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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Author of the Torah
  • Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:33:39 -0500

As far as the "Samaritan schism" is concerned, the evidence of the
text-types does not really allow for pushing the divergence between
the proto-MT and the pre-Samaritan text-type earlier than the 5th
century, and actual exemplars of the pre-Samaritan text-type are not
attested, if my data is correct, before the Hasmonean period.

HH: It's clear in the Bible what the circumstances were under which the Samaritan religion came about:

2Kings 17:24 ΒΆ The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.
2Kings 17:26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: "The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires."
2Kings 17:28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD.

HH: Presumably they gained their copy of the Scriptures at that point.

The Elephantine papyri are interesting to bring up in this regard.
The correspondence going back and forth between Elephantine, Samaria,
and Jerusalem certainly suggests that there was a rather high degree
of cooperation between those three center of Jewish worship at the
end of the 5th century BCE. Bagavahya and Sanballat write a *joint*
letter recommending the rebuilding of the Elephantine temple. This
shows a degree of unity between Samaria and Jerusalem that can hardly
be called a "schism." It also shows that Deuteronomism was not
normative for Judaism in this period, at least as practiced in
Jerusalem, Samaria, and Elephantine, for sacrifices (albeit only of
grain and incense) at Elephantine were approved by Sanballat and
Bagavahya, over against Deuteronomic cultic centralization. Moreover,
Hananiah's instructions concerning Pesach and Shavuot are not
identical to the Torah's, and the fact that Hananiah has to bring
instructions for these festivals from outside Egypt may in fact imply
that the Elephantine Jews did not have a copy of the Torah. I would
say that the evidence from Ezra-Nehemiah and Elephantine, read
generously, suggests that the Torah was nearing its canonical form in
the 5th century, but not there yet.

HH: The origins of the Elephantine community are obscure, but a leading theory is that they left Judah under the Babylonian threat. From a biblical perspective the people who lived in Egypt, having gone there at the time of the Exile, were under a curse. So if that was their origin, it is not surprising that they did not do things in an orthodox way.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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