Current State of Samaritan Studies (Hexateuch)

[Russell Gmirkin]

I think someone should suggest that

"....So the twentieth century idea that the Hexateuch was created by and for the Jews is not the position of 99.999% of scholarship today. The current trend appears to be quite the opposite....."

is an exaggeration.

Added:
To be clear, I am not dismissing Samaritans, etc.
Just saying that, as description of current scholar views, whether held rightly or wrongly, it is extreme to say 99.999% .

I was quoting Secret Alias from a previous thread.

[StephenGoranson]

I do not find such an SA quote in the list search option. And you didn't use quotation marks.

[Secret Alias]

So the fact that "Jerusalem" isn't mentioned in the Pentateuch allows for the idea that Jerusalem was the actual cultic center of the nascent cult of the Pentateuch? How is that exactly? How is it possible that a religious cult centered on sacrifice has all the sacrificing occurring SOMEWHERE ELSE and the story ends with no entry into the land and Joshua ends with the establishment of a covenant AT THIS OTHER PLACE? I am trying to understand how something other than 'habit' explains Jerusalem as the starting point of the sacrificial cult associated with the Pentateuch? Is 'habit' even an argument?

[Russell Gmirkin]

I don’t see evidence for the Hexateuch reflecting either an actual Gerizim or actual Jerusalem covenant

Again, the lack of mention of "Jerusalem" is modesty on the part of the Jewish authors? They had pen in hand and papyrus and ... 'forgot' to mention Jerusalem? Really?

In the musical New York New York, how many references to "New York" do you think there are? More than none right? I don't have access to the text of New York New York but I found MacBeth. 287 references to "Macbeth" in Macbeth.

19 references to Shechem in Genesis. 13 references to "Bethel" as a location near Shechem (Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel) in Genesis etc. etc.

One must consider ALL the evidence:

* While several northern ("Israelite") locations appear in Genesis, one also has Hebron in Judah appear prominently in a couple episodes.
* One also has Abraham in the Philistine city of Gerar, in the southwest, bordering on Judah.
* Bethel is ambiguous, since it was on the border between Judah and Israel and was claimed by both kingdoms at various times.
* One also has Melchizedek at Salem, which could be a location near Shechem (Gen. 33.18, “And Jacob came to Salem the city of Shechem”) or Mount Gerizim (as in Pseudo-Eupolemus: “Abraham was treated as a guest by the city in the temple Argarazim, which means ‘mountain of the Most High. He received gifts from Melchizedek, its ruler and priest of God") or could refer Jerusalem (as in the Genesis Apocryphon 22.13: “Salem, which is Jerusalem”, and Josephus, Ant. 1.180, "Solyma was in fact the place afterwards called Hierosolyma"). I consider the Shechem/Gerizim localization to be original, but the evidence is not 100% unambiguous
* Significantly, Gen. 15:18 promises Abraham all the territory "from the river of Egypt... to the river Euphrates." This clearly includes the territory of Judah to the south.

So Genesis includes both northern and southern traditions, not exclusively northern or Israelite.

According to Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, 62-63, the southern stories located in the land of Judah appear in J and feature Yahweh while the northern stories located in the land of Israel originate in E and feature Elohim. Bethel appears in both J (with Yahweh) and E (with Elohim), illustrating the ambiguous status of that city.

[Russell Gmirkin]

I do not find such an SA quote in the list search option. And you didn't use quotation marks.

The reference is from the thread "Berossus and Genesis": "The way 99.9999999% of the world reads Deuteronomy. The way the Samaritans [i.e. the Memar Markah] read Deuteronomy 32 is that whoever wrote this knew Genesis 1 - 2.8." I may have got the context wrong. If so, Secret Alias can correct me. But my general understanding is that SA holds/held that the consensus scholarly opinion is that the Hexateuch is a Jewish rather than Samaritan document.

