SECTARIAN HALAKHA Since the Days of the Second Temple There Exists a Parallel Halakha to That of the Scribes and the Pharisees

CHAPTER TWO

Since the days of the Second Temple there exists a parallel halakha to that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, namely, the halakha of the Samaritans.1 The legal development of this community is unfolded by three sources. First, there is a series of Aramaic bills from the end of the period of Persian rule (375-335 B.C.E.) which were taken from Samaria to a cave near Jericho and were found there. They include bills of sale of slaves and other bills which illustrates legal practices in the neighbour hood of Samaria. When this material is published it will be necessary to compare it to the Aramaic and Greek bills from Egypt, to the new Babylonian bills and to the Talmudical halakha, in order to detetmine the Samaritans' position and their attitude to more ancient traditions of the lsraelites. 2 The second source of information concerning the Samaritan halakha is their version of the Torah scroll. The Samaritan version is written in Western Hebrew script (libuna'ah), and it contains many variations and additions compared to our Massoratic text of the Torah. Certain passages may be explained as commentary, parallel to the Oral Law, and the version can serve to indicate the antiquity of a number of midrashim. Some of the additions have their parallels in the Septua gint and in the Aramaic translations, and there are even parallels in the Dead Sea scrolls. A number of examples of such oral law that was preserved in the written law of the Samaritans are worthy of note. 3

1 Regarding the Samaritans see J. Bowman, VT VII (1957) 184-9; idem, Bulletin of John Rylands Library XL (1958) 298-327; idem, Annual of Leeds University Oriental Society I (1959) 43-54; J. Mc Donald, BZAW 84 (1963); idem, The Theology of the Samaritans, London 1964 (including bibliography); J. Bowman, Samaritanische Probleme, Stuttgart 1967. 2 It is a pity these bills have not yet been published : F.M. Cross, BA XXVI (1963) llO ff.; idem, BASOR 175 (1964) 10; A.F. Rainey, PEQ IC (1967) 32-41. 3 As to the Samaritan version of the Torah see H. Heller, The Samaritan Version of the Torah-a Copy from the Masoretic Version (Hebrew), Berlin 1924; M.Z. Segal, Introduction to the Bible (Hebrew), Jerusalem 1952, 9ll ff.; S. Talmon, in Biblical Lexicon (Hebrew) 292-294 (including bibliography). 36 SECTARIAN HALAKHA

Ex. XVIII 20 : Torah instead of toroth (laws) in the plural, for at the time the term toroth could not be understood to mean a number of individual decisions but only a generic term for the written law. Thus also the Aramaic translation of Onkelos, whereas the scholars of Yahne considered Toroth to be individual provisions of halakha (Mekhilta ad, loc.).-Ex. XXI 4 : La'aJews and Samaritans that facilitated the acceptance of tradition from one another.8 The third source are books of halakha which, though written in the middle ages, are based on a tradition which began in the days of the Temple. The work kitab al-kafi describing the Samaritan halakha, was written in the eleventh century in Arabic by Joseph b. Solomon of the Shkhem area. A similar book is Tabak, meaning com pendium, written in the next century by lbn al-Hasan al-Suri. 4 At

1 The synonymous ba'a was apparently chosen to facilitate the memorizing of the passages which both use the verb "ba'ar". Using a different key word was sufficient to help the memory, but the Samaritans went as far as introducing the word into the text itself. 1 Many additional illustrations are furnished by Heller. 8 Friendly relations actually existed even in the times of the Tannaim : T Pasl;ia II 3 (I 15); but after Alexander's conquest they apparently ceased to learn from each other, as at that time, the Samaritan temple was erected: Josephus Antiquities XI 8, 2, 306 ff.; TB Y oma 69a; Megillath Ta 'anith (Lichtenstein, HUCA VIII-IX 339). 4 D. Abdel Al, A comparative Study of the inedited work of Abu 'l Hasan el Suri and Jusuf ibn Salama, Diss, Leeds 1957.