Originally Posted by Messianic Samaritan
I've been studying the Israelite Samaritans and using the Samaritan Defter that similar to a Siddur. You have to look hard to find stuff on them.
There are good places you can go thankfully for information on Samaritan culture and the texts they use. The times of the Apostles had alot of diverse view points...
There was an interesting covo I was able to follow that had some excellent points, as it concerns text used by the Samaritans (Samaritan Penteteuch) and how it is often more in line with scriptures than other translations. Some of this I've shared elsewhere (as seen
here or
here/ #
53 )...but as shared there for some examples of Samaritan accuracy, Acts 7:4 is a text that many have had issue with and have said is inaccurate.
In Stephen's speech, it is in reference to Genesis 11:31-32...and in Genesis 11:31-32, by way of completing this short intro to Terah's family, the narrative records his death at the age of 205. If Abram was born when Terah was 70---as seen in Genesis 11:26--and if Abram was 75 yrs old when he departed for Canaan (as seen in Genesis 12:4), then Terah died 60yrs after Abram's depature (70+75+60=205), In Acts 7:4, however, Stephen says that after Abram left Haran after the death of Terah. A simple way to resolve the chronological difficulty is to suppose that Stephan was following an alternative text (represented today in the Samaritan Pentateuch), which says that Terah died at the age of 145 rather than 205. The Samaritan text of the Pentateuch does say 145, so we are not dealing with a
deus ex machina. Moreover, there are scholars, Avraham Spero and Jakob Jervell among them, who believe that Stephen himself was a Samaritan. This would also help to explain in Acts 7:16, which says that Abraham was buried in Sh'khem, since this too follows SAMARITAN Tradition. It explains a possible anti-Temple tendency in Acts 7:47-50 (Compare to John 4:40-22 with the Samaritan woman/Jesus) and gives logic to placing the story of the spread of the Gospel to Shomoron in the immediately following passage (Acts 8:4-26). At worst, if under pressure Stephen erred, his errors would be what are known in Judaism as ta'uyot b'tom-lev, honest mistakes.
From here comes the issue of what also occurred amongst those who felt that the correct translation of the scriptures was to be found in other books outside of the Seputagint---specifically the Samaritan translation. For places one can go online to find further info, one can research the following under their respective titles:
There was a solid article online discussing the issue, if going online/searching, under the name of
"On the Samaritan Pentateuch « Daniel O. McClellan" ( ). The other one to consider looking up can be found under the name/title of
"Pentateuch, The Samaritan (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) :: Bible Tools" ( )
It truly is interesting seeing how the Samaritan version is much closer to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the LXX than to the current Masoretic. The oldest Samaritan physical document is the Nablus Roll, which is probably about 200 BCE, but uses a script the Jews used between around 550 to 700BCE, apparantly because the Samaritans chose to keep the older script and the Judean Jews didn't. It is evidence other than the script that tends to pin it to a few centuries before the common era. It seems that the Samaritan version spilt with the Jewish version, at approximately 700BCE. That goes in line with matching the genetics, the history of the Assyrian invasion, and the story the Samaritans
One significant difference between the two is that the Samaritan version has Mt. Gerizim as the center of the religion. Another key difference is that the God of the Samaritans is less anthropomorphic, more abstract, and having as hortage of other supernatural beings. As one kat said (from one of the articles referenced earlier entitled "The Samaritan Pentateuch"):
"Some of the philosophical differences are a little less central. For example, the Samaritan version shows much less anthropomorphism than the Masoretic version. Exodus 15:3 in the Masoretic version reads “The LORD is a warrior,” or more literally the Hebrew says “the LORD is a man of war,” whereas the Samaritan version does not call God a “man,” but says that God is “a hero of war” or “mighty in war.” Perhaps this is also the reason behind the difference of reading in Genesis 48:16, which reads in the Masoretic version המלאך הגאל אתי (“the angel who redeemed me”
, while the Samaritan version has המלך instead (“the king who redeemed me”, thus putting the focus on God and not an angel."
