerusalem that God’s son would come to judge the holy and punish the unrighteous. To this, Origen responds that (1) Celsus evaded the strongest argument conirming Jesus’s authority, namely that he had been foretold by the Jewish prophets; and (2) the statement of Celsus’s imaginary character is improbable, because a Jew would not prophesy that God’s son would come to judge. Rather, so Origen claims, the Jews would say, “the Christ of God [i.e., the messiah] will come.” Moreover, it is not only one but several prophets who foretold 7. Translation from Frank Williams, he Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book 1 (Sects 1–46), rev. and enl. ed., NHMS 63 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 33. 8. József Zsengellér (“Canon and the Samaritans” in Canonization and Decanonization: Papers Presented to the International Conference of the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religions (LISOR) Held at Leiden, 9–10 January 1997, ed. Arie van der Kooij and Karel van der Toorn, SHR 82 [Leiden: Brill, 1998], 161–71) argues on the basis of a notice in Photius that one of the Samaritan sects, the Dositheans, may have included the book of Joshua in its canon, but that it was later decanonized by mainstream Samaritanism. 9. Translation from Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 46. 10. Chadwick, Origen, xiv. 04.ReadingBible.indd 92 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 93 Jesus. Celsus’s ictive character is inconceivable, Origen continued, since his claim is based on the canon of the Pentateuch and the establishment of the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the laws of Moses, and the restriction of the canon of sacred Scriptures to the Pentateuch is found among the Samaritans and Sadducees, and not the Jews. Origen also referred to the canon of the Samaritans in an earlier work, his Commentarii in evangelium Joannis. Origen quotes and relects on the text as follows: “he woman says to him: ‘I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called the Christ. Whenever he comes, he will tell us all things’ (John 4:25). It is worthwhile to see how the Samaritan woman, who accepts only the Pentateuch of Moses, expects the coming of Christ as announced by the law” (Comm. Jo. 13.154).11 he writing of the commentary on the Fourth Gospel took ten years, between 232 or early 233 and 241 or 242 CE, interrupted as it was by Origen’s move from Alexandria to Caesarea and the persecution of Maximinus hrax.12 In the pericope of the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman in Sychar, a city in Samaria and near Jacob’s well, and asks her for a drink of water. Puzzled by Jesus’s request, the woman asks why it is that a Jew would ask a Samaritan for a drink. he Johannine author inserts an explanatory gloss: “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”13 In his comment on 4:25, Origen focuses on the source of the woman’s knowledge of the coming of the Messiah. He wonders whether the source may have included Jacob’s blessing on Judah (Gen 49:8–10) and Balaam’s oracle (Num 24). Where did she derive this belief, he asks? Origen determines that, since the woman was part of the community of the Samaritans, which accepts only the Pentateuch, her messianic outlook must stem from these books. By the irst half of the third century, therefore, it was known that the Samaritans had their own canon that consisted of the Pentateuch alone, without the rest of the books of the Jewish canon. here is, however, some earlier evidence that the Samaritan Pentateuch may have emerged prior to this time. 11. Translation from Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Commentary on the Gospel According to John; Books 13–32 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 101. 12. Ibid., 4–19. 13. his gloss likely relects divergent traditions regarding the use of vessels for fetching water. 04.ReadingBible.indd 93 9/26/17 9:46 PM 94 Lim In the irst century, Josephus recounts a quarrel between the Jews and Samaritans over the holiness of the temples in Jerusalem and Gerizim. he account implies diferences in their understanding of “the laws of Moses.” here are two accounts of this same dispute in Ant. 12.7–10 and 13.74–79, the relevant section of each, implying the diferences in practice, text, and interpretation, is quoted here: heir [i.e., the Jews’] descendants, however, had quarrels with the Samaritans because they were determined to keep alive their fathers’ way of life and customs, and so they fought with each other, those from Jerusalem saying that their temple was the holy one, and requiring that the sacriices be sent there, while the Shechemites wanted these to go to Mount Gerizim. (Ant. 12.10 [hackeray, LCL]) Now there arose a quarrel between the Jews in Alexandria and the Samaritans, who worshipped at the temple on Mount Gerizim, which had been built in the time of Alexander, and they disputed about their respective temples in the presence of Ptolemy himself, the Jews asserting that it was the temple at Jerusalem which had been built in accordance with the laws of Moses, and the Samaritans that it was the temple on Gerizim. (Ant. 