The Pentateuch : international perspectives on current research

Author: Thomas B Dozeman; Konrad Schmid; Baruch J Schwartz

Publisher: Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, [2011], ©2011.
Series: Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 78.

Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation:

The Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuchs
in Historical Perspective
GARY N. KNOPPERS

I. Introduction: The Samaritan Pentateuch

and the So-called Samaritan Schism

In many, but by no means all, treatments of the Samaritan Pentateuch in

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the formation of a distinctive Sa-
maritan Pentateuch was tied to the date of the so-called Samaritan schism,
the time in which an irrevocable breach developed between the Jewish and
Samaritan communities.1 When such a putative schism occurred has been
greatly debated. Dates vary from the late-sixth or mid-fifth century to the
end of the fourth century or later. Some have questioned whether there ever
was a complete breach and breakdown of communications between the two
groups.2 Whatever the case, the creation of a distinctive Samaritan Penta-
teuch has been often tied to such a decisive break between the Samaritans

1 See in much more detail, Reinhard PUMMER, The Samaritans (Iconography of Relig-
ions 23/5; Leiden: Brill, 1987); Ingrid HJELM, The Samaritans and Early Judaism: A
Literary Analysis (JSOTSup 303; Copenhagen International Seminar 7; Sheffield: Shef-
field Academic Press, 2000); EADEM, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim
in Competition (JSOTSup 404; Copenhagen International Seminar 14; London: T & T
Clark International, 2004); Alan D. CROWN and Reinhard PUMMER, A Bibliography of
the Samaritans (3d ed.; ATLA Bibliography Series 51; Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press,
2005).
2 E.g., Richard J. COGGINS, Samaritans and Jews: The Origins of Samaritanism Re-
considered (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975) 82–115, 162–64; Rudolf HANHART, “Zu den
ältesten Traditionen über das Samaritanische Schisma,” ErIsr 16 (1982) 106–115; James
D. PURVIS, “The Samaritan Problem: A Case Study in Jewish Sectarianism in the Roman
Era,” Traditions in Transformation: Turning Points in Biblical Faith (ed. B. Halpern and
J. Levenson; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 323–50; Alan D. CROWN, “Redating
the Schism between the Judaeans and the Samaritans,” JQR 82 (1991) 17–50; Reinhard
PUMMER, “The Samaritans and their Pentateuch,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Mo-
dels for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. G. N. Knoppers and B. M.
Levinson; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007) 237–69.
2 Gary N. Knoppers

and the Jews. In the words of Otto Eissfeldt, “When an independent Sa-
maritan community was founded, the Torah was taken over from the
Jews.”3 The Samaritan Pentateuch was thus thought to be derivative of the
Jewish Pentateuch. The Samaritan Pentateuch was but a descendant, albeit
in somewhat expanded and altered form, of the Torah created, redacted,
ratified, and promulgated in Judah.
In some cases, the creation of the Samaritan Pentateuch was tied to the
rise of an independent sacrificial cultus in Samaria. In discussing religious
developments in the early Hellenistic period, Martin Noth attempted to
place the so-called Samaritan schism in this particular historical context.4
He associated the rise of an independent Samaritan cultus with the con-
struction of a Samaritan temple at Mt. Gerizim. By this time, Noth ob-
served, the Pentateuch had become “so firmly accepted as the holy book in
the Jerusalem religious community as to leave the Samaritans no option but
to adopt it as the foundation of their cultus too.”5 In other words, if the
Samaritans wished their new worship center and religious establishment to
have any real credibility, they needed to accept and embrace the Penta-
teuch as their own sacred writ.
Not all scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries thought of the
Samaritan Pentateuch as simply a later imitation of an earlier Jewish coun-
terpart. In 1877, Abraham Geiger wrote that the Samaritan Pentateuch
comprised an old version of the Pentateuch that was in general use at that
time.6 In 1935, Albrecht Alt wrote that he doubted whether the Pentateuch,
as a common possession of Jews and Samaritans, could have had its origin
in the adoption of the completed Pentateuch by the Samaritans after they
had separated from Jerusalem.7 Instead, he argued that it is much more
plausible to see the Pentateuch as a common patrimony from the time be-
fore the separation of Jews from Samaritans, which was to be dated (so Alt
thought) to a considerable time after Nehemiah. In Alt’s view, the creation
of a political division between Judah and Samaria in the Persian period did

3 Otto EISSFELDT, The Old Testament: An Introduction (New York: Harper & Row,
1965) 695.
4 Martin NOTH, The History of Israel (rev. ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1960)
354–55.
5 History of Israel, 355.
6 Abraham GEIGER, “Einleitung in die biblischen Schriften. 11: Der samaritanische
Pentateuch,” in Abraham Geiger's Nachgelassene Schriften (5 vols.; ed. L. Geiger; Ber-
lin: L. Gerschel, 1877) 4:67.
7 Albrecht ALT, “Zur Geschichte der Grenze zwischen Judäa und Samaria,” PJ 31
(1935) 107–108; repr. in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel (3 vols.; Mu-
nich: Beck, 1953–1959) 2:358–59.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 3

not entail that the ancient cultic community, which the two shared, ceased
to exist.8
In a few cases, scholars have sought to overturn the consensus by view-
ing the Jewish Pentateuch as essentially derivative of the Samaritan Penta-
teuch. Recently, Étienne Nodet has argued that the Samaritans were “the
most direct heirs of the ancient Israelites and their cult” and that much of
the material in the Hexateuch should be attributed to them.9 With respect to
the Pentateuch, Nodet thinks that its appearance as an authoritative compi-
lation arose during the mid- to late-third century B.C.E. in Samaria in as-
sociation with Mt. Gerizim and its priesthood.10
Nodet’s views are, however, by his own admission in the minority.
Many have continued to think of the Samaritan Pentateuch as some kind of
offshoot of the proto-Masoretic Pentateuch. As a result, the value of the
Samaritan Pentateuch has been chiefly confined to the fields of textual
criticism, historical linguistics, reception history, and Samaritan studies.
To be sure, some have postulated that northern traditions and stories were
incorporated and edited in the various strata making up the Pentateuch.11

8 In Alt’s view, the areas of Judah and Samaria were in close contact throughout much
of the early Achaemenid period in part because Judah was but a subsection of the larger
province of Samaria at this time. Judah only became its own province (so Alt thought) in
the mid-fifth century, IDEM, “Die Rolle Samarias bei der Enstehung des Judentums,”
Festschrift Otto Proksch zum 60. Geburtstag (Leipzig: Deichert & Hinrichs, 1934) 5–28;
repr. in Kleine Schriften, 2:316–37, here 323. This view still has its defendants, but is no
longer widely shared in contemporary scholarship, Frank M. CROSS, From Epic to
Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1998) 153–64, 179–99; Oded LIPSCHITS, “Judah, Jerusalem, and the
Temple 586–539 B.C.,” Transeu 22 (2001) 129–42; Ephraim STERN, Archaeology of the
Land of the Bible, 2: The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods 732–332 BCE
(ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 422–43; Lester L. GRABBE, A History of the Jews
and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, 1:A History of the Persian Province of Judah
(London: T & T Clark International, 2004) 140–42, 263–313.
9 Étienne NODET, Essai sur les origines du judaïsme: de Josué aux Pharisiens (Paris:
Cerf, 1992) [ET (rev. ed.): A Search for the Origins of Judaism: From Joshua to the
Mishnah (JSOTSup 248; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997)]; IDEM, La crise
macabéenne: Historiographie juive et traditions bibliques (Paris: Cerf, 2005).
10 Search for Origins, 188–95.
11 E.g., Erhard BLUM, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984); IDEM, Studien zur Komposition des
Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990); Rainer ALBERTZ, A History of Relig-
ion in the Old Testament Period, 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy
(OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 163–86; Raymond de HOOP, Genesis
49 in its Literary and Historical Context (OtSt 39; Leiden: Brill, 1998); Ernst A. KNAUF,
“Bethel: The Israelite Impact on Judean Language and Literature,” in Judah and the
Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming; Winona Lake, Ind.: Ei-
senbrauns, 2006) 295; IDEM, “Towards an Archaeology of the Hexateuch,” in Abschied
4 Gary N. Knoppers