That there are many cases where the Samaritan variations from the Massoretic Text are identical with those of the Septuagint is indubitable. It has, however, not been observed by those Jewish scholars that the cases in which the Samaritan alone or the Septuagint alone (one or the other) agrees with the Massoretic Text against the other, are equally numerous. Besides, there are not a few cases in which all three differ. It ought to be observed that the cases in which the Septuagint differs from the Massoretic Text are much more numerous than those in which the Samaritan differs from it. One has only to compare the Samaritan, Septuagint and Massoretic Text of any half a dozen consecutive chapters in the Pentateuch to prove this. Thus neither is dependent on the others.
Further, there is the unwarranted assumption that the Massoretic Text represents the primitive text of the Law. If the Massoretic Text is compared with the VSS, it is found that the Septuagint, despite the misdirected efforts of Origen to harmonize it to the Palestinian text, differs in very many cases from the Massoretic Text. Theodotion is nearer, but still differs in not a few cases. Jerome is nearer still, though even the text behind the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) is not identical with the Massoretic Text. It follows that the Massoretic Text is the result of a process which stopped somewhere about the end of the 5th century AD. The origin of the Massoretic Text appears to have been somewhat the result of accident. A manuscript which had acquired a special sanctity as belonging to a famous rabbi is copied with fastidious accuracy, so that even its blunders are perpetuated. This supplies the Kethibh. Corrections are made from other manuscripts, and these form the Qere. If our hypothesis as to the age of the Nablus roll is correct, it is older than the Massoretic Text by more than half a millennium, and the manuscript from which the Septuagint was translated was nearly a couple of centuries older still. So far then from its being a reasonable assumption that the Septuagint and Samaritan differ from the Massoretic Text only by blundering or willful corruption on the part of the former, the converse is at least as probable.
The conclusion then to which we are led is that of Kennicott (State of Hebrew Text Dissertation, II, 164) that the Samaritan and Septuagint being independent, "each copy is invaluable--each copy demands our pious veneration and attentive study." It further ought to be observed that though Dr. Kohn points to certain cases where the difference between the Massoretic Text and the Septuagint is due to confusion of letters only possible in Samaritan character, this does not prove the Septuagint to have been translated from a Samaritan MS, but that the manuscripts of the Massoretic Text used by the Septuagint were written in that script. Kohn also exhibits the relation of the Samaritan to the Peta. While the Peta sometimes agrees with the Samaritan where it differs from the Massoretic Text, more frequently it supports the Massoretic Text against the Samaritan."
And as it concerns other parts of Acts 7, it is evident that Stephen also followed the account which is given by the Septuagint at certain parts. In Genesis 46:27, that version reads, "But the sons of Joseph who were with him in Egypt were nine souls; all the souls of the house of Jacob which came with Jacob into Egypt were seventy-five souls." This number is made out by adding these nine souls to the 66 mentioned in Genesis 46:26. The difference between the Septuagint and Moses is, that the former mentions five descendants of Joseph who are not recorded by the latter. The "names" of the sons of Ephraim and Manasseh are recorded in 1 Chronicles 7:14-21. Their names were Ashriel, Machir, Zelophehad, Peresh, sons of Manasseh; and Shuthelah, son of Ephraim. Why the Septuagint inserted these, it may not be easy to see. But such was evidently the fact; and the fact accords accurately with the historic record, though Moses did not insert their names. The solution of difficulties in regard to chronology is always difficult; and what might be entirely apparent to a Jew in the time of Stephen, may be wholly inexplicable to us.
Much of the confusion on the accounts seems to be easily understood when realizing that the Jews of Stephen's day were multi-lingual, using differing accounts of scripture (as there were debates on which ones were the most accurate)---and his using a differing version of scripture would not have shocked the people he was speaking to.
For more, one can go online here to
The Septuagint v. the Masoretic Text (Bible)
Of course, there are differing views on the issue. The following is a quote from
Dr. Michael S. Heiser, who is a scholar in Semitic Languages, Koine Greek, and biblical studies, regarding the Greek Septuagint as compared with the Hebrew
Masoretic Text. As
he said:
The early church predominantly used the LXX (Septuagint - a Greek translation of a different text type), not the MT (Masoretic Text), which was reworked and textually conformed to create a text that disagreed with the LXX used by Christians.
The Jewish Masoretes (scribes) "standardized" ...so as to assist the rabbinical scholars in debating against the LXX, the Bible of the Christians.
There's a very interesting article on the issue written by Dr. Heiser, entitled:
"Why Use the Septuagint?" .
