Samaritan Pentateuch

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Sheet of one of the oldest codices of the Samaritan Pentateuch: Lev 13.56-15.15, scribe Ab Hasta, son of Abnef Uscha, in the year 1189 ( Schøyen Collection , MS 201)

The Samaritan Pentateuch or Samaritanus ( Hebrew תורה שומרונית torah shomronit ) is the Hebrew version of the Torah (the Pentateuch ) handed down by the Samaritans . The Samaritans only regard the five books of the Torah as holy scriptures , not the other scriptures of the Tanakh . Outwardly, the manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch differ from Jewish manuscripts through the Samaritan script used , a variant of the ancient Hebrew script .

In addition to the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch represents the third type of text in which the Torah has been handed down to the present day.

Manuscripts

Samaritan high priest with Torah scroll, 1905

The oldest known manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch date from the 11th century AD.

The fact that the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch is actually much older, however, is proven by inscriptions with texts from the Samaritan Pentateuch (especially the Decalogue ) from the 3rd to 6th centuries as well as the various versions of the Samaritan Targum .

In the Samaritan religious community, as in Judaism, the Torah is used in the form of a codex for study and in the form of a scroll for liturgical occasions. In addition to being read out in the synagogue, liturgical use by Samaritans also means that a Torah scroll is carried several times a year on pilgrimages to the summit of Garezim. Three old scrolls are used in Nablus, which were shown to Edward VII , then Prince of Wales, during his visit to Nablus in 1860 :

  • Yom Kippur and Sukkot : a scroll written in 1441 AD, which was and is often shown to visitors as the "Abisha scroll" (photo);
  • an undated scroll for the Sabbath reading;
  • Sabbath in the Sukkot festival week: Abisha scroll.

In the Samaritan community of Nablus , the biblical Shechem , the Abisha scroll is the prototype of all Torah scrolls because, according to a cryptogram in the book of Deuteronomy by Abishua, Aaron's great-grandson (cf. 1 Chr 5 : 29-30  EU ), it is 13 years later the conquest of the Israelites is said to have been written. All other Torah scrolls are copies of this copy.

It is a badly damaged scroll that was put together secondary from copies of different scrolls. In the 1950s, Federico Pérez Castro was given the rare opportunity to photograph the real Abisha role in its entirety. After a thorough investigation, he decided to only publish the back part of the scroll ( Num 35  EU - Dtn 34  EU ), as the front part of the scroll was mostly composed of young manuscripts, with only small parts of old scroll fragments. The part Num 35 - Dtn 34 is, however, as Castro recognized, also not uniform; this comes from several scribes from the 12th-14th centuries. Century

In the Samaritan sources, the Abisha scroll is first mentioned in the 14th century by the chronicler Abu'l Fath. A gloss of the Samaritan Chronicle ( Tolidah ) states that the Abisha scroll was badly damaged by an earthquake that occurred just as it was being used at a pilgrimage festival on the summit of Garyzim.

Important early manuscripts of Samaritanus, approximate dates in italics :