For example, the origins of the Jacob cycle, the so-called Elohistic source,
and Deuteronomy have sometimes been sought in the history of the north-
ern kingdom.12 Nevertheless, few have regarded the existence of the Sa-
maritan Pentateuch as potentially important for gaining a better under-
standing of the formation, editorial history, and early transmission of the
Pentateuch. The discovery and analysis of a variety of pentateuchal manu-
scripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls have begun, however, to change this
picture.13
In what follows, I will review the character of the so-called pre-
Samaritan manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. These frag-
ments share many features with the Samaritan Pentateuch, such as confla-
tionary tendencies (based upon other texts found within the Pentateuch),
linguistic features, and content (at least, in some passages).14 That these
texts were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls means that some of the spe-
cific features that were formerly thought to be distinguishing marks of the
Samaritan Pentateuch turn out to be non-exclusive to the Samaritans.
Rather, these particular texts belong to the common patrimony of Judeans
and Samarians.15 If the Samaritan Pentateuch was developed with its dis-

vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (ed. J. C.
Gertz, K. Schmid, and M. Witte; BZAW 315; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002) 275–94.
12 Albrecht ALT, “Die Heimat des Deuteronomiums,” Kleine Schriften, 2:250–75;
Moshe WEINFELD, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon,
1972) 166; Alan W. JENKS, The Elohist and North Israelite Traditions (SBLMS 22; Mis-
soula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977); H. Louis GINSBERG, The Israelian Heritage of Juda-
ism (Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America 24; New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1982); Eckart OTTO, Jakob in Sichem: Überlie-
ferungsgeschichtliche Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte Israels (BWANT 110; Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer, 1979); Robert B. COOTE, In Defense of Revolution: The Elohist's History
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991).
13 See the foundational studies of Frank M. CROSS, “Aspects of Samaritan and Jewish
History in Late Persian and Hellenistic Times,” HTR 59 (1966) 201–11; IDEM, From Epic
to Canon, 173–202; James D. PURVIS, The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the
Samaritan Sect (HSM 2; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968); COGGINS,
Samaritans and Jews, 148–55. See also Ernst WÜRTHWEIN, The Text of the Old Testa-
ment: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995)
42–44; PUMMER, “Samaritans,” 237–69.
14 On conflation, see especially Jeffrey H. TIGAY, “Conflation as a Redactional Tech-
nique,” in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (ed. J. H. Tigay; Philadelphia: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1985) 53–95.
15 The issue of terminology is difficult, but I am referring to the residents of Yehud
and Samerina (Samaria) during the Persian and early Hellenistic periods as Judeans and
Samarians to distinguish them from the later Jews and Samaritans of the Maccabean and
Roman periods. In both cases, one can see lines of continuity from one period to the next.
Some would want to distinguish between general residents of Samaria, called Samarians,
from those specific residents of Samaria, who worshiped Yhwh, called Samaritans. The
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 5

tinctive sectarian readings, as seems to be the case, out of this particular

family of pentateuchal texts at a relatively late date (second–first centuries
B.C.E.), this has important implications for our understanding of the edit-
ing and transmission of the Pentateuch in the late Persian and early Helle-
nistic periods.

II. Two Different Pentateuchs or Two Parallel Pentateuchs?

Discussions of the relationship between the Samaritan and Jewish Penta-

teuchs in modern times have been hampered by the repeated claim that
there are over 6,000 variants between the SamP and the Masoretic text
(MT).16 The great number implies a great number of differences between
the two textual traditions.17 As a result, the two works have been effec-
tively distanced from one another as representing two significantly differ-
ent literary enterprises. But the 6,000 figure is misleading, if not mistaken,
on several fronts. First, by far and away, most of the variants concern the
use of matres lectionis in medial and final positions. From a text-critical
standpoint, the use of scriptio plena and scriptio defectiva is certainly in-
teresting, but is not always a tell-tale sign of the existence of ancient tex-
tual variants. Scribal copying practices vary. In the case of Samaritan
scribes, studies have demonstrated that they do not follow a precise custom

trouble is that this earlier distinction was partly based on the erroneous assumption that
Yhwh worship was a relatively late development or arrival. Given the recognition that
Yahwism in Samaria is much older than previous scholars had recognized, some (e.g.,
PUMMER, “Samaritans,” 238–39) favor the designation proto-Samaritans for the Yahwists
of Persian period times.
16 See, for instance, EISSFELDT, Introduction, 695. A more up-to-date and detailed as-
sessment can be found in Esther ESHEL and Hanan ESHEL, “Dating the Samaritan Penta-
teuch's Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls,” in Emanuel: Studies in
Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. S. M.
Paul et al.; VTSup 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 216–19.
17 Such variants have been classified in a variety of different ways. See, e.g., Wilhelm
GESENIUS, De Pentateuchi samaritani origine, indole et auctoritate commentatio phi-
lologico-critica (Halle: Impensis librariae Rengerianae, 1815) 24–61; Paul KAHLE,
“Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Pentateuchtextes,” Theologische Studien und
Kritiken 88 (1915) 399–439; Jean MARGAIN, “Samaritain (Pentateuque),” in DBSup 11
(1991) 763–68; Bruce WALTKE, Prolegomena to the Samaritan Pentateuch (Ph.D. diss.,
Harvard University, 1965) 271–338; IDEM, “The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Text of
the Old Testament,” in New Perspectives on the Old Testament (ed. J. Barton Payne;
Symposium Series of the Evangelical Theological Society 3; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1970)
212–39; Carmel MCCARTHY, “Samaritan Pentateuch readings in Deuteronomy,” in Bibli-
cal and Near Eastern Essays (ed. C. McCarthy and J. F. Healey; JSOTSup 375; London:
T & T International, 2004) 118–30; PUMMER, “Samaritans,” 241–43.
6 Gary N. Knoppers

in the deployment of scriptio plena and scriptio defectiva.18 Indeed, close

examination of the many SamP manuscripts that have come to the attention
of scholars in the last few centuries show that individual scribes exercised
considerable freedom (within limits) in copying the Pentateuch. To com-
plicate matters further, studies of Samaritan transcriptions of the Torah
have demonstrated that in some cases scribes have employed matres lec-
tionis as representations of consonants, rather than as vowel letters.19
Second, in some cases of deviation between the SamP and the MT, the
SamP and the LXX share a common text. Precisely, in how many cases the
SamP and the LXX line up together against the MT is unclear. The usual
figures appearing in handbooks are some 1,900 or 2,000 common read-
ings.20 Such a large tally has been forcefully challenged by Kim in his re-
examination of the textual relationship between the SamP and the LXX.21
In Kim’s judgment, the figure is 964, but he argues that the real number,
excluding “irrelevant readings,” is 493.22 Unfortunately, Kim does not deal
with the multitude of witnesses to the SamP and to the LXX (LXXB,
LXXA, etc.), so one cannot be sure that all of his calculations are correct.
Nevertheless, the general conclusions drawn by his study seem to be well-
taken. There are many more cases in which the MT and the SamP line up

18 Abraham TAL, “Divergent Traditions of the Samaritan Pentateuch as Reflected by

its Aramaic Targum,” Journal for the Aramaic Bible 1 (1999) 299–300; IDEM, “Observa-
tions on the Orthography of the Samaritan Pentateuch,” in Samaritan Researches Volume
V (ed. V. Morabito, A. D. Crown, and L. Davey; Mandelbaum Studies in Judaica 10;
Sydney: Mandelbaum Publishing, 2000) 35.
19 TAL, “Divergent Traditions,” 300; Stefan SCHORCH, “The Significance of the Sa-
maritan Oral Tradition for the Textual History of the Pentateuch,” in Samaritan Re-
searches Volume V (ed. V. Morabito, A. D. Crown, and L. Davey; Mandelbaum Studies
in Judaica 10; Sydney: Mandelbaum Publishing, 2000) 103–17; IDEM, “Die Bedeutung
der samaritanischen mündlichen Tradition für die Exegese des Pentateuch,” WD 25
(1999) 77–91; IDEM, “Die Bedeutung der samaritanischen mündlichen Tradition für die
Textgeschichte des Pentateuch (II),” Mitteilungen und Beiträge der Forschungsstelle
Judentum, Theologische Fakultät Leipzig 12/13 (1997) 53–64; IDEM, Die Vokale des
Gesetzes: Die samaritanische Lesetradition als Textzeugin der Tora, 1: Das Buch Genesis
(BZAW 339; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004).
20 EISSFELDT lists the figure as 2,000, Introduction, 694–95. The more-common figure
of 1,900 is cited in a variety of works (e.g., TOV, Textual Criticism, 84n). Sidney
JELLICOE puts the number as 1,600, The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1968; repr. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 245. In any case,
the shared variants need not be taken, in and of themselves, as indicative of a close or
special relationship between the Old Greek and the SamP, Judith E. SANDERSON, “The
Old Greek of Exodus in the Light of 4QpaleoExodm,” Text 14 (1988) 87–104.
21 Kyung-Rae KIM, “Studies in the Relationship between the Samaritan Pentateuch
and the Septuagint” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1994). Kim’s dissertation was writ-
ten under the direction of E. Tov.
22 KIM, “Relationship,” 1–16, 311–30.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 7

together against the LXX than cases in which the SamP and the LXX line
up together against the MT.23
The parallels between the SamP and the LXX, on the one hand, and be-
tween the SamP and the MT, on the other hand, complicate any facile at-
tempt to construe the historical relationship between the proto-MT and the
SamP. Indeed, this evidence augurs against analyzing the variants between
the SamP and the MT in isolation from other available textual evidence.
Rather, it is best to compare the readings of the Samaritan and the
Masoretic traditions in the context of the many other textual witnesses that
attest to the transmission of the Pentateuch in the last centuries B.C.E. and
the first centuries C.E.
Third, the oft-cited figure of 6,000 (or more) textual variants between
the SamP and the MT goes back to a list drawn up by Brian Walton, Ed-
mund Castell and John Lightfoot, which appeared in the sixth volume of
the London Polyglot of the mid-seventeenth century.24 The Polyglot was
quite a literary and historical achievement for its time in that it offered the
scriptures to readers in nine different languages and in several different
scripts. Unfortunately, as Reinhard Pummer points out, the number of vari-
ants in the SamP was calculated on the basis of examining only one manu-
script.25 Considering that approximately 750 SamP manuscripts (or frag-
ments thereof) survive in modern times, the somewhat arbitrary selection
and use of one particular manuscript does not constitute a sound basis for
scientific analysis.26
A new eclectic edition of the SamP is currently in preparation.27 The
well-known older edition published by August von Gall in 1914–18, al-
though eclectic in nature, is plagued by an idiosyncratic selection of read-

