the Galilaio - Palestinian dialect, such as the inter- change of the ahevi letters, and of 3 for S, of T for S, etc. But this peculiarity is simply owing to careless- ness of transcription in the copyists, who wrote as they pronounced, and softened the hard gutturals which were difficult to their organs. 3. The Aram:ean coloring and orthography, as SuJp and P'^Iip. This is likewise ow- ing to transcription, and can hardh' be called a charac- teristic of the Samaritan (Frankel, Einjluss, p. 238 sq.). Another classification of the Samaritan characteristic readings is given by Kirchheim. He makes thirteen classes, D"inr a 5"i, as follows : l.Dilinjni niSOItin'a D*iT'^"ia "in rp"7ap, additions and alterations in favor of Mount Gerizim, e. g. Deut. v, 21. 2. niSDinnb mxb^p, additions to fill up. 3. "nx-tl, explications or glosses. 4. S'^D'^lum d''b"Sn Tjl^n, change of verbs and conjugations. 5. HI^'iTl Cjlbn, change of nouns. 6. tlXllTrin, assimilation, or bringing irregu- lar forms into the same uniform type. 7. n"l1?2n DT^mxri, permutation of letters. 8. d'i''13D, pror nouns. 9. ■p'an, gender. 10. riSOlin mT'X, let- ters added. 11. "nnnm Dn-in riiniX, addition of qualifying letters, as articles, conjunctions, and preposi- tions. 12. Tlisni y"13pil, junction and separation. 13. DPISJ P.l^'i, chronological alterations (Kanne Shom- 7-on, p. 32 sq.). Comp. for No. 13, Pick, Ho7-(b Samari- tance (Gen. v and xi, where the differences of the chro- nology in the Heb., Sept., Sam., and Josephus are ex- hibited).
A third division is that adopted by Kohn {De Pent. Sam. p. 9). He makes three divisions, viz. 1, Samari- tan forms of words ; 2, corrections and emendations ; 3, glosses and corruptions for religious purposes; and per- haps, 4, blunders in orthography.
IV. Oriffin and Age. — In regard to these questions, opinions have been much divided. We shall enumerate the principal ones.
]. That the Samaritan Pentateuch came into the hands of the Samaritans as an inheritance from the ten tribes, whom they succeeded — so the popular no- tion runs. Of this opinion are J. INIorinus, Walton, Cappellus, Kennicott, Michaelis, Eichhorn, Bauer, Jahn, Bertholdt, Steudel, IMazade, Stuart, Davidson, and oth- ers. Their reasons for it may be thus briefly sum- med up :
(1.) It seems improbable that the Samaritans should have accepted their code at the hands of the Jews after the Exile, as supposed by some critics, since there ex- isted an intense hatred between the two nationalities.
(2.) The Samaritan canon has only the Pentateuch in common with the Hebrew canon : had that book been received at a period when the Hagiographa and the Prophets were in the Jews' hands, it would be sur- prising if they had not also received those.
(3.) The Samaritan letters, avowedly the more an- cient, are found in the Samaritan code ; therefore it was written before the alteration of the character into the square Hebrew — which dates from the end of the Exile — took place.
Since the above opinion — that the Pentateuch came into the hands of the Samaritans from the ten tribes — is the most popular one, we will now adduce some of the chief reasons brought against it : and the reader will see, by the somewhat feeble nature of the argu- ments on either side, that the last word has not vet been spoken in the matter.
((7.) There existed no religions animosity whatsoever between Judah and Israel when they sei)arated; the ten tribes could not, therefore, have bequeathed such an an- imosity to those who succeeded them, and who, we may add, probably cared as little, originally, for the disputes between Judah and Israel as colonists from far-off coun-
SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH 297 SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH
tries, belonging to utterly different races, are likely to care for the quarrels of the aborigines wlio formerly inhabited the country. On the contrary, the contest between the slowly Judaized Samaritans and the Jews only dates from the nKtment when the latter refused to recognise the claims of the i'ormer of belonging to the people of God, and rejected their aid in building the temple. Whj^, then, it is saiil, should they not first have received the one book wliich would bring them into still closer conformity with the returned exiles at their hands? That the Jews should yet have refused to receive them as equals is no more surprising than that the Samaritans from that time forward took their stand upon this very law — altered according to their circumstances — and proved from it that they and they alone were the Jews Kar' i^oxi]v.
(b.) Their not possessing any other book of the He- brew canon is not to be accounted for by the circum- stance that there was no other book in existence at the time of the schism, because many psalms of David, writ- ings of Solomon, etc., must have been circulating among the people. But the jealousy with which the Samari- tans regarded Jerusalem, and the intense hatred which they naturally conceived against the post-Mosaic writ- ers of national Jewish history, would sufficiently account for their rejecting the other books, in all of which, save Joshua, Judges, and Job, either Jerusalem, as the centre of worship, or David and his house, are extolled. If, however, Lowe has really found with them (as he re- ports in the Allgeni. Zntumj d. Jmlenih. A|)ril 18, 1839) our book of Kings and Solomon's Song of Songs — which they certainly would not have received subsequently- all these arguments are perfectly gratuitous.