[Secret Alias]

One must consider ALL the evidence:

If it was a "story book" or a "fable" (which is how I feel many scholars approach matters) sure, there are a lot of place names. "Egypt" appears throughout Exodus for instance. However, it is disingenuous to see Genesis as anything other than a "set up" for the eventual establishment of a sacrificial religion AT GERIZIM. Sorry, I like your original thinking. But bullshit is bullshit. The Pentateuch isn't an OPEN-ENDED fable or a story. It's a fabulous history which is the set up for the justification of the sacrificial religion of Moses AT GERIZIM. The only place that matters. Gerizim.

I've asked repeatedly for a justification for Jews writing a narrative where their forefathers set up at a foreign location IF IT WERE INDEED AS IS CLAIMED BY YOU AND MANY OTHERS A SET UP FOR A SACRIFICIAL RELIGION AT JERUSALEM.

Like claiming the Quran is the set up for a recognition of the holiness of Pittsburgh PA.

[StephenGoranson]

Got it. Both numbers bogus.

[Russell Gmirkin]

What if it was created by neither Samaritans nor Jews. When did these distinctions come into existence?

It seems a bit like asking if the Pauline letters were originally written by Christians or Gnostics. Of course they may have been written by neither.

As of ca. 400 BCE in the Elephantine Papyri, the priests of Elephantine sought appealed to both Judahite and Samarian authorities for support for rebuilding their temple of Yah. Going from memory, both Kratz and probably Granerod interpreted this to show that Judah, Samaria & Elephantine shared a common religious heritage. And clearly no-one claimed there could be only one legitimate temple of Yah[weh] at that time.

Samaritan and Jew were originally geographical/political references to the lands of Samaria and Judah, not to distinct religions. The mythos of "twelve tribes of Israel" clearly embraced an essential unity between north and south as co-religionists, in support of your question. At some point there was a religious rivalry and schism between Jews and Samaritans and their respective temples, but this was clearly after the creation of the Pentateuch. I think it is more productive to speak of the Hexateuch as a Yahwistic creation rather than Jewish or Samaritan, since it appears there was no real religious distinction between Jews and Samaritans when the Hexateuch was written. Gerizim was more prominent than Jerusalem in the text, but they were all quite unambiguously co-religionists.

[Secret Alias]

So I will try again. I will set it up as a Twitter poll.

It is reasonable to suppose that JEWISH OR "JUDAEAN" scribes wrote this long elaborate story about their forefathers setting up the one and only holy tabernacle of God in their rival's backyard because ....

a) the Jews/Judaean are abnormally generous people and wanted to 'help' their cousins the Samaritans
b) "they couldn't help themselves because it was true" and the Jews/Judaeans are an unusually truthful and truth-seeking people
c) I don't know I never thought about it before

[Russell Gmirkin]

One must consider ALL the evidence:

If it was a "story book" or a "fable" (which is how I feel many scholars approach matters) sure, there are a lot of place names. "Egypt" appears throughout Exodus for instance. However, it is disingenuous to see Genesis as anything other than a "set up" for the eventual establishment of a sacrificial religion AT GERIZIM. Sorry, I like your original thinking. But bullshit is bullshit. The Pentateuch isn't an OPEN-ENDED fable or a story. It's a fabulous history which is the set up for the justification of the sacrificial religion of Moses AT GERIZIM. The only place that matters. Gerizim.

I've asked repeatedly for a justification for Jews writing a narrative where their forefathers set up at a foreign location IF IT WERE INDEED AS IS CLAIMED BY YOU AND MANY OTHERS A SET UP FOR A SACRIFICIAL RELIGION AT JERUSALEM.

Like claiming the Quran is the set up for a recognition of the holiness of Pittsburgh PA.

Uh-oh. We're straying into insult territory.

I have never claimed that the Torah was "set up for a sacrificial religion at Jerusalem," although it is widely agreed that Deuteronomy 17 anticipates Solomon's reign at Jerusalem. In particular, I believe I am the only author who has argued that the wilderness tabernacle of Exodus and Leviticus points away from the Jews and their temple and instead points to the Samaritans, who held the tabernacle in special regard (though admittedly in late texts).

Rather than simply repeating your beliefs, and since this is a conversation, would you please address the seven points I listed earlier showing the participation of authors from Judah in the Hexateuch, as well as the eighth point I made about the southern place names in Genesis.