The text, in an admirably clear Samaritan hand, relates the conversation between Moses and God, the latter promising to deliver his chosen people "unto a land flowing with milk and honey". At the burning bush, Moses asks how he is to convince the Israelites that God has truly appeared to him. The answer unfolds across this remarkable twelfth-century vellum leaf: the promise of deliverance from Egypt into “a land flowing with milk and honey”; the revelation of the divine name, “I am that I am”; and the signs by which Moses is to demonstrate his authority, including the transformation of his staff into a serpent. Preserving Exodus 3:8–4:12 in the distinctive script and textual tradition of the Samaritans, this hitherto unpublished fragment is an exceptionally early witness to one of the defining passages of the Pentateuch. Its imposing dimensions further suggest that it once belonged to a substantial and important codex.

The earliest fragments of the Samaritan Pentateuch date to the eleventh century CE, but most of the manuscripts cited in the recent critical edition by Stefan Schorch date between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Our fragment, apparently dating to the middle of the twelfth century, thus has a place among some of the very first witnesses to the Holy Scriptures in the language of Samaria.

The Samaritan script appears to have evolved at some point after the fourth century CE on the basis of the Palaeo-Hebrew alphabet, which was used in the Davidic kingdom. Although earlier Samaritan inscriptions use the Aramaic or standard "square" Hebrew alphabet, the development of a system of writing based on the pre-captivity script was probably a development meant to assert a separate Samaritan identity against a broader Jewish tradition which was rejected.

In contrast to Jews, Samaritans only regarded the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch or Torah) as canonical. The Samaritan Pentateuch includes a number of smaller variants from the Hebrew Bible, often agreeing more closely with the text of the Septuagint, in addition to the more substantial difference of mandating worship on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem.

A defining moment in Biblical history and a testimony to the endurance of one of the most ancient Israelite communities. Also, an extreme rarity: Rare Book Hub lists only two other sales of Samaritan Pentateuch leaves from the twelfth century, in 2021 and 1978 at Sotheby's.

Provenance

1) Pacific School of Religion, Badé Museum of Biblical Archaeology, Berkeley, California.

2) De-accessioned in 2013 as part of the sale of the Howell Collection of Bibles and other theological rarities.

3) John Windle, San Francisco.

4) European private collection.

Cf. S. Schorch (ed.), The Samaritan Pentateuch: A Critical Editio Maior. I: Genesis (2021), III: Leviticus (2018), Exodus forthcoming. B. Tsedaka & S. Sullivan (eds.), The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah (2013). A. D. Crown, Samaritan Scribes and Manuscripts (Tübingen, 2001).