Rethinking Israelite Samaritans And Their Diaspora
The Judea-centred Israelites (the Jews) believed that not only did the Samaritans choose to reject the words of the prophets regarding Zion and David’s family; they also deliberately changed the Torah itself to fit their theology and heretical practices. One of the insights that can be gained from comparing the two Pentateuch’s, the Torah of the Samaritans and the Torah of the Jews, is given here as an illustration. The Samaritan text reads much better than the Jewish one. In some cases, the stories in the Jewish Torah seem truncated, with wandering logic and unclear narrative flow. In contrast, the texts of the Samaritan Torah seem to have a much smoother narrative flow. On the surface, this makes the Jewish Torah problematic. Upon further examination, however, this could lead to an argument for the Samaritan Pentateuch being a latter revision or editing of the earlier Jewish text. However, in the light of Qumran discoveries that show agreement between the Samaritan and Qumran texts, a case can also be made for editing of an older text made by the Jews as well.