23 A point also underscored in the detailed study of James R. DAVILA, “Text-Type and
Terminology: Genesis and Exodus as Test Cases,” RevQ 16 (1993) 3–37.
24 Brian W ALTON et al., Biblia Sacra polyglotta (6 vols.; London: Thomas Roycroft,
1653–58). The list may be found in Appendix IV (pp. 19–34). PUMMER (“Samaritans,”
241) calls attention to another lengthy list compiled by Julius H. PETERMANN, Versuch
einer hebräischen Formenlehre nach der Aussprache der heutigen Samaritaner nebst einer
darnach gebildeten Transscription der Genesis und einer Beilage enthaltend die von dem
recipirten Texte des Pentateuchs abweichenden Lesarten der Samaritaner (Abhandlungen
für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 5/1; Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1868) 219–326.
25 The manuscript was first published with numerous mistakes in the Paris Polyglot of
1629 and then republished with corrections in the London Polyglot of 1657, PUMMER,
“Samaritans,” 241.
26 For a brief discussion of the SamP manuscripts surviving today, see Alan D.
CROWN, Samaritan Scribes and Manuscripts (TSAJ 80; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001)
35.
27 The new work (Der Samaritanische Pentateuch) is being edited by Stefan
SCHORCH, Ulrike HIRSCHFELDER, and József ZSENGELLÉR.
8 Gary N. Knoppers

ings.28 In 1994, Abraham Tal published an excellent edition of one of the

most important medieval SamP manuscripts from the Shechem syna-
gogue.29 Although this edition is a substantial contribution to scholarship,
it is self-referentially a diplomatic edition, rather than an eclectic one. As a
result, we do not know, for the time being, the precise number of individ-
ual variants between the Samaritan and Jewish Pentateuchs.30
In any event, the larger picture is clear. The two Pentateuchs are very
similar. Book by book, chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence, and
clause by clause, the two works are very close. The oft-cited figure of
6,000 variants has obscured the fact that the two Pentateuchs are basically
parallel works.31 To be sure, there are some significant and highly interest-
ing variants between the two traditions. In particular, there are a number of
sectarian additions in the text of the SamP that are not found in the text of
the MT. One of the most famous of these is found in the Samaritan version
of the Tenth Commandment, which includes Exod 13:11a, Deut 11:29b,
27:2b–3a, 4a, 5–7, and 11:30 (in this order).32 The inclusion of material
from Deut 11:29–30 in both versions of the Decalogue (cf. MT Exod
20:17; Deut 5:18) underscores the point that Yhwh wished to make his

28 August von GALL, Der hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner (Giessen: Alfred
Töpelmann, 1914–18).
29 Abraham TAL, The Samaritan Pentateuch Edited According to MS 6 [C] of the
Shekhem Synagogue (Texts and Studies in the Hebrew Language and Related Subjects 8;
Tel Aviv University: Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1994) [Hebrew]. Tal’s
edition of the SamP is being employed in the preparation of the new Biblia Hebraica
Quinta (BHQ).
30 TAL, “Divergent Traditions,” 300.
31 Text-critically, the SamP has, however, its own distinctive history (see Section III
below). I am speaking of the SamP as a parallel Pentateuch, because the textual evidence
indicates that it is too simplistic to view the SamP as an expanded form of the Jewish
Pentateuch. The sectarian additions to the SamP, although quite limited in number, are
significant enough to create an alternative edition of the Torah.
32 Ferdinand DEXINGER, “Das Garizimgebot im Dekalog der Samaritaner,” in Studien
zum Pentateuch (ed. G. Braulik; Vienna: Herder, 1977) 111–33; IDEM, “Samaritan Ori-
gins and the Qumran Texts,” in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the
Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (ed. M. O. Wise et al.; An-
nals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722; New York: The New York Academy of
Sciences, 1994) 238; Ze'ev BEN-HAYYIM, “The Tenth Commandment in Samaritan Re-
search,” in Essays in Honour of G. D. Sixdenier: New Samaritan Studies of the Société
d'Études Samaritaines III & IV (ed. A. D. Crown and L. Davey; Studies in Judaica 5;
Sydney: Mandelbaum, 1995) 487–92; Judith E. SANDERSON, An Exodus Scroll from
Qumran: 4QpaleoExodm and the Samaritan Tradition (HSS 30; Atlanta, GA: Scholars
Press, 1986) 235–37, 317–20; Innocent HIMBAZA, Le Décalogue et l’histoire du texte:
Études des formes textuelles du Décalogue et leurs implications dans l’histoire du texte
de l’Ancien Testament (OBO 207; Freiburg, Switz.: Academic and Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 2004) 63–66, 183–219.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 9

election of Mt. Gerizim clear already at Mt. Sinai. The insertion of this
material is especially important, because the laws given in Exod 20:1–17
carry a special status in the Sinaitic legislation as the only statutes commu-
nicated directly by Yhwh to the people of Israel.33
Perhaps the best known discrepancy between the MT and the SamP is
the variant of the Deuteronomic expression, “the place that Yhwh your
God will choose (rxby),” as “the place that Yhwh your God has chosen
(rxb)” in each and every relevant context within Deuteronomy.34 Whether
this important variant between the MT and the SamP amounts to a late sec-
tarian change in the SamP is not altogether clear. That the use of rxb in the
SamP amounts to a late ideological change has been recently disputed by
Adrian Schenker, who points out that the Deuteronomistic references to the
Deuteronomic central place formula, “the city/Jerusalem that Yhwh has
chosen” (e.g., 1 Kgs 8:16, 44, 48; 11:13, 32, 36; 14:21; 2 Kgs 21:7; 23:27)
are phrased consistently in the perfect (rxb).35 Similarly, the citation of the
restoration promises of Deut 30:4 in Neh 1:9, which blends those promises
with the Deuteronomic chosen place formula (ytrxb rva ~wqmh), reflects
rxb, rather than rxby.36 Reasoning that the later biblical writers are quot-
ing older prestigious texts, Schenker argues that the Vorlage used by these
writers likely read rxb. In Schenker’s understanding, the MT lemma in
Deuteronomy (rxby) represents a later Judean (sectarian) change.
To this line of argumentation it could be objected that the LXX supports
the reading of the MT.37 This is largely true, because all of the major LXX
witnesses follow the MT. But Schenker counters that there are witnesses to
the LXX, the OL, the Bohairic, and the Coptic, which support the lemma of
the SamP.38 The contention is that the major LXX witnesses were all cor-
rected at some point toward the emerging MT text. By contrast, it is

33 Among the relevant passages, see especially Exod 19:10–14, 21–25; 20:18–21 (cf.
Deut 5:19–28; 18:15–19).
34 The relevant texts are: 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 (cf. Josh 9:27 [rxby]). See the discussions of
WEINFELD, Deuteronomic School, 324 [no. 1a]) and PUMMER, “Samaritans,” 244–45.
35 Adrian SCHENKER, “Le Seigneur choisira-t-il le lieu de son nom ou l’a-t-il choisi?
L’apport de la Bible grecque ancienne à l’histoire du texte samaritain et massorétique,” in
Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in
Honour of Raija Sollamo (ed. A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta; JSJSup 126; Leiden: Brill,
2008) 339–51.
36 On the formula, ~v wmv !kvl rxby / rxb rva ~wqmh, found in Deut 12:11;
14:23; 16:2, 6, 11; 26:2, see WEINFELD, Deuteronomic School, 325 [no. 3]; Sandra L.
RICHTER, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: lešakkēn šemô šām in
the Bible and the Ancient Near East (BZAW 318; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002).
37 The LXX reads consistently the first aorist middle subjunctive of eklegō (eklexētai
= rxby of the MT) in all of the above cases in Deuteronomy.
38 SCHENKER, “Seigneur,” 342–49.
10 Gary N. Knoppers

unlikely that the SamP influenced the readings of the minor witnesses to
the LXX, OL, Bohairic, and Coptic versions, because the SamP would
seem to have been unknown by these translators. The issues raised by
Schenker in his reevaluation of the text-critical evidence are complex and
too many to be addressed in detail here. But, at the very least, he has dem-
onstrated that one cannot take for granted that the MT reading of rxby was
deliberately changed to rxb in the SamP. The text-critical situation is not
as simple as most have supposed.39
Related to the same principle of centralization is the reformulation of
the altar law in Exod 20:24 (20:21 in some versions). According to both
the SamP and the MT, Yhwh commands the people of Israel to build an
earthen altar (hmda xbzm). In the MT the text reads: “in every place
(~wqmh lkb) at which I shall cause (rykza) my name to be remembered, I
shall come to you and bless you.” But in the SamP, the text reads: “in the
place (~wqmb) at which I have caused (ytrkza) my name to be remembered,
there (hmv) I shall come to you and bless you.” The assertion in the SamP
resonates with the story of Abram’s construction of an altar at Shechem.
As Tov and, much more thoroughly, Levinson have pointed out, the SamP
intimates that Mt. Gerizim had been selected by the deity from ancestral
times. In speaking of “the place (~wqm) at which I have caused my name to
be remembered,” the SamP alludes to the construction of an altar at the
“place of Shechem” (~kv ~wqm) by Abram, following his arrival in the

