original it felf, is reasonably to be allow'd our most authentick guide in the CHRONOLOGY of the Old Teftament, and not the Septuagint Tranflation; and by confequence not the Samaritan Pentateuch. Which paffage I urge to Mr. W. no further than the reafon imply'd in it will bear. For I am fenfible Mr. W. has much (p) chang'd his thoughts in refpect to the chronology of the Hebrew and Samaritan texts; the first whereof he now thinks falfe, notwithftanding he formerly thought it fo evidently true as to lay it down for an axiom to be granted him without conteft, and the latter true. Nor do I in the leaft blame him for fo doing, who has a right to follow his. judgment, in all matters where-ever it leads him: but, perhaps, he may need to be told, that it very much becomes him, to bear with the differences of others from him; who by his own great change of opinion, and by the difficulties wherewith he fees himself encompafs'd, fhould naturally think most of the theological Subjects he treats of to be of the utmoft uncertainty, and, bating their curiofity, to be in themselves of no manner of importance to the world.

(P) Whilton's Efay, to restore, &c, p. 214.

5. To

5. To derogate yet further from the autority of the Samaritan Pentateuch, I obferve with the learned PRIDEAUX, that tho' that Pentateuch be faid to be written in the old Hebrew (or Phanician, or Canaanitish) character, and fo may feem to have fome advantage over the vulgar hebrew Pentateuch, which is written in the Chaldee character, yet is that Pentateuch, according to him, but a tranfcript from the vulgar Hebrew out of the Chaldean into the old hebrew character. For, (q) fays he, firft, it has all the interpolations, that ESDRAS'S copy (that is, the vulgar Hebrew) bath; whereas had it been ancienter than ESDRAS's copy, it must have been without them. Secondly, there are a great many variations in that copy, which are manifeftly caus'd by the mistake of the fimilar letters in the hebrew alphabet; which letters having no fimilitude in the Samaritan character, this evidently proves thofe variations in the Samaritan copy were made in tranfcribing that from the vulgar Hebrew, and not in tranfcribing the vulgar Hebrew from the Samaritan. From whence it seems paft doubt, that the Samaritan Pentateuch, fuch as it now is, was not in being among

the

(9) Prideaux's Connection, Vol. 1. p. 416. See alfo Simon. H. C. du V. T. p. 66, 67.

the Samaritans till after the compilation of the vulgar hebrew Pentateuch by ESDRAS, and tranfcript of it into Chaldean characters. How long after I pretend not to determine. Dr. PRIDEAUX (r) fuppofes, or conjectures, that MANASSEH, when he fled to the Samaritans with other apoftate Jews, and fettled in Samaria, firft brought the law of Moses among them; which was not long after the fuppos'd compilation of ESDRAS, and was about 400 years before CHRIST, I should fuppofe they had their present Pentateuch, first, among them, much later, For about 160 years before CHRIST, they seem to me to have had as little occafion for the law of MOSES, as the mere Cuthean-Samaritans (s) had from the time of their establishment till long after the return of the Ferufalem Jews from the Babylonish captivity; during all which time they (t) ferv'd their own heathen gods. For fo lately, as 160 years before CHRIST, they (u) petition'd ANTIOCHUS king of Syria, to whom then all Judaa was tributary, that their temple on Gerizim, which had been dedicated to no especial deity, might thenceforth be made

fr) Prideaux, Ib. p. 416, 417.

(s) 2 Kings 17.

(*) v. 33, 34, 41.

u) Prideaux, Ib. Vol. 2. p. 177, 178.

made the temple of the GRECIAN JUPITER; and be fo called for the future. And ANTIOCHUS gratify'd their request; and caus'd their temple to be confecrated to the GRECIAN JUPITER, by the name of JUPITER THE PROTECTOR OF STRANGERS; which additional title, they themselves alfo defir'd, that it might thereby be exprefs'd, that they were Strangers in that land, and not of the race of Ifrael.

Mr. W labours (w) to prove, that EsDRAS was not the transcriber of the Old Teftament out of the Old Hebrew into the Chaldee character; as is afferted by PRIDEAUX and others, in virtue of fome conjectures and he (x) gueffes, that it was a work done about the end of the first, or beginning of the Second century of the gospel. Now, if the Samaritan Pentateuch was tranfcrib'd from the vulgar hebrew bible, after that was tranfcrib'd into the Chaldee character; and if the vulgar hebrew bible was not tranfcrib'd into the Chaldee character, till the time Mr. W. mentions; then is the prefent Samaritan Pentateuch not only not deriv'd originally from the first feparation of the ten tribes in the days of JEROBOAM; but very modern, and not

even

(2) Whifton's Effay, p. 149. (x) Ib, p. 159.

even of autority and antiquity enough to fettle the hebrew text, as it stood in the times of Jesus and his apoftles; to fettle which was the end for which Mr. W. lays fo much stress on the Samaritan Pentateuch.

But after all, fuppofing with (y) SIMON and many other learned men; that the prefent Jewish (which is, the Chaldean or Affyrian) character, was the character always in ufe among the Jews; and that the Samaritan (that is, the Phenician, or Canaanitish, or, as it is alfo call'd, the old Hebrew) character was never used by the Jews before the captivity, in any manner, either in books or medals: it will then follow, that the Samaritan Pentateuch, as written in the Samaritan character, could not be the Pentateuch in its original character, but must have been transcrib'd into that character, either to give it a pretence to antiquity, or to diftinguish it from the Jews Pentateuch, or to render it legible to the inhabitants of Samaria, who, upon the Pentateuch's being firft introduc'd among

them,

(y) Simon Bibl. Crit. Vol. 2. p. 389-435. Toinard apud Le Clerc Bibl. Univ. Tom. 21. p. 131, Allix apud Spanhemii De Numilm. Vol. 1. p. 69, c. Rhenferd Opera Philolog. p. 225—253 •

See Bafnage Hift. des Juifs, 1. 6. c. 24.