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them, might be vers'd in no other character but the Samaritan character. And therefore the Samaritan Pentateuch is of lefs autority and antiquity for being written in the Samaritan character; and must for that very reafon have been transcribed from the Pentateuch of the Jews written in the Chaldean or Affyrian character; to fay nothing more here of the other reafons to prove it was fo tranfcrib'd.

6. DOSITHEUS, a Samaritan, who (z) liv'd after the times of Jesus, is faid by (a) PHOTIUS to have adulterated the Pentateuch (by mistake (b) call'd the Octateuch) of MOSES with many corruptions.

This

adulterated Pentateuch our learned USHER takes to be the present Samaritan Pentateuch: and he fuppofes, that DOSITHEUS compil'd this new hebrew book out of the hebrew copies of Palestine and Babylon, and the greek verfion receiv'd by the hel lenift Jews; adding and taking away fome paffages, and changing others, according to his pleasure. And he particularly fupposes him to have corrupted that Pentateuch by inferting therein fome of the Septuagint chronology; which alfo was a corruption

first

(z) Origen contra Celf. 1. 1. & in Matt. 27. Tract. (a) Photii Bibl. p. 883, 886.

(b) Uferii De Edit. Sept. Int. p. 216,

first introduc'd in the Septuagint. (By which the reader may eafily fee, why the Septuagint is more conformable to the Samaritan than to the hebrew text; and alfo how (c) improper it is to fettle the true reading of the Pentateuch, even as it was in our Saviour's time, by the Samaritan Pentateuch.) But whether or no, DOSITHEUS, the Samaritan, was the compiler of the Samaritan Pentateuch; it is not improbable, according to (d) DUPIN, to fuppofe, that fome modern Samaritan compil'd it chiefly out of the different copies of the Palestinian and Babylonian Jews, and the Septuagint (the fources, from whence USHER fuppofes DOSITHEUS compil'd it); because it fometimes agrees with the hebrew copies of Palestine, fometimes with those of Babylon, and fometimes with the Septuagint.

I would not be thought in this matter of DOSITHEUS, &c. which I borrow from the great USHER, and from DuPIN, to espouse either of their hypothefes; to which they feem driven by their judgment on the state of things, and by their inclination to folve difficulties purfuant to their religious notions.

But

(c) Ib. p. 218, 219.

(d) Dupin Differt, Prelim. &c. p. $33, 534.

But I use those hypothefes here, as I do the hypothefes of other learned divines in relation to many parts of the dispute between Mr. W. and my felf, merely to oppofe Mr. WHISTON; Who every where proceeds on the most precarious hypothefes; because feemingly proper to folve difficulties, in his way. And the fole inferences I would make from fuch topicks, against Mr. W. are; that there is no end of hypotheses; that they are so uncertain, that nothing ferving to establish an opinion can be justly inferr'd from them; and that by their number and uncertainty, they feem the effects of not understanding rightly the christian religion it self, and the true grounds and reasons of it.

7. Lastly I obferve, that ORIGEN ; who understood hebrew well, and liv'd and convers'd much with the Jews in Palestine; who was greatly skill'd in the literature of the Old Testament; and who compleated three most laborious and useful works towards understanding the Old Teftament, viz. his Tetrapla, Hexapla, and Octapla (in the two laft whereof he inferted the vulgar hebrew text); wholly omitted the Samaritan Pentateuch, and gave the hebrew text in the vulgar jewish, and not (e) in the Samaritan

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(e) Montfaucon, Prælim, ad Origenis Hexapla, p. 21.

ritan character; tho' he thought fit to give the bebrew text over again in greek characters. Nor does he appear to have used the Samaritan Pentateuch in his notes on the Hexapla, towards fettling the text in any refpect. And confequently ORIGEN must have judg'd the Samaritan Pentateuch of no importance towards fettling the reading and fenfe of that part of the Old Testa

ment.

8. So that I think I may venture to conclude, that Mr. W. has not the least ground to date the Samaritan Pentateuch fo high as the times of JEROBOAM, against which three have appear'd feveral demonstrative arguments; and for which he has as little colour, as the Samaritans themfelves have for a manufcript copy of their Pentateuch (f) pretended to be deriv'd to them from the times of PHINEAS, contemporary with MoSES; whereby they are equally abfurd with the Ferufalem Jews, and others, who make MOSES author of the account of his own death and burial, and of the comparison between himself and the prophets in Ifrael, who fucceeded him; to fay nothing of the abfurdity in pretending to have a manufcript of a (g) book, whereof it will be diffi

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(f) Simon Hift. Crit. du V. Test. p. 130.
(g) lb. p. 512.

difficult to find one of above 600 or 700 years

old.

VIII.

That the apostles did not always quote the Septuagint verfion.

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T has been (b) long disputed among the learned whether the citations made from the Old in the New Teftament were taken from the Hebrew or Greek bible. Which feems a strange difpute: for it should feem easy to know from whence a man who makes feveral hundred quotations from the Old Teftament, fhould take them. But feveral of thofe quotations being made after the jewish manner of quoting authors, where in great liberty was taken in varying, both as to words and fenfe, from the authors quoted; the learned are at a lofs how to account for many quotations, which neither agree to the Hebrew or Septuagint, and alfo how to account with certainty even for fuch as agree either with the Hebrew or Septuagint.

Mr. W. (i) contends, that the apostles always quoted the Septuagint. But, if we

P

(b) Whiston's Essay, p. 87.

(i) p. 176, &c.

may

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