39 To complicate matters, it cannot be said that one reading (the SamP) is ideological,
whereas the other (the MT) is not. There is ambiguity in both Pentateuchs in that the
precise location of the site in Deut 12 is not revealed. Whether the site is already chosen
or yet to be chosen, the site goes unnamed. But both lemmata fit within their larger liter-
ary contexts – the Pentateuch (so the SamP) and the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets
(so the MT). In the SamP, the proximity of the centralization demand to what precedes is
quite important. There, Israel is instructed: “You will pronounce the blessing upon Mt.
Gerizim” (Deut 11:29). The fact that Yhwh is said to have elected (rxb) the central sanc-
tuary comports with the earlier pronouncement in Deut 11. Given the sequence found in
Deut 11 and 12, it is no wonder to find Moses later instructing the Israelites that having
crossed the Jordan, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin are to stand
upon Mt. Gerizim to hear the blessing spoken (Deut 27:11–13). By contrast, if Yhwh is
yet to choose (rxby) the central sanctuary, that formulation pointing toward the indeter-
minate future effectively distances the central shrine from the earlier pronouncement of a
blessing on Mt. Gerizim (Deut 11:29). Given the consistent repetition of the rxby formu-
lation throughout MT Deuteronomy, the centralization mandate points beyond the time of
Israel’s encampment upon the Plains of Moab toward some point in the future when
Yhwh will make his choice known. Even though the formulations of the centralization
mandate in the MT and the SamP are each vaguely phrased, the two different formula-
tions have theological, literary, and historical implications for how readers construe the
meaning of Deuteronomy.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 11

land of Canaan (Gen 12:6–8).40 Also of interest is the divine curse in Lev
26:31 (MT and LXX) in which Yhwh threatens Israel with the desolation
of “your sanctuaries” (~kyvdqm). In the SamP, the threat involves the deso-
lation of “your sanctuary” (~kvdqm).41
I wish to return to the sectarian readings in the SamP later in this essay,
but first I would like to discuss the relevance of the non-sectarian variants
in the context of the variety of pentateuchal manuscripts found at Qumran.
The issue of non-sectarian variants is highly important, because many of
the variants between the MT and the SamP fall into this category. The
small stratum of sectarian variants in the SamP has drawn the bulk of atten-
tion from scholars over the past centuries, but it is the larger stratum of
non-sectarian variants that is of equal, if not greater, importance for under-
standing the genesis of the SamP.

III. Books without Borders:

The Pre-Samaritan Texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls

Recent studies of the relationship between the Samaritan Pentateuch and

the Jewish Pentateuch have explored the textual diversity within the penta-
teuchal manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls. A small, but significant,
number of Torah fragments found among the scrolls at Qumran were ini-
tially classified as proto-Samaritan texts. These texts, estimated to be about
5-6% of the total, are close to the Samaritan Pentateuch in plusses they
share with the Samaritan Pentateuch over against the Masoretic Text.42 The
nomenclature “proto-Samaritan” was, however, unfortunate, because these
textual fragments do not include the sectarian additions normally associ-
ated with the Samaritan Pentateuch.43 The manuscripts have been renamed

40 TOV, Textual Criticism, 95; Bernard M. LEVINSON, “Is the Covenant Code an Ex-
ilic Composition? A Response to John Van Seters,” in In Search of Pre-exilic Israel:
Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. J. Day; JSOTSup 406; London: T
& T Clark International, 2004) 297–315; repr. in “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical
Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009) 276–330.
41 But the reading of SamP is not unique. It is shared by the Syriac and by many me-
dieval Heb. mss.
42 The criteria by which one should classify a text as pre-Samaritan (as opposed to
proto-Masoretic, proto-LXX, or non-affiliated) is itself an issue, Chelica HILTUNEN, “An
Examination of the Supposed Pre-Samaritan Scrolls from Qumran” (M.A. Thesis; Trinity
Western University, 2009).
43 The nomenclature “pre-Samaritan,” rather than “proto-Samaritan,” for these manu-
scripts was chosen “on the assumption that one of them [the harmonistic Pentateuchal
texts] was adapted to form the special text of the Samaritans,” TOV, Textual Criticism,
97.
12 Gary N. Knoppers

pre-Samaritan texts, because they resemble the Samaritan Pentateuch in

exhibiting certain harmonizing tendencies (based upon other texts found
within the Pentateuch), linguistic features, and content (in some pas-
sages).44
It may be useful to survey briefly examples of such non-sectarian vari-
ants and the kinds of textual plusses they contain. The text of 4QDeutn
adds the text of Exod 20:11 after Deut 5:15, effectively harmonizing the
second version of the Sabbath commandment in Deuteronomy with the
earlier version in Exodus.45 The same conflation occurs in the SamP. In
4QNumb a series of conflations occur.46 Following the conclusion of Num
20:13, one finds an addition based on Deut 3:24–28; 2:2–6 (in that order).
Before Num 21:12, an addition occurs based on Deut 2:9. In Num 21:13 a
plus appears based on Deut 2:17–19. Before Num 21:21 an addition occurs
based on Deut 2:24–25.47 Following Num 27:23 an addition occurs based
on Deut 3:21–22. Similar, but not entirely identical, plusses are found in
the Samaritan Pentateuch.48
The hermeneutical effort to render the Pentateuch more internally self-
consistent thus includes inserting texts from Deuteronomy into relevant
sections of earlier books. In one particularly interesting instance of this
exegetical procedure evident in the Sinai pericope, a Deuteronomic oracle
of reassurance (Deut 5:28b–29) has evidently been inserted into the con-
clusion of the Exodus account (Exod 20:21) in 4Q158.49 In line with the

44 PURVIS, Samaritan Pentateuch, 80; Emanuel TOV, “The Proto-Samaritan Texts and
the Samaritan Pentateuch,” in The Samaritans (ed. A. D. Crown; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr
[Paul Siebeck], 1989) 397–407; IDEM, “The Samaritan Pentateuch and the So-Called
‘Proto-Samaritan’ Texts,” in Studies on Hebrew and Other Semitic Languages Presented
to Professor Chaim Rabin on the Occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (ed. M. H.
Goshen-Gottstein, S. Morag, and S. Kogut; Jerusalem: Academon, 1990) 136–46 (He-
brew); IDEM, Textual Criticism, 80–100.
45 Sidney W. CRAWFORD, “4QDeutn,” in Qumran Cave 4. IX: Deuteronomy, Joshua,
Judges, Kings (ed. E. Ulrich et al.; DJD 14; Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 117–28; EADEM,
Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times (Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related
Literature; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 30–35; Esther ESHEL, “4QDeutn —A Text
that has Undergone Harmonistic Editing,” HUCA 62 (1991) 117–54.
46 Nathan R. JASTRAM, “4QNumb,” in Qumran Cave 4.VIII: Genesis to Numbers (ed.
E. Ulrich and F. M. Cross; DJD 12; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) 229–30, 242–45.
47 Near the end of Num 21:21 (following yrmah-$lm) another addition (~wlv yrbd)
occurs in the SamP and the LXX (logois eirēnikois) based on Deut 2:26. Unfortunately,
the text of 4QNumb breaks off at this point.
48 Some of which are paralleled in the SyrH. Jastram would reconstruct further addi-
tions in Num 12:16b; 21:22b, 23b; 31:21a, “4QNumb,” 215.
49 The text is fragmentary, John M. ALLEGRO, “Biblical Paraphrase: Genesis, Exo-
dus,” in Qumrân Cave 4. I (4Q158–4Q186) (ed. J. M. Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford: Claren-
don, 1968) 3 (Pl. I); John STRUGNELL, “Notes en marge du volume V des ‘Discoveries in
the Judaean Desert of Jordan,’” RevQ 7 (1970) 168–76. On the issue of the classification
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 13

unambiguous request by the people to Moses (h[mvnw wnm[ hta-rbd) de-

livered earlier that God speak to them indirectly through Moses (Exod
20:19), rather than to them directly (~yhla wnm[ rbdy-law), the Deuter-
onomic authorization of prophecy (Deut 18:18–19) has also been interpo-
lated into the Exodus account following the insertion of the Deuteronomic
oracle of reassurance (Deut 5:28b–29) in the same text (4Q158 Exod
20:21).50 The sequence Deut 5:28–29, 18:18–19 is also found in
4QTestimonia (4Q175).51 A similar series of interpolations appears in the
SamP. There, Deut 5:28b–29 appears as part of Exod 20:18 (= MT Exod
20:21) immediately followed by Deut 18:18–22.52 In short, the insertion of
Deut 5:28b–29, 18:18–22 into some traditions of Exodus predates the for-
mation of the SamP.
Granted the centrality of the account of the Sinaitic theophany, it is not
altogether surprising that a number of insertions from the longer narrative
of Deut 5 have been interpolated into the shorter narrative of Exod 20.
Technically speaking, these scribes did not create new texts ex nihilo, but
borrowed passages from one context to address perceived lacunae in an-
other context. The case of the “ten words” is by no means unique.53 There
are many other examples in which texts from Deuteronomy have been
spliced into Exodus to fill out the earlier account.

