The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version. Edited and translated by Benyamim Tsedaka and coedited by Sharon Sullivan.

Abstract

B iblical Studies, Jewish Studies, the history of the Middle East and the study of the Hebrew and Aramaic languages owe a great debt to the Samaritan community and its scribes. Thanks to the piety of the community members, their complete faithfulness to the tradition of their fathers, and their constant presence in the land of Israel, they have preserved evidence of ancient languages and customs that other communities of Israel failed to retain. Especially strong is the adherence of the Samaritans to the reading of the Torah and its precise transmission from father to son. Thus, despite the fact that the extant Samaritan manuscripts are not older than the twelfth century, oral transmission has provided an authoritative and complete source of their Torah today in a form close to (though not completely similar to) how it was read and heard about two thousand years ago. Additionally, at least from Byzantine times onwards, the learned of the community actively composed translations of their Torah, probably intending to explain and clarify the holiest text of the community in times in which its contents and Hebrew language were no longer clear enough. First they composed Aramaic translations, but towards the twelfth century ce , when this language also ceased to be understood properly, they started to compose translations into Arabic. These translational enterprises, that were of course carried out for internal needs, teach us not only about the ways the Torah was understood throughout the generations, but also shed light on its Hebrew text.