13.74 [hackeray, LCL]) he quarrel evidently took place in the time of Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145 BCE), but the original historical context is diicult to ascertain. In the longer account in Ant. 13.74–79, the Samaritans and Jews brought their case before the royal court and requested that the king, his council, and friends adjudicate the dispute. he Samaritans were legally represented by Sabbaeus and heodosius, while the Jews had an advocate in Andronicus, the son of Messalamus. Proofs for either side were to be brought from the laws of Moses, and the losers were to be put to death. his account is best understood within what Erich Gruen described as “a category of concocted legends.”14 It falls in line with an identiiable pattern of Jews writing themselves into imperial history.15 here are many legendary features. For instance, it is inconceivable that Ptolemy would concern himself with a dispute between the Jews and Samaritans over the location of the temple of worship outside Egypt and in Judaea and 14. Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: he Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, HCS 30 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 236. 15. Ibid., 189–245. 04.ReadingBible.indd 94 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 95 Samaria.16 Moreover, invoking the death sentence as the punishment of what amounts to be an ideological dispute seems highly improbable. Did Josephus know the Samaritan Pentateuch? Josephus discusses the deined canon of the Jews in Ag. Ap. 1.38–41.17 Why did he not mention that the Samaritans considered only the Pentateuch as authoritative, as he did when he discussed the Sadducees’ acceptance of the written laws of Moses alone and their rejection of the traditions of the forefathers (Ant. 13.297, 18.16)? Reinhard Pummer judges that Josephus’s apparent lack of awareness of the Samaritan Pentateuch is due to his general disinterest in the Samaritans. he Flavian historian was uninterested in the beliefs and customs of the Samaritans, and he mentions them only to make a point.18 It is likely that Josephus used a source that he adapted and inserted into his paraphrase of 1 Maccabees. his is evident by the insertion of the same story into two diferent places in Ant. 12.7–10 and 14.74–79. Precisely what was his purpose is debated.19 He may not have been interested in the Samaritans as such, but his source relects distinctive traditions of the location of the temple that is based on the text and interpretation “according to the laws of Moses” (κατὰ τοὺς Μωϋσέος νόμους), the Jews claiming that it is Jerusalem and the Samaritans, Mount Gerizim. It seems possible that Josephus’s source, dated before the irst century BCE, already preserves knowledge of a distinctive Samaritan version of Deuteronomy, if not of the whole Pentateuch. 3. The Contribution of the Harmonistic Qumran Scrolls he dating of the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch to the second century BCE has been supported in recent years by the recognition that 16. Adolf Büchler’s view that the original story involved the temple of Onias or of Dositheos in Egypt has been rightly rejected as contradictory to the plain sense of the account; see Reinhard Pummer, he Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, TSAJ 129 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 189. 17. Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 43–49. 18. Pummer, Samaritans in Josephus, 283–84. Pummer argues that Josephus variously uses the Samaritans as a foil against which he represents the Jews to the Romans. Note that Josephus’s antagonism towards the Samaritans is evident in Antiquities, but not in War. 19. Seth Schwartz, “he ‘Judaism’ of Samaria and Galilee in Josephus’s Version of the Letter of Demetrius I to Jonathan (Antiquities 13, 48–57),” HTR 82 (1989): 377–91, argues that Josephus is promoting a new Jewish leadership of a rabbinic kind. 04.ReadingBible.indd 95 9/26/17 9:46 PM 96 Lim some of the Dead Sea Scrolls belong to the pre- or proto-Samaritan texttype. James Purvis began this line of argument in his published doctoral dissertation that sought to contribute to the origins of the Samaritan sect and the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch.20 hese two issues are in fact distinct, but Purvis argued that they are related. According to Purvis, the destruction of the Samaritan temple by the Hasmonean priest-king John Hyrcanus, which he dated to 128 BCE, was decisive in the history of the Samaritans. Josephus recounts this historical event in Ant. 13.254–257 (see also J.W. 1.62–63): So soon as he heard of the death of Antiochus, Hyrcanus marched out against the cities of Syria.… He captured Medaba ater six months, during which his army sufered great hardships; next he captured Samoga and its environs, and in addition to these, Shechem and Garizein, and the Cuthean nation, which lives near the temple built ater the model of the sanctuary at Jerusalem, which Alexander permitted their governor Sanaballetes to build for the sake of his son-in-law Manasses, the brother of the high priest Jaddua.