Surname date description Repository
Ms. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library , 751 1225 This codex, written by Abi Barakatah, is the oldest (almost) completely preserved copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The high-quality text is very well preserved, and punctuation and vowel marks are also easy to read. Dublin
Ms. Nablus, Synagogue, A 1336 Nablus
Ms. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, 752 1339 Dublin
Ms. London, British Library , Or. 6461 1339 The scribe was Abraham ben Jacob ben Tabya ben Sa'adiah ben Abraham from the scribe family Pijma. The codex (199 pages) was acquired for the British Museum in 1902. London
Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale , Sam. 2 1345 The manuscript acquired by Pietro della Valle in Damascus in 1616, the basis of the Paris and London polyglots. It was donated to the oratory in Paris around 1623. Complete codex (254 sheets). Paris
Ms. London, British Library, Cotton Claudius B. viii 1362 A 14th century codex from the collection of Robert Bruce Cotton (1571–1631). The first half of the manuscript was written by Ithamar ben Aaron ben Ithamar, the Samaritan high priest in Damascus, and Joseph ben Abi Ozzi, the second half by Abraham ben Ab Nessan ben Abi Saʿadia ben Ab Hasda of Gerar (i.e. Gaza). The Codex (254 pages) includes the complete Pentateuch. It was acquired in the Orient in 1620/30. London
Ms. Cambridge, University Library, Add. 1846 12th century The manuscript is known under the name Codex Zurbil , named after a Scholion at the end of the Book of Numbers, in which it is claimed that this manuscript was saved from the fire at the time of Zerubbabel (= Zurbil). The text was written by five scribes. Cambridge
Ms. Nablus, Synagogue, 6 1204 Due to its age (1204 BC), this manuscript is of great value, but has numerous typographical errors and is partly difficult to read or damaged. Nablus
Ms. Cambridge, University Library, Add. 713 13th century Codex (244 sheets, some of which have been modernized). Cambridge
Ms. Manchester, John Rylands Library , Sam 1 1211 Codex created by Abi Baraktah, in very good condition. The text of Num 34 has been arranged in such a way that a map of the promised land is created with the garyzim as the center. Manchester
Ms. Jerusalem, National Library of Israel , Sam 2 ° 6 1215 From the collection of David Salomon Sassoon (London). Jerusalem
Ms. Cambridge, University Library, Add. 714 1219 Codex (312 sheets), two columns in Hebrew-Arabic. The scribe was Abu'l barakât ben Ab-Zehuta ben Ab-Nephusha ben Abraham from Ṣarpat. Cambridge
Ms. Rom, Bibliotheka Apostolica Vaticana , Barberini Or. 1 1226 So-called Barberine Triglottes : three columns in Hebrew - Aramaic - Arabic, acquired from Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius de Peiresc in the Orient in 1631 and inherited by Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Of the 266 sheets, 182 are old. In contrast to della Valles specimen, the Barberine triglottis was initially not published. Vatican city
Ms. New York, Public Library, Jan. 1232 Parchment Codex, the first and last leaves of the Pentateuch are modernly supplemented on paper. The scribe was Abraham ben Israel ben Efraim ben Joseph. new York
Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Sam. 1 13th century Codex (258 sheets), contains the text from Gen 18.2 to Deut 7.5 with a larger gap in the book of Leviticus. Paris
Ms. London, British Library, Or. 7562 1300 London
Ms. Manchester, John Rylands Library, Sam 2 1328 Manchester
Ms. Leipzig, University Library , Vollers 1120 1345 August von Gall suspected that this codex came to Leipzig with the Firkowitsch collection . It comprises 160 pages with the text from Gen 11:31 to Dtn 4,37; Well preserved except for the last leaves. Leipzig
Ms. London, British Library, Add. 1443 1350 London
Ms. Leiden, University Library, Or. 6 1350 Codex (170 sheets), which brings together manuscripts of different origins and different ages. Suffer
Ms. London, British Library, Add. 22369 1360 Codex (154 leaves), only the beginning and end of the Pentateuch are missing. The scribe was Abraham ben Ab-Nisan ben Ab-Chisda from Gerar (= Gaza). London

Text editions

The scientific edition by August von Gall (1914–1918) offers “an eclectic text, the readings of which, in case of doubt, follow an artificial linguistic and orthographic standard derived from the Masoretic text.” To make matters worse, von Gall does not have any of the most important manuscripts of Samaritanus could use.

The edition by Stefan Schorch and Jószef Zsengéller , which has been published since 2018, is a diplomatic edition. Its base text is Ms. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, 751 . Like von Gall, this new edition uses the Hebrew square script and combines it with Samaritan vowel and punctuation marks. In addition to its predecessors, it also takes into account the oral vocalization tradition and also notes the variants of the Aramaic and Arabic Samaritan translations as well as the non-Samaritan parallels in their own apparatus . a. in the Septuagint and Qumran manuscripts .

Relation to other Bible texts

In about 6,000 cases the text deviates from the Masoretic text on which today's scientific editions of the Bible are based. Most of these cases only concern spelling , e.g. B. the difference between defective and plene spelling or other formal differences, not content-related statements.

About 1,900 of these deviations correspond to those of the Greek-language Septuagint . They are interpreted as evidence of old Hebrew text versions that existed in both versions of the Bible and that were independent of those of the Masoretic text.

A small part of the deviations can be explained by the Samaritans' interest in portraying their cult as the legitimate one compared to the Jerusalem temple cult. This applies to a command inserted after Ex 20.17  EU to build a sanctuary on the Garizim , and to about 20 verses in Deuteronomy , which subsequently relate the choice of the holy place to Shechem . The limited number of these interventions is no longer seen today as a devaluation of the entire text, since otherwise there is great agreement with both the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.

Many differences to the Masoretic text are of a linguistic nature: They simplify ancient and complicated formulations in order to make them easier to understand for Palestinian Jews who have been living since 539 BC. Predominantly Aramaic spoke, to increase. These adjustments became superfluous after the advent of the Aramaic translations of the Bible , the Targumim . They therefore indicate that the Samaritan Torah text is very old. This cannot have been dependent on the proto-Masoretic text tradition, which the Targumim predominantly had.

Among the Dead Sea Scrolls , there were manuscripts that resemble the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch without knowing its special additions related to the Garizim cult. They proved the old age of the text tradition on which it is based.

A Greek translation of Samaritanus, the so-called Samariticon, is documented only in marginal notes and quotations . The Samaritan Targum , the translation into Aramaic , is known from numerous medieval manuscripts . There is also an Arabic translation of Samaritanus.

Research history

The Samaritan Pentateuch only became directly accessible to Western European research after the Italian explorer Pietro della Valle acquired a manuscript from Damascus in 1616 and brought it back to Europe. The text of this manuscript was printed in the Paris and London polyglots together with the Samaritan Targum in Samaritan script and was the standard text used for comparison with other versions until the beginning of the 20th century. The statement that the Samaritanus deviates from the Masoretic text in around 6000 cases was made by Edmund Castell in 1657 on the basis of the London polyglot. It is based on unclear criteria and has been repeated unchecked to the present day.