of 4Q158 and its relations with 4Q364–367, note the somewhat contrasting positions of
Emaunel TOV and Sidney WHITE (Crawford), “Reworked Pentateuch,” in Qumrân Cave
4. VIII: Parabiblical Texts, I (ed. H. Attridge et al.; DJD 13; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994)
189–91 and George J. BROOKE, “4Q158: Reworked Pentateuch or Reworked Pentateuch
A?” DSD 8 (2001) 219–41. See also Molly M. ZAHN, “Building Textual Bridges: To-
wards an Understanding of 4Q158 (4QReworked Pentateuch A),” in Qumranica Hafnien-
sia: Selected Texts from Discoveries in the Judaean Desert V Revisited (ed. J. Høgen-
haven et al.; STDJ; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). The fragments classified as 4Q158 are
the subject of a thorough reexamination, reanalysis, and new edition by Moshe J.
BERNSTEIN and Molly M. ZAHN (to appear in DJD 5).
50 ALLEGRO, “Biblical Paraphrase,” 3 (Pl. I).
51 John M. ALLEGRO, “Testimonia,” in Qumrân Cave 4. I (4Q158–4Q186) (ed. J. M.
Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 57–60 (Pl. XXI). Interestingly, the textual
blend created by the author(s) of 4QTestimonia draws on a pre-Samaritan text of Exod
20:19–21, but a text of Deuteronomy that shares affinities with 4QDeuth and the LXX,
CRAWFORD, Rewriting Scripture, 35–36.
52 Unfortunately, 4QpaleoExodm is not extant for this portion of the text, Patrick W.
SKEHAN, Eugene C. ULRICH, and Judith E. SANDERSON, “4QpaleoExodm,” Qumran Cave
4.IV: Palaeo-Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts (DJD 9; Oxford: Clarendon, 1992)
101–103. But, the editors of 4QpaleoExodm argue that col. XXI of the scroll originally
contained this expansion both because of the respective line counts in the MT, SamP, and
4QpaleoExodm and because of the earlier (corresponding) insertion of Deut 5:24–27 in
the SamP (Exod 20:16).
53 On Exod 20:2–17 (//Deut 5:1–18) as the “ten words” (~yrbdh trf[), see already
Exod 34:28; Deut 4:13; 10:4.
14 Gary N. Knoppers

The recounting of the golden calf episode in Deut 9:20 has Moses declare
that “Yhwh was incensed with Aaron to such an extent that he was ready to
destroy him and so I (Moses) interceded with him.” This detail in Deuter-
onomy is lacking in the source text of (MT) Exod 32:10. Nevertheless, a
nearly identical declaration to the one in Deut 9:20 has been interpolated
into the text of Exod 32:10 in some witnesses to the LXX and into
4QpaleoExodusm as well.54 The same insertion appears in SamP Exod
32:10. Such additions are consistent with the view that Deuteronomy is a
hrwt hnvm.55 If so, the text of Deuteronomy is expected to repeat explicitly
the content of earlier passages in the Torah and not to conflict with them.
As many commentators have observed, the two accounts narrating
Moses’ appointment of judges in Exodus and Deuteronomy differ from one
another in a number of details, including the characterization of the
judges.56 In 4QpaleoExodusm and in the SamP, these tensions have been
eased to a degree through the inclusion of Deut 1:9–18 after Exod 18:24
and in Exod 18:25.57 As a result of this interpolation, the text of Deuteron-
omy more precisely repeats the (expanded) text of Exodus. From the van-
tage point of a scribe, who views Deuteronomy as a hrwt hnvm, the text of
Exod 32 exhibits a gap. Hence, it is not too surprising that the scribe at-
tempts to fill the perceived lacuna. The result is a slightly expanded Penta-
teuch that exhibits greater internal literary coherence.58
One interesting and very important aspect of this development for un-
derstanding the history of early Judaism and early Samaritanism is the im-
54But 4QpaleoExodusm (4Q22) maintains the third person narration (hvm llpt[y]w),
SKEHAN, ULRICH, and SANDERSON, “4QpaleoExodm,” 124. John W. WEVERS comments
with respect to the LXX witnesses: “How this gloss [the expansion in the SamP and in
4QpaleoExodusm] came into the Greek tradition remains a mystery,” Notes on the Greek
Text of Exodus (SCS 30; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 523. The plusses found within
some witnesses to the LXX and in the pre-Samaritan manuscripts have to be understood
in the context of long-range developments within the growth of the Pentateuch in the last
centuries B.C.E. At least within certain circles, the text of the Pentateuch was not yet a
static entity, completely impervious to change. A process of selective growth through
supplementation, based on other texts within the Pentateuch, began before such texts
were translated into Greek.
55 TOV, Textual Criticism, 86–87.
56 The relationships among Exod 18:13–27, Num 11:11–17, and Deut 1:9–18 are
more fully discussed in the essays by Joel BADEN and David CARR elsewhere in this vol-
ume.
57 TOV, Textual Criticism, 88.
58 Such attempts to create greater harmony are in evidence elsewhere within the MT
and within the Versions. See, e.g., Anneli AEJMELAEUS, “Septuagintal Translation Tech-
niques: A Solution to the Problem of the Tabernacle Account,” in On the Trail of Septua-
gint Translators (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1993) 107–21; Bernard M. LEVINSON, “Textual
Criticism, Assyriology, and the History of Interpretation: Deuteronomy 13:7a as a Test
Case,” JBL 120 (2001) 211–43; repr. in Studies in Biblical Law, 112–44.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 15

plicit assumption that the Pentateuch is essentially a unified literary work,

a single Torah. The works of Genesis through Deuteronomy comprise
books without borders. Or, to put matters somewhat differently, Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy comprise one book. Only
such an assumption can explain why scribes would expect the text of Deu-
teronomy to cohere with the content of different scrolls, namely, Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. The copying of a particular passage from
one book to another presupposes that both corpora are but two separate
sections within a self-contained corpus. The literary strategy of conflating
variants in new contexts implies an underlying understanding of the Torah
as an integrated, self-consistent, and unified entity.59
That this is so can be seen from another vantage point. In some cases, a
conflation occurs based on a parallel text in close literary proximity. The
text of 4Q364 (= 4QRPb) adds an account of Jacob’s dream in Gen 30:36.60
The anticipatory addition, which is also found in the SamP, brings the story
of Gen 30:36 into conformity with the later narrative of Gen 31:11–13 in
which Jacob informs his wives about a dream that he experienced. In the
MT, no account of Jacob’s dream appears in the earlier context of Gen
30:36. The text of 4QpalaeoExodm also contains a series of additions the
effect of which is to bring greater harmony to narrative texts in close liter-
ary proximity.61 4QpalaeoExodm features a sequence of six additions in the
plague accounts of Exod 7–10, underscoring the fulfillment of God’s ex-
plicit directives to Moses and Aaron to warn the Pharaoh prior to the oc-
currence of each plague.62 A virtually identical sequence of additions oc-
curs in the SamP.63

59 James L. KUGEL, “Ancient Biblical Interpretation and the Biblical Sage,” in Studies
in Ancient Midrash (ed. J. L. Kugel; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001)
1–26; IDEM, The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York: Free Press,
2003).
60 TOV and W HITE (Crawford), “Reworked Pentateuch,” 209–11 (Pl. XIII);
CRAWFORD, Rewriting Scripture, 39–59.
61 SANDERSON provides a thorough analysis, Exodus Scroll, 196–207; EADEM, “The
Contribution of 4QpaleoExodm to Textual Criticism,” RevQ 13 (1988) 547–60.
62 Exod 7:18 (cf. Exod 7:15–18); 7:29 (cf. Exod 7:26–29); 8:19 (cf. 8:16–19); 9:5 (cf.
Exod 9:1–5); 9:19 (cf. 9:13–19); 10:2 (cf. 10:3). One important effect of these additions
is to underscore the position of Moses as the reliable and divinely-designated spokesper-
son of the deity, Magnar KARTVEIT, “The Major Expansions in the Samaritan Pentateuch
– The Evidence from the 4Q Texts,” in Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of
the Société d'Études Samaritaines, Helsinki, August 1–4, 2000: Studies in Memory of
Ferdinand Dexinger (ed. H. Shehadeh, H. Tawa, with R. Pummer; Paris: Geuthner, 2005)
117–24; IDEM, The Origin of the Samaritans (VTSup 128; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 259–312.
63 The SamP also contains an expansion relating to the plague of frogs (Exod 8:1b)
and expansions relating to the last plague affecting the firstborn (Exod 11:3b).
4QpaleoExodm is not extant for these lemmata, but the reconstruction of the relevant
16 Gary N. Knoppers

