Talk:Samaritan Pentateuch

Name and language

 * 1) What did/do Samaritan's call the collection of these five books? Obviously, this is the Pentateuch/Torah, although since Pentateuch is a Greek term, I suspect they didn't call it that.  (Did they?)  But, would they have just called it the Torah, or—since it constituted their entire canon—would they have referred to it as their Tanakh (just as Christians refer to all of the books in their own canons as the Bible despite disagreeing with one another as to which books are canonical)?  And, if the latter—if they were willing to call these five books the Tanakh: would they have also called it their Torah, or would they have simply dropped that term altogether, it being superfluous to them and more relevant to Jews? Conversely, it also seems possible they had an entirely unique term for their collection of these five boks.  If they did, what was it?  (Also, how would that translate to English?  E.g., 'Torah' means "Instruction" or "Teaching.")
 * 2) I am inferring from this that the original 'Samaritan Torah' was written in Samaritan Hebrew, not in Samaritan Aramaic. Is this correct?
 * 3) The five Jewish books of the Torah are:
 * 4) *Bereshit ("In the Beginning")
 * 5) *Shemot ("Names")
 * 6) *Vayikra ("And He Called")
 * 7) *Bamidbar ("In the Desert [Of]")
 * 8) *Devarim ("Things" or "Words")
 * Are the titles identical for the five Samaritan books of the Torah? If not, what are they?

allixpeeke (talk) 11:13, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) Did the Samaritans place the five books in the same order as Jews/Christians?  If not, in what order did they place them?
 * I can't answer all your questions here, but I can clear up a few things. First, the term "Tanakh" is in Hebrew an acronym TaNaKh, which stands for "Torah" (the five book attributed to Moses) "Neviim" (Joshua through the minor prophets), and Ketuvim (all the other books). So there's no way the Samaritans, who have only "Torah," would use that term. You are correct that the Samaritan Torah is written in Hebrew. If you read it and the Masoretic Text side to side, most verses are basically identical, with some differences here and there. It's the same language with only minor differences. They call Genesis "Barashet" instead of "Bereshit." I only know this because a former Samaritan (now converted to Judaism) named Sofi Tsedaka is a minor celebrity as a singer in Israel, and she produced a CD called "Barashet" named after the Samaritan name for Genesis. Like Jews, Samaritans have a cycle of Torah readings that divide the various books up into chunks (see here, scroll down the table of readings). In Judaism, the first reading from Bereshit is called Bereshit. Similarly, among the Samaritans the first reading from Barashet is called Barashet. If the analogy holds instead of "Ve Ele Shemot" the Samaritans read Willa Shemot; instead of Vayiqra, Wyikra al mushi; instead of Bamidbar, Bamadbar; instead of Ele ha-Devarim, Illa addebarem. They pronounce many vowels differently, and do not pronounce the "h" consonant at all. Alephb (talk) 21:26, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The first word בראשית from which the name is derived is identical in the Masoretic and Samaritan versions. I suspect the apparent name difference is just one of pronunciation; it isn't clear if that's what you mean. Zerotalk 23:37, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Most of the differences are just pronunciation. I'm not certain in this case. I don't know my way around Samaritan Hebrew well enough to say for sure, but it looks to me like Barashet is arthrous, while Bereshit is anathrous. In other words, the first "a" vowel in Barashet looks to me like the "a" vowel that is used for "the" when following a "b-" prefix. In other words, where the Hebrew reads literally "In beginning (of)" the SamPent reads "In the beginning," I think. Alephb (talk)


 * You are right in that Samaritans call it their Torah (and not Pentateuch, which is a Greek word, even though both Torah and Pentateuch are synonyms in English). Still, as it is the form used by the Samaritans, and as the Jewish Pentateuch article is listed under Torah and not Pentateuch, I believe we should move this page as well, from Samaritan Pentateuch to Samaritan Torah. Would anyone oppose it? Dan Palraz (talk) 12:51, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

there are no surviving copies of the Septuagint!
The text days the Samaritan Torah has two thousand similarities with the original Septuagint. How come this be so, since there are no existing copies of this mentioned text?? Davidrojaselbirt (talk) 00:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, David. The text doesn't say the Samaritan Pentateuch has two thousand similarities with the original Septuagint. Alephb (talk) 01:20, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

wrong alphabet
"Samaritans commonly refer to their Pentateuch as קושטה", and quotations from the Samaritan pentateuch use the Hebrew alphabet, not the Samaritan alphabet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16b8:5cf9:200:d5be:e1f0:ac99:e004 (talk • contribs)

failure of impartiality
The comparison of the Samaritan Pentateuch with the Masoretic text implicitly or explicitly treats the latter as canonical and regards the Samaritan as a variant text, e.g. "This variation has similarities to Deuteronomy 27:2-8 and is supported by changes to the verbal tense within the Samaritan text of Deuteronomy indicating that God has already chosen this place." This section should stick to presenting the differences. Explanation and evaluation of those differences is a matter for the section of textual criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16b8:5cf9:200:d5be:e1f0:ac99:e004 (talk • contribs)


 * Agreed. Will add POV template referencing this section of the talk page to that section. -- Jacob&#39;s Crackers (talk) 18:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Including a comparison of aalaakem to parashiyot
Samaritan practice, like Jewish practice, divides the Pentateuch into weekly portions, referred to (per Tsedaka) as aalaakem. The portions are different, and I've produced this chart based on Tsedaka's and Shoulson's work for Genesis to demonstrate the distinctions. I would like to suggest it is added to the article somewhere. The transliteration system is intended to reflect the one already found on Samaritan pages on Wikipedia. I'm not great at formatting tables so if someeone would like to clean it up with some nice RTL formatting I wouldn't say no.

