The external appearance of these manuscripts, in some respects, agrees with that of the synagogue rolls of the Hebrews; but in many others it differs. All the Samaritan copies in Europe are in the form of books, either folio, quarto, or still smaller; although the Samaritans in their synagogues make use of rolls, as the Jews also do. The letters in the Samaritan copies are simple, exhibiting nothing like the litera majusculæ, minusculæ, inversa, suspensæ &c. of the Hebrews. They are entirely destitute of vowel points, accents, or diacritical signs, such as are found in Hebrew and Chaldee. Each word is separated from the one which follows it, by a point placed between them; parts of sentences are distinguished by two points; and periods and paragraphs by short lines, or lines and points. The manuscripts differ, however, in regard to some things of this nature. Words of doubtful construction are sometimes marked by a small line over one of the letters. The margin is empty, unless, as is sometimes the case, the Samaritan or Arabic version is placed by the side of the original text. The whole Pentateuch, like the Jewish copy, is divided into paragraphs, which they call, Katsin. But while the Jews make only fiftytwo or fiftyfour divisions (one to be read each Sabbath in the year), the Samaritans make nine hundred and sixtysix. The age of some of the Samaritan copies is determined by the date, which accompanies the name of the copyist; in others it is not. Kennicott has endeavored to ascertain the date of all the Samaritan manuscripts, which he compared. But he resorts to conjecture in order to effect this; conjecture supported by no well grounded rules of judging. The Codex Oratorii, used by Morin, he supposes to have been copied in the eleventh century; while all the others, except one, are conceded to be of more recent origin. One he assigns to the eighth century. On what uncertain grounds the reasoning of Kennicott and De Rossi about the age of Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts rests, need not be told to any one acquainted with the present state of Hebrew literature. The materials, on which the Samaritan manuscripts are written, are either parchment or silk paper. Ordinary paper has been used, in recent times, only to supply some of the defects in them. The Christian world, before Morin published his famous Exercitationes Ecclesiastica in utrumque Samaritanorum Penta teuchum, (1631,) had been accustomed to resort only to the Jewish Hebrew Scriptures, as exhibiting the well authenticated and established text of the Mosaic law. From this remark may be excepted the few, who attached a high value to the Septuagint version, and preferred many of its readings to those, which are found in the Jewish Scriptures. But the publication of Morin soon excited a controversy, which, even at the present hour, has not wholly subsided. As the Samaritan copy of the law, in a multitude of places, agreed with the version of the Seventy, Morin maintained that the authority of the Samaritan, particularly when supported by the Septuagint, was paramount to that of the Jewish text. He labored, moreover, to show, that in a multitude of passages, which in that text as it now stands are obscure and difficult, or unharmonious, the Samaritan offers the better reading; that the Jews have corrupted their Scriptures by negligence, or ignorance, or superstition; and that the safe and only way of purifying them is, to correct them from the Samaritan in connexion with the Septuagint. The signal was now given for the great contest, which ensued. Cappell, in his Critica Sacra, followed in the steps of Morin; but De Muis, Hottinger, Stephen Morin, Buxtorf, Fuller, Leusden, A. Pfeiffer, each in separate works published within the seventeenth century, attacked the positions of Morin and Cappell. Their principal aim was to overthrow his positions, rather than to examine the subject before them in a critical and thorough manner. Much less like disputants, and more like impartial critics, did Father Simon, Walton in his Prolegomena, and Le Clerc conduct themselves, relative to the question about the value and authority of the Samaritan Pentateuch. In particular, Simon has thrown out suggestions, which imply for substance the same opinions on many controverted points, that the latest and best critics, after all the discussion which has taken place, have adopted. But during the latter part of the last century, when the fierceness of controversy seemed to have abated, Houbigant, treading in the steps of J. Morin, renewed it, in the Prolegomena to his Bible. With him other controvertists united. Kennicott, in various works, A. S. Aquilino, Lobstein, and Alexander Geddes, have all contended for the equal or superior authority of the Samaritan Codex. Houbigant was answered, in a masterly way, by S. Ravius, in his Exercitationes Philologica, 1761. Recently, Michaelis, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Bauer, and Jahn, have discussed the subject in question with a good degree of moderation and acuteness. But they have all inclined to attach considerable value to many of the Samaritan readings; although most of them consider the Samaritan Pentateuch, on the whole, as of inferior authority, compared with the Hebrew. Thus the matter stood, when Gesenius entered upon the discussion of it in the treatise which is first named at the head of this article. The great extent of critical and philological knowledge which he had acquired, fitted him in a peculiar manner for the difficult task which he undertook; for difficult it would seem to be, to settle a question that had been so long disputed by the master critics, and still not brought to a termination. What those who best knew the talents of this eminent writer would naturally expect, has, for the most part, been accomplished. He has settled the question, (it would seem forever settled it,) about the authority of the Samaritan Pentateuch compared with that of the Hebrew; or rather, he has shown, as we shall see by and by, the nature of the various readings exhibited by the Samaritan Pentateuch to be such, that we can place no critical reliance at all upon them. They are all, or nearly all, most evidently the effect of design, or