The aforementioned examples drawn from 4Q364 and 4QpaleoExodm re-

late to a single book, but they reflect precisely the same scribal operation
as the examples discussed earlier, documenting the borrowing of material
from one book to another. In each case, a scribe duplicates a text from one
literary setting and blends it into another to create greater consistency in
the overall literary work. What is particularly relevant for our discussion
here is the observation that there is no difference between the two sets of
examples. Both scribal operations involve exactly the same type of inner-
scriptural exegesis. The fact that the same conflationary exegesis operates
on both short-range and long-range levels reflects a scribal assumption that
the boundaries among books within the Pentateuch are largely, if not
wholly, irrelevant for interpretation. The Torah is treated as if it were a
discrete entity, a single book. Paradoxically, scribes had such a high view
of the Pentateuch that they intervened within the very literary work they
sought to uphold. Evidently, the Torah was not yet regarded as having been
absolutely fixed in all of its details.64 The priority was the internal coher-
ence of the corpus itself, understood as a unified literary work.65
The practice of supplementing one writing by borrowing a lemma from
a parallel writing to unify the literary corpus of which both works are con-
stituent parts marks an important development in the reception history of
the early Pentateuch. The scrolls making up the Pentateuch are no longer
being viewed simply as a traditional assortment of respected stories and
laws or as an important corpus of sacred literature. The very attempt to
harmonize passages stemming from discrete literary corpora presupposes a
view of scripture as a seamless unity. Historically, one must allow a certain
passage of time for this to happen. If one follows the view that the selec-
tion of a Pentateuch, over against a Hexateuch (or a Tetrateuch), as a col-
lection of prestigious Israelite literature and law represents a critical mo-
ment in postexilic history, the gradual assumption that the Pentateuch is a
perfect whole, coherent in all its parts, represents another critical develop-
ment.
The shift from the view of the Pentateuch as a collection of classics to
the view of the Pentateuch as a self-contained, coherent unity must have
occurred over a long period of time (more than a century in duration, rather
than a few decades). That this is so can also be discerned from comparative
analysis of the written remains. Close examination of the text-critical evi-

columns of 4QpaleoExodm suggests that the Qumran text originally included these expan-
sions as well, SKEHAN, ULRICH, and SANDERSON, “4QpaleoExodm,” 76–77, 84–85.
64 So also CRAWFORD, Rewriting Scripture, 23–37.
65 Such scribal operations are predicated on the premise that “the Pentateuchal Torah
of Moses is integral and indivisible,” Michael FISHBANE, Biblical Interpretation in An-
cient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 136.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 17

dence (MT, LXX, SamP, DSS) indicates that the harmonistic expansions in
the pre-Samaritan manuscripts were made over the course of centuries and
did not occur as the result of a systematic recension at one particular
time.66 Many expansions are found only in the pre-Samaritan manuscripts
and the SamP, while some others are shared by the SamP and the LXX
(over against the MT). A few harmonistic expansions are shared by the MT
and the SamP (over against the LXX), while yet others are peculiar to one
of the major traditions (MT, SamP, LXX). To this consideration, a related
text-critical point must be added. One must allow for each of the major
witnesses to develop its own peculiar features, for example, the three dif-
ferent chronological systems (MT, SamP, LXX) evident in Gen 5:19–31
and 11:10–26.67 Hence, one is inevitably dealing with a series of historical
developments, rather than with one sudden event.68 Precisely how long a
process may be involved to account for all the textual divergences to ac-
cumulate is unclear. But from a chronological vantage point, the shared
traits of the pre-Samaritan tradition and the Vorlage of the LXX that are
arguably secondary must have taken some time to develop prior to the
translation of the Pentateuch into Greek, beginning some time in the third
century B.C.E.69
We have been discussing a number of pentateuchal manuscripts found at
Qumran that contain conflationary readings, that is, readings imported
from one literary context into another literary context to render the penta-
teuchal text more internally consistent. It should be mentioned that these
so-called pre-Samaritan texts are not all identical to the base of the SamP.
Some contain fewer harmonistic readings than does the SamP, while others
(e.g., 4QNumb) contain more.70 Moreover, the pre-Samaritan fragments
cannot all be considered to be of one piece. There are some manuscripts in
the so-called reworked Pentateuch category (4Q158; 4Q364; 4Q365) that
move beyond other texts in the pre-Samaritan tradition by creating new

66 The basic fact that the harmonistic additions were integrated into the text over a
considerable period of time was realized already by KAHLE, who did not have the benefit
of having access to the Qumran evidence, “Untersuchungen,” 402–10.
67 In this case, there is some overlap between the SamP and LXX in secondary fea-
tures, Ron S. HENDEL, The Text of Genesis 1–11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 61–80.
68 Frank M. CROSS, The Ancient Library of Qumrân and Modern Biblical Studies
(rev. ed.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961) 188–92; IDEM, “The Contribution of the
Discoveries at Qumran to the Study of the Biblical Text,” IEJ 16 (1966) 81–95.
69 As rightly pointed out by Ron HENDEL (personal communication). See further his
Textual Studies, 93–103.
70 Nathan R. JASTRAM, “A Comparison of Two ‘Proto-Samaritan’ Texts from Qum-
ran: 4QpaleoExodm and 4QNumb,” DSD 5 (1998) 264–89; TOV and CRAWFORD, “Re-
worked Pentateuch,” 187–352.
18 Gary N. Knoppers

material (inserting interpretive explanations or theological comments that

are unparalleled elsewhere in the Pentateuch).71 In any case, the larger
point remains. These particular texts found at Qumran are exceedingly
close to the SamP in a number of important respects, containing certain
linguistic corrections, conflations on the basis of parallel texts, the addition
of a source for a quotation, correlations between commands and their ful-
fillment, and differences in content.72
It should be underscored that none of the pre-Samaritan texts exhibit the
specific readings that are characteristic of Samaritan theology. None of
these manuscripts contains, for example, the Samaritan form of the tenth
commandment or the declaration that Yhwh has already chosen a place for
his name. The fact that the pre-Samaritan texts were found among the Dead
Sea Scrolls means that some of the specific features that were formerly
ascribed to the Samaritan Pentateuch turn out to be non-specific to the Sa-
maritans. Rather, these particular texts evidently belong to the common
patrimony of Judeans and Samarians in the last centuries B.C.E.73
The discovery of the pre-Samaritan manuscripts among the Dead Sea
Scrolls thus leads to an important reassessment of the relationship of the
SamP to the other ancient witnesses to the Pentateuch. Rather than viewing
the SamP as a distant, albeit important, relative to the Jewish Pentateuch,
one may realize that the SamP represents a new recension of a particular
text form that was available in the second-first centuries B.C.E.74 Para-
doxically, the Samaritan layer in the Samaritan Pentateuch is relatively

71 CRAWFORD terms these texts “hyperexpansive,” Rewriting Scripture, 53. Whether

these texts should be considered as rewritten scripture or simply as expanded scripture is
a legitimate question, because the texts in question do not identify themselves by means
of content, perspective, or voice as anything other than pentateuchal manuscripts, Mi-
chael SEGAL, “4QReworked Pentateuch or 4QPentateuch?” in The Dead Sea Scrolls:
Fifty Years After Their Discovery (ed. L. H. Schiffmann, E. Tov, and J. C. VanderKam;
Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000) 391–99; Moshe J. BERNSTEIN, ‘“Rewritten
Bible’: A Category that has Outlived Its Usefuleness?” Text 22 (2005) 169–96; Molly M.
ZAHN, “The Problem of Categorizing the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts: Bible,
Rewritten Bible, or None of the Above?” DSD 15 (2008) 315–39.
72 TOV, Textual Criticism, 89–94.
73 On this point, see Section IV below.
74 The history of the Samaritan reading tradition is relevant in this context. Stefan
SCHORCH argues that it developed in the transition from the second to the first century
B.C.E., associating this development with the growing divide between Samaritans and
Jews, Vokale des Gesetzes, 61; IDEM, “The Reading(s) of the Tora in Qumran,” in Pro-
ceedings of the Fifth International Congress of the Société d'Études Samaritaines, Hel-
sinki, August 1–4, 2000: Studies in Memory of Ferdinand Dexinger (ed. H. Shehadeh, H.
Tawa, with R. Pummer; Paris: Paul Geuthner, 2005) 105–15.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 19

thin.75 Samaritan scribes made some important theological changes to their

base text largely by conflating certain passages and rewriting select texts,
but the number of such alterations is relatively small. Apart from the ex-
pansionist passages in the pre-Samaritan tradition and the sectarian addi-
tions in the SamP, the texts of the pre-Samaritan manuscripts, the SamP,
and the MT are fairly close.76 Nevertheless, by making a series of small
ideological changes, the Samaritans essentially created their own distinc-
tive edition of the Pentateuch.77 In this context, Tov comments that “all
five books of the Samaritan Pentateuch bear the same character.”78
From a historical or religious vantage point, it is not clear why the Sa-
maritans evidently chose one of the harmonistic texts of the Pentateuch,
whereas one of the more common, less harmonistic, texts of the Pentateuch
eventually prevailed in Jewish circles. Tov supposes that the proto-
Masoretic text was associated with the temple establishment in Jerusalem;
but, if so, it would be helpful historically to have ancient documentation
verifying such an association.79 In any event, one should take into account
three important considerations in attempting to assess the relevance of this
evidence for understanding Samaritan-Jewish relations in the last few cen-
turies B.C.E. First, the Pentateuch did not come north to Samaria as a re-
sult of the increasing estrangement between Judeans and Samaria in the

