The following is the results of your search for 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 more
than one hundred years B.C. Then a system of worship was instituted
similar to that of the temple at Jerusalem. It was founded on the Law,
copies of which had been multiplied in Israel as well as in 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 Old Testament which was accepted by the Samaritans as of
divine authority. The form of the letters in the manuscript copies of
the Samaritan Pentateuch is different from that of the Hebrew copies,
and is probably the same as that which was in general use before the
Captivity. There are other peculiarities in the writing which need not
here be specified. 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 LXX. agrees with the former. The New
Testament also, when quoting from the Old Testament, agrees as a rule
with the Samaritan text, where that differs from the Jewish. Thus
(Exodus 12:40) in the Samaritan reads, "Now the sojourning of the children of
Israel and of their fathers which they had dwelt in the land of Canaan
and in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years" (comp.)
(Galatians 3:17) It
may be noted that the LXX. has the same reading of this text.
