Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

The extract below puzzles me. Can anyone explain its relevance to the 
Samaritan Pentateuch? What evidence does the SP provide for the 
existence of separate documents, or how the Pentateuch might be 
assigned to different documents? (Point taken about Gilgamesh and the 
Diatessaron - but what are the other examples in the middle of the 
from...through range?)

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
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Subject: Re: Samaritan Pentateuch and dating the Hebrew Pentateuch
Author:  <Polycarp66 AT aol.com> at Internet
Date:    18/12/1999 19:57

<snip>

After discussing eight ways in which the SP has been altered from the text 
commonly received in its tradition and that of the proto-Masoretic text, 
Bruce K. Waltke concludes:

D.  Value of the Samaritan Pentateuch

<snip>

The Sam. Pent. is of greater interest for literary criticism. First, 
as Tigay (1975) noted, the supplemented proto-Samaritan texts and Sam. 
Pent. give indirect empirical evidence for the documentary hypothesis. 
More accurately, it validates a documentary hypothesis. The phenomenon 
of sewing formerly independent documents into a new, unified whole can 
be observed from the Gilgamesh Epic through Tatian's Diatasseron. 
Before his very eyes the critic can observe the redactor at work 
splicing texts together. The resulting work is not a "crazy patchwork" 
of sources, as once thought, but a unified whole. ...

<snip>