75 CROSS, Ancient Library of Qumrân, 188–92; IDEM, Epic to Canon, 205–18;

PURVIS, Samaritan Pentateuch, 85; SANDERSON, Exodus Scroll, 317–20; Emanuel TOV,
Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts found in the Judean Desert
(STDJ 54; Leiden: Brill, 2004); ESHEL and ESHEL, “Compilation,” 219–40; Armin
LANGE, “The Status of the Biblical Texts in the Qumran Corpus and the Canonical Pro-
cess,” in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries (ed.
D. Herbert and E. Tov; New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2002) 21–30.
76 Especially, when these texts are compared with the Old Greek, SANDERSON, “Old
Greek of Exodus,” 100–104.
77 One can speak of the SamP as a recension or a distinct literary edition, because the
SamP exhibits systematic changes of a specific character that are traceable in various
sections of the work. Although the SamP shares many readings with the MT and is
strongly related to the MT, the SamP is not best characterized as a fuller or longer edition
of the MT. Such a position is too simplistic to do justice to the complexity of the evi-
dence, because it implies that the characteristic traits of the SamP can all be explained
simply by recourse to the proto-MT text. On the phenomenon of distinct literary editions
in broader perspective, see Eugene C. ULRICH, “Multiple Literary Editions: Reflections
Toward a Theory of the History of the Biblical Text,” in Current Research and Techno-
logical Developments of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conference on the Texts from the Judean
Desert, Jerusalem, 30 April 1995 (ed. D. W. Parry and S. D. Ricks; STDJ 20; Leiden:
Brill, 1996) 78–105; repr. in his The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origin of the Bible: Stud-
ies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 99–
120.
78 Textual Criticism, 100.
79 Textual Criticism, 100.
20 Gary N. Knoppers

last two centuries B.C.E. When the forces of John Hyrcanus destroyed the
Mt. Gerizim sanctuary in the late second century B.C.E. (Josephus, Antiq-
uites 13.256, 275–81), the Samarians most likely had possessed a Penta-
teuch for centuries.
Second, the written remains from Qumran suggest that virtually identi-
cal pre-Samaritan texts were in circulation within both communities. Third,
the development of a distinctive Samaritan Pentateuch, incorporating par-
ticular sectarian readings, occurred fairly late, that is, in the last two centu-
ries B.C.E.80 In the last section of this essay, it will be helpful to grapple
with the historical implications of these considerations for our understand-
ing of the development of the Samaritan and Jewish Pentateuchs.

IV. Borrowed or Shared? The Pre-Samaritan Samarian

Pentateuch in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods

Considering the presence of pre-Samaritan manuscripts at Qumran, how is

it that Judeans and Samarians shared almost exactly the same Pentateuchs
in the second century B.C.E.? When sectarian changes were introduced in
what became the Samaritan Pentateuch, they were made in texts that circu-
lated among Yahwistic Samarians and Yahwistic Judeans long before the
marked deterioration in relations between the two groups in the late second
and first centuries B.C.E. Ironically, the late date for the emergence of a
distinctive Samaritan Pentateuch tells against the view that the early
transmission of the Pentateuch can be viewed as either simply a Judean
enterprise or simply a Samarian enterprise. How long these two communi-
ties possessed the Pentateuch as a common literary corpus before the sec-
tarian additions were added to what later became known as the Samaritan
Pentateuch is unclear. We do not know precisely how many centuries
elapsed before the rise of a distinctive Samaritan Pentateuch, because the
date at which the Pentateuch was completed in the first place is disputed by
scholars.81

80That some pre-Samaritan texts (e.g., 4QNumb) contain additions that were evi-
dently incorporated into these texts after the development of the SamP leads ESHEL and
ESHEL to date the SamP before the time of John Hyrcanus’ destruction of the Samaritan
Temple on Mt. Gerizim in the late second century B.C.E., “Compilation,” 238–39. Such a
determination may presuppose a more uniform trajectory in the development of the addi-
tions interpolated into the pre-Samaritan pentateuchal manuscripts than is justified by the
available evidence.
81 On this weighty question, see the many fine essays (with further references) else-
where in this volume.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 21

I have been stressing the Torah as a common patrimony between the

Judeans and the Samarians. This does not address, however, the ultimate
origins of the Pentateuch itself. On this issue, one should note, for the sake
of argument, a number of different possibilities.82 Nevertheless, it is sig-
nificant that both groups affirmed the Pentateuch (and not a Tetrateuch or
Hexateuch) as a (or the) foundational corpus of religious literature for their
communities. To be sure, an alternative possibility cannot be wholly ruled
out, namely that the Pentateuch might have been simply acquired from one
community by the other. Yet, this seems unlikely as a viable sociological,
religious, and historical explanation. It makes much more sense to view the
definition and acceptance of the Pentateuch, whatever its precise literary,
historical, and social origins, as a common enterprise than it does to view
the acceptance of this work as a case of straightforward borrowing. Such a
borrowing would not work as a simple case of competitive emulation, be-
cause the document produced was nearly identical to the document emu-
lated. The borrowing could only work if the Pentateuch held considerable
attraction for the relevant beneficiaries as a body of prestigious literature
and was completely acceptable to them in virtually all details. As such, the
literary work would either have to be acquired or carefully copied. In such
a scenario, it would still take some time for the literary corpus to become
established within the larger community.
But, one has to ask why such a wholesale borrowing would be attractive
in the first place? That is, what would lead one group to borrow or acquire
the entire Torah from the other group and embrace it as its own set of sa-
cred scriptures? The theoretical reconstruction presupposes that the two
groups had become very similar over the course of the centuries. Such near
identity would entail that the two communities had come to share many
foundational beliefs, traditions, and practices. Indeed, the customs, rituals,
and institutions of the two groups became so similar that some outsiders
regarded the Samaritans as Jews.83 If so, one has to inquire as to what

82 David M. CARR provides a convenient overview of recent criticism, “Changes in

Pentateuchal Criticism,” in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpreta-
tion, Volume III: Modern Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament – The Nine-
teenth and Twentieth Centuries, 2: The Twentieth Century – from Modernism to Post-
modernism (ed. M. Sæbø; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, forthcoming).
83 Thus, the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes against the Jews (τὸυς Ιουδαίους)
was directed at both the Jerusalem temple cultus and the Mt. Gerizim temple cultus (2
Macc 6:1–6), Jonathan A. GOLDSTEIN, II Maccabees (AB 41A; Garden City, N.Y.: Dou-
bleday, 1983) 270–73; Daniel R. SCHWARTZ, 2 Maccabees (CEJL; Berlin, de Gruyter,
2008) 270–78, 537–40. Earlier in the same text (2 Macc 5:22–23), the Jews and the Sa-
maritans are considered to belong to the same people or nation (γένος), SCHWARTZ, 2
Maccabees, 264.
22 Gary N. Knoppers

foundational beliefs, traditions, and practices united the two communities

and upon what these common traits were based?
Contrary to the assertions advanced by some popular sociological analy-
ses, religions are not all the same. There may be overlap among various
religious traditions, but each bears its own distinguishing customs, tenets,
and practices. One of the distinguishing marks of the major so-called west-
ern religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that they are all text-
based faiths. So also Samaritanism, most closely related to but not identical
with Judaism, is textually-centered. In both the Jewish and Samaritan
communities, a set of written documents is considered to be foundational to
the people’s very identity. In the case of the Jews and the Samaritans, these
sacred scriptures partially overlap in the Pentateuch.84 Many of the basic
beliefs and practices of the Jews and the Samaritans are based directly or
indirectly on this set of scriptures. If so, it is more historically cogent to
view the two groups as sharing the foundational scriptures (the Pentateuch)
that grounded such similarities. The other theory to explain the shared Pen-
tateuch – that of wholesale borrowing – is self-referentially incoherent in
that it presupposes the near identity of the two groups in question without
presenting any accounting for the fact that a critical feature constituting
that near identity was completely absent from one of the two groups.
To this point, another may be added. We have seen that the Samaritan
Pentateuch differs from the Jewish Pentateuch in the addition of a series of
small, but critical, sectarian changes that focus on the divine election of
Mt. Gerizim as Israel’s central sanctuary. These sectarian additions and
changes to the Torah were implemented fairly late in the late second cen-
tury or first century B.C.E. But for such expansions to be envisioned by the
relevant scribes, interpolated into the Pentateuch, and received as legiti-
mate by the Samaritan community, the Samaritan community must have
previously been accustomed to the Pentateuch. The selective editing of
certain passages in the Pentateuch could only occur if the community both
possessed and valued the Pentateuch in the first place.85 The very creation
of a distinctive new recension of the Torah in Samaria is predicated on the
availability and acceptance of that Torah in the earlier history of the com-
munity.
Hence, it is most implausible that one community abruptly borrowed
and adopted an entire set of scriptures from the other at a very late date.
Rather, the fact that the two Pentateuchs are exceedingly close, book by
book and clause by clause, in spite of the later sectarian changes intro-
duced in the SamP, suggests an ongoing relationship between the two

84 One has to speak of overlap, rather than of outright identity, because of the pres-
ence of ~yaybnh and ~ybwtkh in Jewish tradition.
85 So also SANDERSON, Exodus Scroll, 317.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 23

communities in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. During this time,
the Pentateuch was likely a document shared by both groups. If, as some
pentateuchal scholars hold, certain editorial changes and expansions were
made to the Pentateuch in the fourth and early third century B.C.E., one
has to reckon with the possibility that such editorial changes and expan-
sions were made virtually identically in the pentateuchal manuscripts held
within both Judah and Samaria.86 Given such a set of circumstances, con-
siderable cooperation between at least some members of each group has to
be assumed.87 After all, one has to account for the issues of maintenance
and transmission, if not also of editing and small additions. The probability
of some contacts and cooperation between the scribes of the two communi-
ties may help to explain why the Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuchs share
many readings over against the Septuagint. The proposition that precisely
the same changes arose spontaneously and independently in both commu-
nities so that both Pentateuchs remained virtually identical over a consid-
erable period of time strains historical credulity.88 It makes much more
sense to maintain that whatever major changes were introduced into the
text during this time were done so with the knowledge of the relevant
scribes and authorities of both groups.
Admittedly, the scenario being sketched involves some speculation. The
same may be said, however, of most, if not all, critical explanations of how
the Samaritans and Judeans came to share practically the same Pentateuch.
In such a situation, one is obliged to formulate hypotheses to account for,