The reception of this text was determined by contemporary Catholic-Protestant controversies. Protestant dogmatics regarded the Masoretic text as inspired and passed down through a reliable chain of traders to the present day of the church. A different Hebrew text could only be wrong. Catholic authors rated the quality of the Samaritan text higher and considered corruption of the text in the Jewish Torah to be more likely. The inclusion of Samaritanus in the polyglot Bibles of the 17th century therefore also had a controversial theological accent. The Protestant Hebraist Benjamin Kennicott was an exception : he highly valued the Samaritan Pentateuch, in the 18th century collected the variants of the consonant text in the Samaritan manuscripts available to him and put it in an apparatus together with the Samaritan text of the London polyglot in the Masoretic textus receptus and its variants opposite. The Samaritan Pentateuch text (in square letters ) was only printed where it deviates from the Masoretic text.

Wilhelm Gesenius looked at the text and in 1815 developed a catalog of criteria for assessing the deviations of Samaritanus from the Masoretic text. He thought it was a secondary version of the Jewish text. Its characteristics are: linguistic simplification, stylistic and literary harmonization and text changes in favor of Samaritan special teachings. The importance of the Samaritan Pentateuch for the production of the original text of the Pentateuch has been assessed as low by Gesenius since this verdict. Since then it has been considered almost worthless for biblical textual criticism .

The mostly negative judgment of the Samaritanus initially did not change when older manuscripts became known. Already August von Gall was for the eclectic text of his 1914-1918 published edition individual manuscripts from the 12th and 13th centuries. Use. This hitherto only complete critical edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch also included, for the first time, variants of punctuation and the only sporadic vowel and text-critical signs in the manuscripts. When manuscripts of a “presamaritan” text type of the Pentateuch became known among the Dead Sea Scrolls (previously called “protosamaritan”), Samaritanus was reassessed: it is therefore not a secondary version reformed by Samaritan special teachings, but a type of the Pentateuch text, who in the 2nd century BC Next to the proto-Masoretic text type and which was adapted to the Samaritan religion in very few places through extensions (not text corrections).

expenditure

literature

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ^ The Schøyen Collection: Samaritan Bible
  2. a b Stefan Schorch: Leviticus , Berlin / Boston 2018, p. Xvii.
  3. a b c d Alan D. Crown: The Abisha Scroll - 3000 Years Old? In: Bible Review 7, 5 (1991), online: Center for Online Judaic Studies .
  4. F. Pérez Castro: Séfer Abišaʿ: Edición del fragmento antiguo del rollo del Pentateuco hebreo samaritano de Nablus: Estudio, transcripción, aparato crítico y facsimiles, Textos y Estudios del Seminario Filológico Cardenal Cisneros . Madrid 1959.
  5. ^ Stefan Schorch: Leviticus , Berlin / Boston 2018, pp. Xxi f.
  6. Chester Beatty Digital Collections: Samaritan Pentateuch .
  7. Stefan Schorch: The Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Berlin / Boston 2012, p. 18 f.
  8. ^ British Library, Sacred texts Collection: Samaritan Pentateuch .
  9. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xxii.
  10. ^ Stefan Schorch: Leviticus , Berlin / Boston 2018, p. Xxxi.
  11. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Iii.
  12. ^ British Library, Digitized Manuscripts: Cotton MS Claudius B VIII .
  13. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xvii.
  14. ^ University of Cambridge Digital Library: Samaritan Pentateuch (MS Add . 1846) .
  15. Stefan Schorch: The Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Berlin / Boston 2012, p. 15 f.
  16. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xxxii.
  17. ^ Stefan Schorch: Samaritan Pentateuch, MS John Rylands Library Manchester 1 .
  18. The National Library of Israel: ארהותא קדישתא: תורה שומרונית .
  19. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xxxii.
  20. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xv.
  21. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xxxiii.
  22. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Ix.
  23. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. I.
  24. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Ix f.
  25. August von Gall: The Hebrew Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Volume 1, Giessen 1914, p. Xx.
  26. Stefan Schorch: The Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Berlin / Boston 2012, p. 14 f.
  27. Ernst Würthwein : The text of the Old Testament. 4th edition. Württembergische Bibelanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-438-06006-X , pp. 47–49.
  28. Stefan Schorch: The Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Berlin / Boston 2012, p. 8.
  29. Stefan Schorch: The Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Berlin / Boston 2012, p. 6 f. Reinhard Pummer: The Samaritans: A Profile . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 2016, p. 211 f.
  30. ^ Benjamin Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum hebraicum cum variis lectionibus , Vol. 1, Oxford 1776, archive.org .
  31. ^ Stefan Schorch: The Pentateuch of the Samaritans , Berlin / Boston 2012, pp. 9-14.