The Samaritan and Masoretic Pentateuch: Text and Interpretation(s)

Eugene Ulrich

It is a pleasure to honor John Collins, a scholar widely recognized for his broad array of insightful and critical contributions—not to mention his charming Irish wit. Following his lead, this essay will attempt a critical look at a familiar subject, perhaps producing an unfamiliar result. It will reexamine the com- mon view of the Judean and Samaritan forms of the Pentateuch, after consid- ering proper methodology.

1 Post-Qumran Thinking

The , with their large cache of ancient evidence, have signif- icantly enriched our under­standing of the , the spectrum and variety of Jewish parties in the late Second Temple period, and the religious thought-world in which Christianity emerged. They have thus necessitated, especially for the analysis of the Hebrew Bible, a paradigm shift that could be termed “post-Qumran thinking.” To comprehend this new mentality required for understanding the advances regarding the biblical texts, it is helpful to examine epistemologically two models of dealing with new evidence. Model “A,” exemplified by scholars well trained in the “assured results of scholarship,” starts from the presupposition that we know what the biblical text looks like and are well-versed in the criteria by which proper judgments are to be made. Centuries of analysis have taught us the content, the wording, and even the Hebrew spelling of the biblical text. The MT has remained amazingly static since the second century and has been studied in exhaustive detail. Having learned the traditional, widely-accepted and agreed-upon knowledge of the MT, adherents of model “A” judge a text that departs too widely from that “standard text” as “parabiblical” or “nonbiblical.”1 It is easy to see how this mentality is formed. If one becomes interested in the Bible, the translation of the Tanakh or Old Testament is virtually certain

1 For example, Shemayahu Talmon, Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, and Patrick Skehan viewed 11QPsa as nonbiblical; see Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (STDJ 17; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 8.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004324749_068 The Samaritan And Masoretic Pentateuch 1315 to be from the MT. The introductions to most Bibles state that the text is trans- lated from the MT except where there are difficulties, which are solved by recourse to the versions or emendation.2 If one wants to go further and learn Hebrew in order to read the text in the original language, the textbook normally presents Tiberian Hebrew, the lan- guage system solidified by the early medieval Masoretes. The text that one begins to read then is Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia or , a printed form of Codex Leningradensis, a Masoretic manuscript from the early eleventh century. Problematic forms in the text are solved by searching the grammar by Wilhelm Gesenius, who generally resolves difficulties within the Tiberian system. If one is thoroughly trained in this system, it is understandable that one has good criteria by which to judge new texts that claim to be biblical. Model “B,” in contrast, starts with a fresh, neutral approach, open to new understanding. Of course, one starts with the accumulated knowledge learned from teachers and authors of the previous generation. But, while grateful to those teachers and authors, in studying the new evidence, one critically scru- tinizes not only the evidence but the adequacy of the initial interpretation formed to explain the evidence. Do we already have sufficient understanding of the evidence with our present criteria and categories, or do those criteria and categories need to be reshaped in order to understand the evidence more accurately? To illustrate the contrast between models “A” and “B,” we can consider the well-known Great Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1 at Qumran. It differed from the “Biblical Text” (i.e., the MT) in orthography and morphology and in thousands of small textual variants, as well as a series of large “omissions” of major sen- tences totaling fifteen verses. Thus, it was quickly labeled a “vulgar” or even “worthless” manuscript. But the next generation, studying the full corpus of biblical manuscripts from the Second Temple period found in the caves along the Dead Sea, was able to see and assess more clearly. Scroll after scriptural scroll displayed additions, omissions,3 transpositions, scribal changes, and

2 As one of many similar examples, in the introduction “To the Reader” of the NRSV, Bruce Metzger writes, “For the Old Testament the [translation] Committee has made use of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. . . . This is an edition of the Hebrew and Aramaic text . . . fixed by Jewish scholars (the “Masoretes”) of the sixth to the ninth centuries. . . . Departures from the consonantal text of the best manuscripts have been made only where it seems clear that errors . . .” 3 “Omissions” are usually not losses from the manuscript with the shorter reading but addi- tions in the manuscript with the longer reading. For example, in 4QPent B (4Q364, olim 4QRPb), Num 33:38 and 33:40 are classified as omissions or “exegetical shortening” of the