Isaacmayer9 (talk) 09:00, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * You should include the refs in this table draft. Looks interesting though, and with refs I believe it would be a good addition to the article. Nice work! Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 18:53, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Codex B
This article reads "Interest in the Samaritan Pentateuch was awakened in 1616 when the traveler Pietro della Valle purchased a copy of the text in Damascus. This manuscript, now known as Codex B...".

Does this "Codex B" have the same text as the Codex Vaticanus? (Codex Vaticanus is also known as Codex B; or, Codex Vaticanus B).

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 12:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Good question! Article Codex Vaticanus seems as though its subject might have an alternate name of "Codex B", and to be about a Greek copy of the Christian Bible.  Our article here seems to be specifically Samaritan Pentateuch.  Further, article Codex Vaticanus B appears to be about something from Mexico, so would be completely different.
 * If this is right, it suggests (at least) three different documents, each having an associated name within its context of "Codex B". We probably need a disambiguation page. Let's see if anyone else has any thoughts.  In a few days, if I remember and if there are no contra-indications in this discussion, I'll go ahead with the disambiguation page.  I'll also take account of an additional complication, namely the redirect at "Codex b" (lowercase "b") which is different from that at "Codex B" (uppercase "B").
 * Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:03, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * On reflection, cleaning up the redirects and creating the disambiguation page seem uncontroversial. So, following WP:BOLD, I've done that.
 * In addition the articles themselves might benefit from something like a "for" or "not to be confused with" hatnote near where they mention "Codex B". I'll give some thought to that.
 * Feline Hymnic (talk) 10:50, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

failure of impartiality
The comparison of the Samaritan Pentateuch with the Masoretic text implicitly or explicitly treats the latter as canonical and regards the Samaritan as a variant text, e.g. "This variation has similarities to Deuteronomy 27:2-8 and is supported by changes to the verbal tense within the Samaritan text of Deuteronomy indicating that God has already chosen this place." This section should stick to presenting the differences. Explanation and evaluation of those differences is a matter for the section of textual criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16b8:5cf9:200:d5be:e1f0:ac99:e004 (talk • contribs)


 * Agreed. Will add POV template referencing this section of the talk page to that section. -- Jacob&#39;s Crackers (talk) 18:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Also agreed. I will go through all sources given and try to work on this section, taking into account your comments - no version should be referred as the canonical one nor as the variant one, both being two different versions which are obviously considered by their own groups to be the original, canonical one. Dan Palraz (talk) 10:42, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 22 May 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Current title is the WP:COMMONNAME. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 12:54, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Samaritan Pentateuch → Samaritan Torah – Pentateuch and Torah are perfect synonyms, but the most common name is Samaritan Torah, and it is the form used by the Samaritans themselves&#32;Dan Palraz (talk) 12:34, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). DanCherek (talk) 12:57, 22 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I think this would benefit from a RM discussion given the previous objection raised at Talk:Samaritan Pentateuch/Archive 1. Though it was more than a decade ago, it looks like there is still a disparity in Google Scholar hits (304 vs 7500); whether or not that's actually important would be a matter for a full discussion. DanCherek (talk) 12:45, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! As you pointed out, a discussion happened 11 years ago and no one actually opposed moving it to Samaritan Torah (which would also sound more fair, as the Jewish text is under Torah rather than Pentateuch), the only problem they pointed out was that the article is so sporadically visited that they thought a discussion wouldn't take place. 11 years later, I have to agree... But I will accept what you deem as appropriate. Thanks again. Dan Palraz (talk) 12:54, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So, I support moving the article from Samaritan Pentateuch to Samaritan Torah. Can anyone else please state their opinions? Thank you. Dan Palraz (talk) 13:04, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose: "Samaritan Pentateuch" brings 114 000 results on Google.com, while "Samaritan Torah" only brings 9 950 there; WP:COMMONNAME. Veverve (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2022 (UTC)


 * The numbers shown in a quick Google search are not reliable, if you move on to page 12 of the search you'll see that Google actually only has 144 results for Samaritan Pentateuch: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Samaritan+Pentateuch%22&newwindow=12&ei=jp-KYpnNE9iQxc8PtrW34As&start=110 Either way, Pentateuch is still a little more common as it is the Greek, Christian version of the Hebrew word Torah, but as the Jewish Pentateuch's main article is Torah and not Pentateuch, it seems reasonable that we should grant the same treatment to the Samaritans. Dan Palraz (talk) 20:42, 22 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The current title is far more common. Srnec (talk) 17:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME, largely because the text is more widely discussed by outside scholars than by adherents, especially in English. It's also more specific: "torah" also has a wider sense of "teachings" to both Jews and Samaritans, which is why Jews often refer to the Pentateuch as "chumesh". This is IMO a very serious issue with the current page Torah, which is confusingly half about the Pentateuch and half about the wider sense of the word. Not relevant to the move but if it helps: I've had a number of opportunities to discuss this text with Samaritan leadership, including Benyamim Tsedaka, and IIRC none of them objected to the use of "Pentateuch." Over the last few years I've started to see "Samaritan text" and "ST" a lot more, so we might have reason to change this soon (also the Hebrew page is נוסח שומרון), but "Samaritan Torah" is too niche to be appropriate. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:32, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.