of want of grammatical, exegetical, or critical knowledge; or of studious conformity to the Samaritan dialect; or of effort to remove supposed obscurities, or to restore harmony to passages apparently discrepant. On this part of the subject there can be little or no doubt left, hereafter, in the mind of any sober critic. Gesenius has divided the various readings, which the Samaritan Pentateuch exhibits, into eight different classes, for the sake of more orderly and exact description. The first class consists of such as exhibit corrections merely of a grammatical nature. For example, in orthography the matres lectionis are supplied; in respect to pronouns, the usual forms are substituted for the unusual ones; the full forms of verbs are substituted for the apocopated forms; the paragogic letters affixed to nouns and participles are omitted, so as to reduce them to usual forms; words of common gender are corrected so as to make the form either masculine or feminine, where the word admits of it, (for example, is always written when it is feminine); and the infinitive absolute is often reduced to the form of a finite verb. The second class of various readings consists of glosses received into the text. For the most part these exhibit the true sense of the original Hebrew; but they explain the more difficult words by such as seemed to be plainer or more intelligible. The third class consists of those, in which there is a substitution of plain modes of expression, in the room of those, which seemed difficult or obscure in the Hebrew text. The fourth, of those in which the Samaritan copy is corrected from parallel passages, or apparent defects are supplied from them. The fifth is made up of additions or repetitions respecting things said and done; which are drawn from the preceding context, and again recorded so as to make the readings in question. The sixth, of such corrections as were made to remove what was offensive in respect to sentiment, that is, which conveyed views, or narrated facts, that were deemed improbable by the correctors. For an example, we refer to the famous genealogies in Genesis v. and xi. in which the Samaritan copy has made many alterations, evidently designed. In the antediluvian genealogy, the corrections are so made that no one is exhibited as having begotten his first son, after he is one hundred and fifty years old. Thus the Hebrew text represents Jared as having begotten a son at the age of one hundred and sixtytwo years; but the Samaritan takes one hundred years from this. In the postdiluvian genealogy, it follows a different principle of correction. No one is allowed to have begotten a son, until after he was fifty years of age; so that one hundred years are added to all those who are represented by the Hebrew text as having had issue under that age, with the exception of Nahor, to whom fifty years are added. The effects of design are most visible in all these corrections; and equally so in the corresponding Septuagint genealogies, we may add, which, while they differ from both the Hebrew and Samaritan, bear the marks of designed alteration most evidently impressed upon them. Other examples of a like nature may be found in the Samaritan copy, in Exodus xii. 40. Genesis ii. 2. Genesis xxix. 3, 8. Exodus xxiv. 10, 11. The seventh class of various readings consists of those, in which the pure Hebrew idiom is exchanged for that of the Samaritan. This has respect to many cases of orthography; to the forms of pronouns; to some of the forms of verbs, for example, the second person feminine of the præter tense, which in the Samaritan has a Yodh paragogic; and to the forms of nouns etymologically considered. The eighth class consists of those passages, where alterations have been made so as to produce conformity to the Samaritan theology, worship, or mode of interpretation. For example, where the Hebrew has used a plural verb with the noun D' Elohim, the Samaritan has substituted a verb in the singular number (Genesis xx. 13. xxxi. 53. xxxv. 7. Exodus xxii. 9.) lest the unity of God should seem to be infringed upon. So in many passages, where anthropomorphism or anthropopathy is resorted to by the sacred writer, in relation to God, the Samaritan has substituted different expressions. In Genesis xlix. 7, where Jacob, when about to die, says of Simeon and Levi, Cursed be their anger (D1), the Samaritan has altered it to lovely is their anger (DN 778). In the blessing of Moses, Deuteronomy xxxiii. 12, Benjamin is styled T beloved of Jehovah, which the Samaritan has altered to the hand, the hand of Jehovah shall dwell &c. In a similar manner, euphemisms are substituted, in various parts of the Pentateuch, for expressions which appeared to the Samaritan critics unseemly or immodest. Finally, in the famous passage in Deuteronomy xxvii. 4, the Samaritan has changed Ebal into Gerizim, in order to give sanction to the temple which they built, not long after the time of Nehemiah, upon the latter mountain. Kennicott has warmly contested the Hebrew reading here, and defended the Samaritan; but the question was settled against his opinion by Verschuir, in his Dissertt. Exeget. Philologica, published in 1773, to the universal satisfaction, we believe, of all biblical critics. : Some of the classes of various readings here described are hardly intelligible, perhaps, to the cursory and general reader; nor will the difference between some of them, (for example, between the second and third class,) be plain to any reader, who does not consult the work of Gesenius, and compare the examples proposed. Under all the classes of various readings, he has produced a multitude of examples, almost to satiety, so as to remove all rational doubt as to the positions which he advances. Never before did the Samaritan Pentateuch undergo such a thorough critical examination; and never, perhaps, in a case that was difficult and had been long contested, was truth made more evident and convincing. Only four various readings in the whole Samaritan Pentateuch, are considered by Gesenius as preferable perhaps to the Hebrew text. These are the wel! known passages in Genesis iv. 6. xxii. 13. xlix. 14. and xiv. 14; all of little importance, and all, we are well persuaded, of |