Manuscript
The Samaritan Pentateuch
Also known as Samaritan Torah · SP
The first five books, kept by a community that split from Judaism long ago, in their own alphabet — and differing from the Jewish text in thousands of places.
hebrew-bibleold-testamenttorahsamaritans
Overview
The Samaritan Pentateuch(Oldest surviving manuscripts: c. eleventh to thirteenth century AD. The text tradition behind them is far older.)— Preserved continuously by the Samaritan community
The Samaritans keep only the Pentateuch, Genesis through Deuteronomy, and they write it in Samaritan script, a development of the old palaeo-Hebrew letters rather than the square Hebrew alphabet.
It differs from the Masoretic text in roughly six thousand places. Most are spelling. Some are substantial — including an extra commandment about the sanctuary on Mount Gerizim, which is where the community's own worship stands.
Two dates must be kept apart. The text tradition is ancient and is a genuinely important independent witness; the surviving copies are medieval, from about the eleventh to the thirteenth century.
The scroll kept at Nablus, the Abisha Scroll, carries a note presenting itself as written by Aaron's great-grandson in the thirteenth year after Israel entered Canaan — roughly three thousand years ago. That is what the Samaritan community holds, and it is reported here as such. Scholarship has not substantiated it; the scroll's own scribal notation points to AD 1065, and assessments of the surviving material run across the twelfth to fourteenth centuries.
Manuscript Details
- Date
- Oldest surviving manuscripts: c. eleventh to thirteenth century AD. The text tradition behind them is far older.
- Language
- Hebrew
- Script
- Samaritan script (developed from palaeo-Hebrew)
- Material
- Parchment
- Current location
- The Samaritan community at Nablus; further manuscripts in libraries worldwide
- Discovery location
- Preserved continuously by the Samaritan community
- Contains books
- Genesis · Exodus · Leviticus · Numbers · Deuteronomy
- Tags
- hebrew-bible · old-testament · torah · samaritans
Significance
A second, independent line of the Torah, copied by people who were not Jews and had no reason to match the Jewish text. Where it agrees with the Masoretic text — which is nearly everywhere that matters — that agreement is worth something precisely because the two communities were rivals.
Where this witness is read
The Samaritan Pentateuch is one of the manuscripts named in the places your Bible carries a footnote. Each passage below shows what this witness reads and the case each way.