For purposes of exegesis the version is entirely use- less. It is simply interesting as faithfully representing the religious ideas and literary progress of the Samari- tans; it is valuable also for philological purposes, as being the most trustworthy monument of an important She- mitic dialect. The oldest ]\ISS. hitherto known to ex- ist are both at Kome — the Barbcrini Triglot and the Vatican. The former was bouglit by Peircsc at Damas- cus, in 1G31, and bequeathed by him to cardinal Barbe- rini, in whose library it still remains. It is imperfect; the oldest parts were written in A.I). 122G, and the end of Deuteronomy was supplie<l by a later hand in 1482.
The Vatican MS. was bought by Pietro dolla Valle at Damascus, in 1616. It is much later than the one just described ; it is on paper, dated A.D. 1514, with consider- able lacunaj of words, and even verses (comp. Assemani, Bibl. Vat. Catal. I, i, 464). This is the only text that has ever been published : it appeared in the Paris Poly- glot of 1645, and was thence copied, without, however, a fresh collation of the MS., into the London Polyglot of 1657, from which A. Brlill reprinted it in Hebrew characters, and published it under the title DlSin mi-n h'J ijn^':: (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1875). Petermann, of Berlin, intended to publish an edition from MSS. collated by him at Nablus, but the first part only was published : Pentateuchus Samaritanus, ad Jidem Librorum Manu-icrij^toruin (ipud Nuhlusianos Re- j)ei-torum, edidit et varias Lectiones adscripsit H. Peter- mann. Fasciculus T, Genesis (Berolini, 1872). Frag- ments of a Samaritan Tarrjiim (Lev. xxv, 26, to the end of that book, and parts of Numbers), y'/ow a Bod- leian MS., were edited and published by Nutt (Lond. 1874). The Imperial Library of St. Petersburg con- tains also many fragments of the Samaritan- Arabic translation, as well as of the Samaritan Targum.
2. " The Samaritan" in Gi-eek {to Sa/iopeiriKov). In the fathers of the 3d and 4th centuries, as well as in MSS. containing the Sept., with fragments of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, we tind scholia, or pieces of a Greek translation of the Pentateuch so designated. These fragments have been collected by Morin, Hottin- ger, and jMontfaucon, and are in \Valt<in's Prolegomena. Casteil, Vossius, and Herbst think that they are merely translated extracts from the Samaritan Version ; while Gesenius, Winer, and Juynboll suppose them to be re- mains of a continuous (ireek version of the Samaritan Pentateuch. On the other hand, Ilengstenberg and Hiivernick see in it only a corrected edition of certain passages of the Sept. The most probable of these opin-
ions seems to be that which looks upon the notes or scholia as the Samaritan corrections of certain places in the Sept.
3. In 1070 an Arabic version of the Samaritan Pen- tateuch was made by Abu Said in Egypt, on the basis of the Arabic translation of Saadias llag-gaon (tj. v.). Like the original Samaritan, it avoids anthropomor- phisms and anthropopathisms, replacing the latter by euphemisms, besides occasionally making some slight alterations, more especially in proper nouns. It ap- pears to have been drawn up from the Samaritan text, not from the Samaritan Version, the Hebrew words occasionally remaining unaltered in the translation. Often, also, it renders the original differently from the Samaritan Version. Principally noticeable is its ex- cessive dread of assigning to God anything like human attributes, physical or mental. For D"'rtbi<, iT.n^, " God," we find (as in Saadias sometimes) Maktk A l- lali, " the Angel of God ;" for " the eyes of God" we have (Deut. ix, 12) "the beholding of God." For "bread of God," " the necessary," etc. Great reverence is shown for Moses and the tribe of Levi ; but envy of the tribe of Judah (Gen. xlix, 10). It is written in the common language of the Arabs, and abounds in Samaritanisms. An edition of this version was commenced by Kuenen at Leyden. Genesis was published in 1851 ; Exodus and Leviticus in 1854. In Syria it would appear that the Samaritans still used Saadias's even after Abu Said's had been made, for which reason Abul Baracat (about 1208) wrote scholia upon the latter in order to recommend it to the people. This must not be considered a new ver- sion, but a Sj'riac recension of the Arabic-Samaritan. The two recensions — the Syriac of Abul Baracat and the Egyptian of Abu Said — were mixed together in the MSS., and cannot now be properly separated. For fur- ther particulars we must refer to .Juynboll and Eichhorn: the former in his Orienfalia, ii, 115 sq. ; the latter in the second volume of his Einleitung to the Old Test. Van Vloten described a MS. of Abu Said's in the University of Leyden in 1803; and Juynboll notices the MSS. at Paris, especially Nos. 2 and 4, in the Orientulia, ii, 115 sq.
Literature. — Cellarius, Horai Samaritance (Frank- fort and Jena, 1705, 4to, 2d ed.), p. 1-58; Uhlemaini, Samaritan Chrestomathy (Lipsiie, 1837); Walton, Pro- legomena, ed. Dathe ; Casteil, Observations on the Sixth Volume of the London Polyglot ; Eichhorn, Einleitung ins A. T, vol. ii ; Gesenius, De Pentateuc.hi Samarit. Origine. etc.; Winer, Z'e I'ersionis Pentat. Samar. Indole (ibid. 1817, 8vo) ; De Wette, Einleitung in das A. T.; Hiivernick, Einleitung, i, 1 , Juynboll, Cotnmentarii in Ilistorium Gentis Samaritance (Leyden, 1846, 4to) ; Da- vidson, Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol. i ; Lee, Pro- legomena in Biblia Polyglotta Londinensia Minora, pro- legomenon ii, §1,3; Kohn, De Pentateucho Samaritano, p. 66 sq. ; id. Samaritanische Studien (Breslau, 186«) ; also Zur Sprache, Literatur it. Dogmatik der Samuritaner (Leipsic, 1876), Briill, Zur Geschichte u. Literatur der Samariter (Frankfort, 1876) ; Keil, Introduction, ii, 278 sq. ; Kaulen, Einleitung (Freiburg, 1876), i, 91 sq.; Nol- deke, in Geiger's Zeitschrift, vi, 204 sq. ; Bargfes, Notice sur deux Fragments d'un Pentuteuque Hebreu-Samari- tain, 1865, p. 15; Simon, Histoire Critique du V. T. p. 261 ; Davidson, in Kitto's Cyclop, iii, 750 sq.; Deutsch, in Smith's Diet, of the Bible, iv, 2812 S(i. ; Nutt, Sketch of Samaritan History, p. 106 sq. ; Petermann, in Her- zog's Rcal-Kncykhip. xiii, 375 sq. (B. P.)