86 But one has also to account historically for the fact that the process of translating
the Pentateuch into Greek seems to have begun in the third century B.C.E., Arie van der
KOOIJ, “The Septuagint of the Pentateuch and Ptolemaic Rule,” The Pentateuch as Torah:
New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. G. N. Knoppers
and B. M. Levinson; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007) 289–300.
87 This point is acknowledged by ESHEL and ESHEL, who posit a connection between
Samaritans and Jews in the second century B.C.E., “Compilation,” 240.
88 In the local texts theory of Frank M. CROSS, the period (or periods) of such influ-
ence was the Hasmonean or Herodian age, when a number of Judeans returned from
Babylon, “The History of the Biblical Text in the Light of the Discoveries in the Judaean
Desert,” HTR 57 (1964) 297; repr. in Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text (ed. F.
M. Cross and S. Talmon; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975) 193. This
was the context in which pentateuchal texts in the Babylonian (i.e., proto-rabbinic) tex-
tual family were partially reconciled with pentateuchal texts in the Palestinian (i.e., pre-
Samaritan) textual family, PURVIS, Samaritan Pentateuch, 84–85. In the view of Julio C.
TREBOLLE BARRERA, such a mixing of textual families must have occurred before the
Samaritan schism, The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible: An Introduction to the His-
tory of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1998) 297. This is not the place to debate the relative
merits of Cross’s important theory. For the purposes of this discussion, it will suffice to
say that such a partial merging of text-types presupposes cooperation among the scribes
editing and copying texts within the two (or more) respective traditions.
24 Gary N. Knoppers

as best one can, the available historical and literary evidence. In this con-
text, it may be useful to mention four particular sets of considerations, even
if space constraints do not allow us to explore any one of them. First, the
material and epigraphic evidence from the Persian and Hellenistic eras
points to a tremendous cultural overlap between the areas of Samaria and
Yehud.89 Notable traits include a similar deployment of bilingualism
among the literati (Aramaic for day-to-day business, diplomacy, and corre-
spondence, Hebrew for certain official or religious purposes), archaizing
tendencies, for example, the studied reuse of the palaeo-Hebrew script,90 a
significant overlap in personal names, and a predominance of Yahwistic
personal names.91
Second, the Aaronide priesthood seems to have been in control in both
Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim.92 The acknowledgment of priesthoods related
one to another by reference to ultimate origins in a common eponymous
ancestor illuminates not only similar sacrifices, rites, and rituals, but also
the facilitation of scribal communications between the staffs of the two
temples. Third, the pan-Israelite point of view contained within the Penta-
89 See my “Revisiting the Samarian Question in the Persian Period,” in Judah and the
Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 2006) 265–89; IDEM, “Nehemiah and Sanballat: The Enemy Without or
Within?” in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century (ed. O. Lipschits, G. N. Knop-
pers, and R. Albertz; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007) 305–31.
90 Frank M. CROSS, “The Papyri and Their Historical Implications,” in Discoveries in
the Wâdī ed-Dâliyeh (ed. P. W. Lapp and N. L. Lapp; AASOR 41; Cambridge, Mass.:
ASOR, 1974) 17–29 (pl. 61); Mary J. W. LEITH, Wadi Daliyeh I: The Seal Impressions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 16–21, 184–87; I. EPH'AL, “Changes in Pales-
tine during the Persian Period in Light of Epigraphic Sources,” IEJ 48 (1998) 106–19;
Joseph NAVEH, “Scripts and Inscriptions in Ancient Samaria,” IEJ 48 (1998) 91–100;
Andrè LEMAIRE, “Grafitto Hébreu sur Tétradrachme Pseudo-Athénian,” Israel Numis-
matic Journal 15 (2003–2006) 24–27; Yitzhak MAGEN, Haggai MISGAV, and Levana
TSFANIA, Mount Gerizim Excavations, I: The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan Inscrip-
tions (JSP 2. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2004); Jan DUŠEK, Les manuscrits
araméens du Wadi Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450–332 av. J.-C. (CHANE 30; Leiden:
Brill, 2007).
91 A summary with further references may be found in my “Some Aspects of
Samaria’s Religious Culture during the Early Hellenistic Era,” in The Historian and the
Bible: (ed. P. R. Davies and D. V. Edelman; LHBOTS; London: T. & T. Clark Contin-
uum, forthcoming).
92 Moshe FLORENTIN, Tulida – A Samaritan Chronicle: Text, Translation, Commen-
tary (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhaq Ben Zvi, 1999); Theodor W. J. JUYNBOLL, Chroni-
con Samaritanum Arabice conscriptum, cui titulus est Liber Josuae (Leiden: S. & J.
Luchtmans, 1848); Paul STENHOUSE, The Kitāb al-tarīikh of Abū ’l Fath (Studies in Ju-
daica 1; Sydney: Mandelbaum Trust, University of Sydney, 1985); James W. WATTS,
“The Torah as the Rhetoric of Priesthood,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for
Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levin-
son; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007) 319–31.
 Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation 25

teuch affirms a larger corporate entity, embracing a wide variety of differ-

ent sodalities. This is enormously important. Such a comprehensive per-
spective could easily have been accepted by and appealed to members of
both groups.
Fourth, each group developed similar exegetical traditions and literary
genres. Significantly, such parallels between the two groups did not cease
entirely with the growing estrangement between the two communities in
the last centuries B.C.E. and the first centuries C.E. Rather, the two groups
developed similar institutions, such as the synagogue, and both evinced the
continuing evolution of diaspora communities.93 Other parallels include
common exegetical techniques, similar ways of expanding upon founda-
tional literature, and the development of similar literary genres (e.g., the
Targum).94

Conclusions

When seen against the background of the pre-Samaritan manuscripts found

at Qumran, the close parallels between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the
Jewish Pentateuch indicate that both are descendants from a common for-
bearer dating to the Persian or early Hellenistic era. I have argued that the
long-term historical relationship between the Samarians and Judeans, be-
fore these groups became somewhat alienated in the second century
B.C.E., should be given more attention in elucidating the formation, edit-

93 One of the late third/early second century B.C.E. Samaritan inscriptions discovered
on the Aegean island of Delos mentions Mt. Gerizim and employs the term “Israelites” to
refer to the Samaritans, Philippe BRUNEAU, “Les Israélites de Délos et la juivierìe déli-
enne,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 106 (1982) 465–504; L. Michael WHITE,
“The Delos Synagogue Revisited: Recent Fieldwork in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora,”
HTR 80 (1987) 133–60. On the parallels between Samaritan and Jewish synagogues, see
Reinhard PUMMER, “How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue,”
BAR 24/3 (May/June 1998) 24–35; IDEM, “Samaritan Synagogues and Jewish Syna-
gogues: Similarities and Differences,” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient
Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period (ed. S. Fine; London
and New York: Routledge, 1999) 120–21; Lee I. LEVINE, The Ancient Synagogue: the
First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) 102–103.
94 The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch stems from the third or fourth century
C.E., Abraham TAL, The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch: A Critical Edition (Texts
and Studies in the Hebrew Language and Related Subjects 4–6; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Uni-
versity, 1980–1983); IDEM, “The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch,” in Mikra: Text,
Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and
Early Christianity (ed. M. J. Mulder; CRINT 2/1; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988) 189–216.
For other parallels between Jews and Samaritans in late antiquity, including the articula-
tion of the 613 Precepts, see PUMMER, “Samaritans,” 251–52.
26 Gary N. Knoppers

ing, and early transmission of the Pentateuch. Rather than fixating simply
on the question of whether the Samaritan Pentateuch is a borrowed imita-
tion of the Jewish Pentateuch or vice versa (legitimate questions, to be
sure), it may be helpful, historically speaking, to consider whether the Pen-
tateuch was, at least for a time, a common endeavor.95 In this understand-
ing, the Pentateuch was a foundational literary corpus binding the Judean
and Samarian communities together. The two groups could disagree on
many things, of course, including the very understanding and application
of key texts within the Torah. But the Pentateuch validated the claims of
each group to be descendants of the eponymous ancestor Jacob/Israel and
provided each community with foundational stories and legal precepts to
structure societal life. Fulfilling this corporate function, the Torah was an
important social and religious social force uniting, rather than dividing, the
two groups together.

95 So also Rainer ALBERTZ, A History of Religion in the Old Testament Period, 2:

From the Exile to the Maccabees (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 523–
33; Jean-D. MACCHI, Les Samaritains: histoire d'une légende: Israël et la province de
Samarie (MdB 30; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1994); IDEM, Israël et ses tribus selon Genèse
49 (OBO 171; Freiburg, Switz.: Academic and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1999); Ernst A. KNAUF, Die Umwelt des Alten Testaments (Neuer Stuttgarter Kommen-
tar: Altes Testament 29; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1994) 173; Christophe
NIHAN, “The Torah between Samaria and Judah: Shechem and Gerizim in Deuteronomy
and Joshua,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulga-
tion and Acceptance (ed. G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 2007) 187–223; PUMMER, “Samaritans,” 257–69.