… Now it was two hundred years later that this temple was laid waste. (hackeray, LCL) Purvis argued that Hyrcanus’s actions were motivated by political and religious expediency that sought to vanquish the rival priestly hierarchy of the temple of Gerizim. he Samaritans needed to redeine their relationship with the Jews, and to justify their existence by an appeal to “the chief sectarian monument of the community—their redaction of the Pentateuch.”21 Purvis asserted that the dating of the sectarian recension of the Samaritan Pentateuch to the second century BCE showed that “the work was produced in the late Hasmonaean period.”22 Purvis’s thesis is possible but not necessary. It is not so much argued as asserted, depending as it does on the convergence of his dating of the Samaritan script and the destruction of the Samaritan temple in the second century. No source tells us that this was so, nor is there any need to see the destruction of the temple as the catalyst for a sectarian recension of the Pentateuch. he establishment rather than the destruction of the temple on Mount Gerizim could equally serve as a possible historical event that engendered the Samaritan Pentateuch. he Samaritans had a distinctive 20. Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch. 21. Ibid., 117. 22. Ibid. 04.ReadingBible.indd 96 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 97 version of the Pentateuch that justiied the building of an alternative cultic site. Josephus dates the building of the Gerizim temple to the time of Alexander (ca. 330 BCE), but archaeological evidence shows that this was an error and that a sacred precinct on Mount Gerizim already existed in the Persian period. Twenty-ive years later, Esther Eshel and Hanan Eshel, to his blessed memory, developed Purvis’s argument in several ways by reining his paleographical and historical discussion.23 Acknowledging their debt to Purvis and the more limited data then available to him, the Eshels argued that the Paleo-Hebrew script was used by Jews and that the Samaritans adopted this Jewish script for the compilation of the Samaritan Pentateuch. he scrolls, classiied as “pre-Samaritan texts” or “Proto-Samaritan texts,” are better described as harmonistic scrolls, since they do not contain the sectarian readings that make them distinctively Samaritan. “hese scrolls did not belong to the Samaritans,” they stated, “rather they adopted a biblical version similar to those scrolls when the SP was compiled.”24 he latter part of this sentence is signiicant, since the Eshels assume that the SP was compiled in the second century. heir task was to show how the harmonistic scrolls related to that fact. In efect accepting Purvis’s reconstruction, the Eshels argue that it was the destruction of the temple on Mount Gerizim—which they date to 111 BCE (so it seems based on the archaeological evidence)—that prompted the Samaritans to choose the harmonistic version and create the Samaritan Pentateuch.25 he Eshels have improved our understanding of the harmonistic scrolls and the Jewish basis of the Paleo-Hebrew script and text-type. But their historical reconstruction of the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch goes no further than that of Purvis. Why should one suppose that the harmonistic text-type represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls preceded the compilation of the Samaritan Pentateuch? he Dead Sea Scrolls are associated with one or more Jewish sects of the Essenes. he corpus of nine hundred or so scrolls is a heterogeneous collection from diferent historical and social settings.26 hey are copies, 23. Eshel and Eshel, “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation.” 24. Ibid., 220. 25. “Consequently, the discovery of texts with more comprehensive editing than the SP, which are written in Hasmonean and Herodian script,… prove that the primary version of the SP was created during the second century BCE” (ibid., 239). 26. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins, “Introduction: Current Issues in Dead 04.ReadingBible.indd 97 9/26/17 9:46 PM 98 Lim and not autographs, which afect the dating by paleographical typology and development. hat the harmonistic text-type was found among this collection attests to the tolerance of the communities relected in the scrolls for diferent text-types. It is not necessary to hold that the Samaritan Pentateuch was compiled ater this period. It is more likely that the development of the Samaritan Pentateuch occurred independently, rather than sequentially, to the reception of the harmonistic text-type among the sectarian scrolls. here is no reason to preclude a view that the Samaritans chose the harmonistic text-type as the basis of their Pentateuch before the second century. he Eshels admit as much: “Even if one does not accept this [i.e., their] reconstruction, it can be assumed that the Samaritans chose the harmonistic Jewish version of the Pentateuch prevalent prior to the Hasmonean period.”27 4. Origins of the Samaritans and Their Pentateuch In fact, the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch need not be tied to the destruction of their temple at all. he proponents of the three-stage theory