Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint

At the time the Samaritan Pentateuch originated, there was not yet a “Masoretic text.” The Masoretic text is the text (or rather family of texts) that was provided with a written vowel system, hence indicating the pronunciation of the words. This Masoretic system was not developed until the early Middle Ages. The Hebrew text from which the Samaritan text was presumably derived was written with consonants only, as was the Samaritan Pentateuch. The existing copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch are also written with consonants only.

The differences between the Samaritan Pentateuch and what is now the standard Hebrew Bible (the Masoretic text, [MT]) are of several kinds. First, there is a consistency, or harmonization in the Samaritan Pentateuch that is not found in the MT. For example, Exodus 14:12 says, “Is this not what we said to you in Egypt: Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?” In the MT, no such precise statement is found in the earlier part of Exodus, but it does appear in ch 6 in the Samaritan Pentateuch. Similar cases of “filling in the gaps” occur other places in the SP. There are also some grammatical differences between the SP and the MT, but they would not have any effect on translation. In addition to these differences, there are differences that seem clearly to be theologically motivated. For example, in the account of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, the SP has a requirement to build an altar on Mt. Gerizim. This is not found in the MT, and of course Mt. Gerizim was where the Samaritans worshiped (see John 4:19-20). At this point it is not possible to tell which of the readings is original, but one has to suspect that the change is due to the Samaritan, and not to the later Jews, as none of the other versions has the reference to Mt. Gerizim.

There is more information regarding the origin of the Septuagint (usually abbreviated LXX), but that does not necessarily mean it is more helpful. The story of the origin of at least the Pentateuch portion of the Septuagint is told in the Letter of Aristeas. An English version of that “letter” may be found in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James Charlesworth. According to the letter, the librarian of King Ptolemy Philadephus in Alexandria requested to Jewish high priest to send translators to provide a Greek version of the Torah scrolls held there. Six men from each of the twelve tribes was sent and, being shut up in separate cells, produced translations that, miraculously, were identical to one another. Since there were seventy-two translators, “seventy” was probably adopted as shorthand, hence the abbreviation LXX. The reader should note that this letter refers only to the translation of the Pentateuch (or Torah), so it does not answer the question about the origin of the the Greek translations of the other books of the Old Testament.

For next week: More about the Septuagint, and the Peshitta.

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