The Samaritan Pentateuch

The Samaritan version Vs The Masoretic Version of the Torah

The Samaritan Pentateuch differs, from the Jewish Masoretic Text, with approximately 7000 differences, most of it, due to the different orthography of the words. After a deep comparing research, of the two versions of the Pentateuch, to that of the Septuagint (The Greek Old Testament), it has been discovered that 1900 places of the differences of the Septuagint from the Masoretic Text, the text of the Septuagint is identical with the Samaritan Pentateuch.

The most fundamental differences between the two versions of the Torah ( Mt – Masoretic text, SP – Samaritan Pentateuch)  regarding the holy chosen place.  In twenty-one occurrences {The verses of Deut: 12:5, 11,14, 18, 21, 26; 14:23 ,24,25; 15:20; 16:2, 6, 7, 11 ,15 ,16;17:8,10;18:6;;26:2;31:11} of the Samaritan Pentateuch, it is written: “the place that Yhwh  your God has chosen (בחר)“, in past tense while in the Masoretic  Jewish version it is written: “the place that Yhwh your God will choose (יבחר)” in future tense.This matter connects, to the difference between the two religious conceptions regarding the holy chosen place. The Samaritans claim that the place of God dwelling has been chosen since the day of the creation, and is Mount Gerizim (“הרגריזים” -written in one word in the SP), the Mount of the blessing (Deut 11:29)  and where Abraham and Jacob had built altars, while the Jews claim that the place of residence has been chosen only during the days of King David.   Points to think about, which actually reinforces the Samaritan version, are the traces left by the scribes, in these places:

Exodus 15:17– “Thou bringest them in, and plantest them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place, O LORD, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established“.

Exodus 23:20 ” Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.” In this example, it is interesting to read the verses before, which command on the third pilgrimages of the year to the holy chosen place, Indicates that this verse refers to the chosen place.

Nehemia 1:9-10:” Remember, I beseech Thee, the word that Thou didst command Thy servant, Moses, saying: If ye deal treacherously, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples;  but if ye return unto Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though your dispersed were in the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to cause My name to dwell there.” 
In these verses, it is noted that the holy place was already chosen, before the days of David and Solomon the kings, and there is no place or reason for the future tense unless it was changed in later periods. 

Professor Adrian Schenker, from the University of Fribourg, has reached the conclusion that “has chosen” must have been the original reading. By analyzing ancient Greek, Coptic, and Vetus Latina readings, as well as by taking into account the reference in Nehemiah 1:9, he came to the conclusion that the reading “will choose” in the Masoretic text is a theologically motivated correction.{See Adrian Schenker :{http://biblicalauthorship.blogspot.com/2012/04/le-seigneur-choisira-t-il-le-lieu-de.html}. 
He underlines that the manuscripts contain the perfect form are independent of each other, and the LXX, translated in the third-century B.C.E, cannot have been influenced by the Samaritan Pentateuch. Thus the reading of the Masoretic text must date from after the third-century B.C.E. 

According to Schenker, In Judah, and in particular in Jerusalem, the tension between the Deutronimic formula on the one hand, and 2 Samuel 24:18 and  1 Chronicles  21:18-28, on the other, led to change in the Masoretic tense from the future to the perfect tense, that is to say, later scribes wanted to avoid the conflict with the passages in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicle, and made the modifications in order to justify the Temple of Jerusalem.  

it is more plausible to explain the  TM as a modification made to the formula in order to remove an important theological tension, than to suppose a reverse modification which would have affected the Hebrew model of the old Lxx before the 3rd century.
  { Adrian Schenker, “Le Seigneur choisir -t-il le lieu de son nom ou l’a-t-il choisi? L’apport de la Bible Grecque ancienne a’ l’histoire du texte samaritainan et massore’tique ” in Scriptue in Tradition:Essays on Septuagint ,Hebrew Bible, and Sea Scrolls in Honor of Raija Sollamo,ed.Anssi Viotila and Jutta Jokiranta (JS)Sup,126;Leiden;Boston:Brill, 2008}

The second significant difference between the SP and the MT version is the reading ” “Gerizim”  in Deut 20:24 rather than “Ebal” of the Masoretic version. This reading of “Mount Gerizim” (in one word in the Samaritan Pentateuch) was likewise thought, by modern scholars in the past, to be a Samaritan sectarian correction from the Masoretic text – “Mount Ebal”, however after it was realized that the old Latin translation of the Pentateuch also reads ” Gerizin”  in codex 100 as does the Papyrus Giessen from the fifth/sixth-century C.E, it was surmised that this reading is based on an old Greek reading and possibly an old Hebrew reading that was a general Jewish, and not particularly Samaritan reading. { Eugen Charles Ulrich , “4QJoshua” and Joshua’s First Altar in the promised land”, in New Qumran text and studies” , Paris 19992}

In July 2008, James Charlesworth, one of the scholars of the Dead Sea Scroll, published a fragment from cave 4 at Qumran, of Deut 27:4-6, which similar to the Samaritan Version of the verse, and suggests the text: “on Mount Gerizim” (“בהרגריזים”), in one word as the Samaritans, write it in their version of the Torah. The genuineness of the fragment doesn’t seem to be in doubt and point to an identification of the text as a general Jewish text. There were scholars who concluded that “Gerizim” in Deuteronomy 27:4 was the original text, and was later changed by Jewish writers out of animosity against the Samaritan place of worship on this mountain.

((See also https://foundationjudaismchristianorigins.org/ftp/dead-sea-scrolls/unpub/DSS-deuteronomy.pdf))

  In the Ten Commandments [Ex. 20:1-14, Duet. 5:18], comes the third and most known difference between the two versions.  The Tenth Commandment of the Pentateuch in the hands of the Israelite Samaritans, commands a building of an Altar on Mount Gerizim. this commandment is missing in the Jewish Masoretic text. However, to complete the number of the Commandments to ten, the Jews made the opening words “I am Yhwh your God” as the first Commandment although there is no command in these words but rather presentation words.