that reigned supreme in the late nineteenth until the middle of the twentieth century held that the Pentateuch was closed by the ith century BCE. According to H. E. Ryle, the “Samaritan schism,” which he dated to 432 BCE, was the terminus ad quem. In short, when the Samaritans separated from the Jews, they took with them that part of Scripture that was already considered canonical, the Pentateuch.28 Now recent scholarship has questioned the concept of a Samaritan schism and its association with the closing of the Pentateuch.29 here was no “schism” as supposed in previous scholarship; rather, the Samaritans were the remnants of the northern Israelites who remained in the land ater the Assyrians exiled part of their population.30 Sea Scrolls Research,” in he Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1–17. 27. Eshel and Eshel, “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation,” 239. 28. Herbert Edward Ryle, he Canon of the Old Testament: Essays on the Gradual Growth and Formation of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture (London: Macmillan, 1892), 91–94. 29. Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 18–21. 30. Magnar Kartveit, he Origins of the Samaritans (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans. 04.ReadingBible.indd 98 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 99 he previous historical understanding of the origins of the Samaritans has been skewed by the account in 2 Kgs 17 and Josephus’s works. According to 2 Kgs 17, King Shalmaneser V (726–722 BCE) besieged Samaria on account of the treachery of Hoshea, who had sent messengers to King So of Egypt and paid no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had previously done. he Assyrian attack succeeded and, ater a three-year siege of Samaria, the king deported the Israelites to exile in Assyria. he Deuteronomist summarized the outcome succinctly: “So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day. he king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah (‫)כותה‬, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria, and settled in its cities” (2 Kgs 17:23–24 NRSV).31 he deportation and substitution theory of the origins of the Samaritans was repeated and elaborated by Josephus in several places, but especially in Ant. 9.288–291. Josephus states that they are called “Cuthaioi” (Χουθαῖοι) in Hebrew, by virtue of their place of origins in “Chuta” (Χουθᾶ), but in Greek are known as “Samareitai” (Σαμαρεῖται).32 his account of the origins has been highly inluential in attributing a foreign origin to the Samaritans. As Pummer stated: “From antiquity to modern times, the view of the origins of the Samaritans presented by Josephus … proved to be enormously inluential in Jewish and Christian circles, scholarly and otherwise.”33 his theory of Samaritan origins, however, is no longer thought valid. he seventeenth chapter of 2 Kings is a redactionally complex work that preserves two diferent Deuteronomistic views of the ethnic identity and religious practice of the Samaritans. he irst account, found in 2 Kgs 17:24–34a, states that the Israelites were replaced by colonists who took 31. All translations of Hebrew Bible texts are from the NRSV, in some cases slightly modiied. 32. Josephus’s nomenclature relects a later perspective when the Samaritans were already separate from the Jews. A distinction is oten made between the “Samarians,” who lived in the region, and the later “Samaritans,” who have developed their own ethnic identity, Pentateuch, strongly monotheistic theology, Mosaic supremacy, and cultic devotion to Mount Gerizim. he numerically small community that lives in Shechem and Holon today prefers the designation as “the Israelite Samaritans,” “the northern Israelites,” or “the community of the Samarians.” See A. B. Institute of Samaritan Studies, “About Israelite Samaritans,” http://tinyurl.com/SBL3546a. For a discussion of the issue of nomenclature, see Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans, 14–17. 33. Pummer, Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, 68. 04.ReadingBible.indd 99 9/26/17 9:46 PM 100 Lim over Samaria and settled in its cities. Cultically, they did not know “the god of the land,” so lions were dispatched as a divine punishment to devour some of them (e.g., 1 Kgs 13:20–36). he Assyrian king then repatriated a former Samarian priest, who went and taught them “how to worship YHWH.” Signiicantly, the Samarian priest lived at Bethel and is thought to have reinstated the traditional, syncretistic northern cult of King Jeroboam I. As Gary Knoppers puts it: “he cultic practices acquired by the colonists from their new tutor do not inaugurate a new pagan religion, but rather replicate the traditional northern Israelite practices in most details.”34 Second Kings 17:33 explains how these foreigners “worshiped YHWH but also served their own gods.” he diversity of deities installed in the high places is found previously in 2 Kgs 17:30–31: “he people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima; the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the ire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.” Second Kings 17:34 closes out the irst account by bemoaning the continuation of these syncretistic practices “to this day.” Second Kings 17:34b–40 ofers a diferent account of the people’s disobedience that gives a clue to their identity. In this latter passage, the charge against syncretistic worship appeals to the covenantal relationship between YHWH and his people. he people do not obey, despite the fact that YHWH made a covenant with them (2 Kgs 17:35, 38). he implication is that the people are “the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel” (2 Kgs 17:34b). As Knoppers states: “the view of the northerners embedded in the second passage is that of the descendants of Jacob.”35 he origins of the Samaritans have been thoroughly revised by this reconsideration of the evidence.36 Excavations on Mount Gerizim are 34. Gary N. Knoppers,“Cutheans or Children of Jacob? he Issue of Samaritan Origins in 2 Kings 17,” in Relection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. Robert Rezetko, Timothy H. Lim, and Brian Aucker, VTSup 113 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 228. 35. Ibid., 226. Note also that the book of Chronicles takes a diferent view of the northern exile than the books of Kings and Ezra-Nehemiah. According to the former, there were remnants of Israel whom Hezekiah attempted to bring closer to the Judeans in the form of celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem (2 Chr. 30:1, 10–11; 34:9). 36. Yitzhak Magen (“he Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Rainer Albertz [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007], 157–211), argues that the accelerated 04.ReadingBible.indd 100 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 101 thought to corroborate this new understanding of the Samaritans as the northern Israelites. Yitzhaq Magen argues on the basis of the archaeological evidence that there was a sacred precinct on Mount Gerizim from the Persian to the late Hellenistic period. He divides the irst phase of the Samaritan temple into three groups: (1) the sacred precinct of the Persian period, (2) the sacred precinct of the Hellenistic period, and (3) the city on Mount Gerizim that was built in the Hellenistic period. Carbon-14 examination of charred wood and bones, the pottery, and the coins all point to a continuous occupation of the irst phase of the Samaritan temple. he Gerizim temple was destroyed along with Shechem and Mareshah in 110 BCE.37 he temple on Mount Gerizim, with its tripartite division of the sacred precinct, was patterned ater the Jerusalem temple. he governor of Samaria, Sanballat, had promised Manasseh, his son-in-law and renegade Judean of sacerdotal lineage, the high priesthood and a temple on Mount Gerizim “similar to that in Jerusalem” (Ant. 11.310). According to the archaeological evidence, Mount Gerizim was developed in the Hellenistic period, and a city was built on its southern ridge. Josephus’s error, Magen argued, was conlating the dating of the temple and the city to the time of Alexander.38 here was no “schism” in the way suggested by the proponents of the three-stage theory. he Samaritans were Yahwists of Samaria who were fulilling the precepts of the Torah in establishing a cultic site of worship on Mount Gerizim. Archaeological excavations show that throughout the Second Temple Period there was a temple on Mount Gerizim. here was eventually a split between Jews and Samaritans, as evidenced by Josephus and the New Testament, but this process of parting of the ways was likely to have been protracted and uneven. Previous scholarship may have been wrong about a decisive break, but its assumption that the Pentateuch was common to both Jews and Samaritans is not without merit. he diferences between the Jewish Torah and Samaritan Pentateuch have been exaggerated by the claim that there are some six thousand variants in the latter—the diferences are mostly orthographic variants. here is much more shared content than divergent settlement of the fringe areas and Jerusalem in the seventh century BCE attest to this inlux of refugees from the north. 37. Ibid., 187. 38. Ibid., 192. 04.ReadingBible.indd 101 9/26/17 9:46 PM 102 Lim beliefs and practices. he chief diferences concern the cultic worship on Mount Gerizim, which is relected in both the perfect verb of “he chose” in Deuteronomy and the Samaritan version of the tenth commandment, the emphasis on monotheism, and the enhanced role of Moses as prophet. he formation of the Samaritan Pentateuch probably occurred over a long period, with scribes inserting changes to the harmonistic text-type of the irst ive books of Moses. heir motivation was ideological, spurred on by the changing relationship between them and the Judeans. he common text incorporating the laws of Moses could be traced to its preexilic origins, but the Torah emerged in the Persian period, ater the return from the Babylonian exile. 5. Conclusions In the foregoing discussion, we have shown that the scholarly consensus on the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch in the second century BCE is a possible, but not necessary, inference to draw from the text-critical study of the harmonistic text-type of the scrolls. An alternative scenario is that the Samaritan Pentateuch emerged in relation to the building of the temple on Mount Gerizim. he Samaritan community adopted a version of the Torah that testiied to YHWH having already chosen the place of his abode, not in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim. he distinctive version of the Torah that they adopted validated the erection of the cultic site in accordance with the ordinances of the book of Deuteronomy as found in the Samaritan Pentateuch. he paucity of evidence means that there is nothing deinitive that could be known about the emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch. his does not mean that the question is entirely open. From the early notices discussed above, it is likely that there was a distinctive Samaritan Pentateuch by the time of Josephus in the irst century. he harmonistic scrolls corroborate this view, but also push the date back before the Hasmonean period. How far back it goes is a matter of speculation and debate, but the postexilic period and the building of the temple on Mount Gerizim in the Persian period have claims that cannot be ignored. Bibliography A. B. Institute of Samaritan Studies. “About Israelite Samaritans.” http:// tinyurl.com/SBL3546a. 04.ReadingBible.indd 102 9/26/17 9:46 PM The Emergence of the Samaritan Pentateuch 103 Anderson, Robert T., and Terry Giles. he Samaritan Pentateuch: An Introduction to Its Origin, History, and Signiicance for Biblical Studies. RBS 72. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. Chadwick, Henry. Origen: Contra Celsum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953. Eshel, Esther, and Hanan Eshel. “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls.” Pages 215–40 in Emanuel: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov. Edited by Shalom M. Paul, Robert A. Krat, Lawrence H. Schifman, and Weston W. Fields. VTSup 94. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Flint, Peter W. he Dead Sea Scrolls. Nashville: Abingdon, 2013. Gruen, Erich S. Heritage and Hellenism: he Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. HCS 30. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Hammer, Reuven. Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy. YJS 24. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Heine, Ronald E. Origen: Commentary on the Gospel According to John; Books 13–32. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993. Kartveit, Magnar. he Origin of the Samaritans. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Knoppers, Gary N. “Cutheans or Children of Jacob? he Issue of Samaritan Origins in 2 Kings 17.” Pages 223–39 in Relection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld. Edited by Robert Rezetko, Timothy H. Lim, and Brian Aucker. VTSup 113. Leiden: Brill, 2007. ———. Jews and Samaritans. he Origins and History of heir Early Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Lim, Timothy H. he Formation of the Jewish Canon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Lim, Timothy H., and John J. Collins. “Introduction: Current Issues in Dead Sea Scrolls Research.” Pages 1–17 in he Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Magen, Yitzhak. “he Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence.” Pages 157–211 in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E. Edited by Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Rainer Albertz. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007. 04.ReadingBible.indd 103 9/26/17 9:46 PM 104 Lim Montgomery, James. he Samaritans: he Earliest Jewish Sect; heir History, heology, and Literature. Philadelphia: Winston, 1907. Pummer, Reinhard. he Samaritans in Flavius Josephus. TSAJ 129. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Purvis, James D. he Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect. HSM 2. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968. Ryle, Herbert Edward. he Canon of the Old Testament: An Essay on the Gradual Growth and Formation of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture. London: Macmillan, 1892. Schwartz, Seth. “he ‘Judaism’ of Samaria and Galilee in Josephus’s Version of the Letter of Demetrius I to Jonathan (Antiquities 13, 48–57).” HTR 82 (1989): 377–91. hackeray, Henry St. J., et al, trans. Josephus. 10 vols. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926–1965. Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001. VanderKam, James C., and Peter W. Flint. he Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: heir Signiicance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002. Williams, Frank. he Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book 1 (Sects 1–46). Rev. and enl. ed. NHMS 63. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Zsengellér, József. “Canon and the Samaritans.” Pages 161–71 in Canonization and Decanonization: Papers Presented to the International Conference of the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religions (LISOR) Held at Leiden, 9–10 January 1997. Edited by Arie van der Kooij and Karel van der Toorn. SHR 82. Leiden: Brill, 1998. 04.ReadingBible.indd 104 9/26/17 9:46 PM