ERRATA.-VOL. VI., PART 2. OWING to the absence of Mr. Simpson during the time his Memoir of the late Mr. Bonomi passed through the Press, the following have been overlooked : Page 560, line 6, for Adams read Adam. Page 563, line 10, for sepulchre read enclosure. Subscriptions to the Society become due on the 1st of January each year. Those Members in arrear for the current year are requested to send the amount 1 Is., at once to the Treasurer, B. T. BOSANQUET, ESQ., 73, Lombard Street, E.C. Papers proposed to be read at the monthly Meetings must be sent to the Secretary on or before the 10th of the preceding month. Members having new members to propose are requested to send in the names of the Candidates on or before the 10th of the month preceding the meeting at which the names are to be submitted to the Council. On application, the proper nomination forms may be obtained from the Secretary. Vol. VI., Part II., of the "Transactions" of the Society has been delivered to the Members. Only a few complete sets of the Transactions of the Society now remain; they may be obtained by application to the Secretary, Mr. W. HARRY RYLANDS, 33, Bloomsbury Street, W.C. The Library of the Society, at 33, Bloomsbury Street, W.C., is open to Members on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, between the hours of II and 4, when the Secretary is in attendance to transact the general business of the Society. As a new list of members will shortly be printed, Members are requested to send any corrections or additions they may wish to have made in the list which was published in Vol. VI., Part 2. Members are recommended to carefully preserve these "Proceedings," to be bound up with Vol. VII. of the "Transactions," as they will not be reprinted, and if lost can only be supplied at a charge of 3d. each, or 2s. the whole Part. HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. TENTH SESSION 1879-80. Second Meeting, 2nd December, 1879. SAMUEL BIRCH, ESQ., PRESIDENT, D.C.L., LL.D., &c., IN THE CHAIR. THE following Presents were announced, and thanks ordered to be returned to the Donors :— From the Society of Antiquaries: - Proceedings; Second Series, Vol. VII., No. 6, with Title and Index to Vol. VII. 8vo. London, 1879. From the Geological Society :-Quarterly Journal; Vol. XXXV., Part IV., No. 140. List of Fellows, &c., Nov. 1st. 8vo. London, 1879. From the Royal Geographical Society: Proceedings and Monthly Record of Geography; Vol. I., No. 10. 8vo. London, October, 1879. From the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland :-Journal; Vol. VIII., No. 4. 8vo. London, 1879. From the Royal Society of Literature:-Transactions; Second Series, Vol. XII., Part I. 8vo. London, 1879. : From the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland :The Archæological Journal; Vol. XXXVI., No. 143. 8vo. London, 1879. From the Palestine Exploration Fund :-Quarterly Statement. October. 8vo. London, 1879 From the Academy:-Mélanges Asiatiques tirés du Bulletin de l'Academie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg; Tome VIII., Livr. 1 et 2. St. Pétersbourg, 1877. From the Author :-Valdemar Schmidt, Assyriens of Egyptens gamle historie; 2 Vols. 8vo. Kjobenhavn, 1877. From the Author: Leçons d'epigraphie Assyrienne. Par From the Author :-Inscriptions de Hammourabi, Roi de Babylone. Par Joachim Ménant. 8vo. Paris, 1863. 8vo. From the Author :-Les Cylindres orientaux du Cabinet Royal des Médailles à la Haye. Par Joachim Ménant. 8vo. Paris, 1879. From the Author :-L'Inscription de Bavian, Texte, Traduction et Commentaire Philologique, etc. Par H. Pognon. Première Partie. 8vo. Paris, 1879. No. 39 of the Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Études. From the Author :-The Bronze Gates of Balawat in Assyria. From the Author :-Studies, Biblical and Oriental. By Rev. London, From Robert Bagster:-An Elementary Grammar of the Egyptian Language. By P. le Page Renouf. 4to. 1875. From Robert Bagster :-Egyptian Texts. Selected and arranged by S. Birch, LL.D., for the use of Students. 4to. London, 1877. From Robert Bagster :- Chaldean Magic, its origin and developBy Francis Lenormant. 8vo. London, 1878. ment. The following has been purchased by the Council for the Library of the Society:- Répertoire Assyrien (Traduction et Lecture). Par Ed. de Chossat. 4to. Lyon, 1879. The following were nominated by the Council for election at the next meeting on January 6th, 1880: Rev. Alfred Cave, B.A., Watford. Rev. Charles Gutch, B. D., Dorset Square, N.W. Rev. Ed. J. Selwyn, M.A., Ashford, Kent. William George Stuart, Hyde Park Gardens, W. The following were duly elected Members of the Society, having been nominated on Nov. 4th : Edward Hardcastle, M.P. Rev. S. J. O'Hara Horsman, Woodbridge. F. William Lucas, F.L.S., Upper Tooting, S. W. Dr. John Mill, Camberwell, S.E. Rev. A. E. Northey, M.A., Bishop's Stortford. Rev. J. Osborne Seager, M.A., Stevenage. The Rev. A Löwy read the following two papers :— I. On the Samaritans in Talmudical Writings. After an introductory notice of literary sources on the history and the condition of the Samaritans, Mr. Löwy stated that he wished to treat of that period in the history of the Samaritans to which reference is made in Talmudical writings. By so doing, he would leave untouched those subjects on which information was easily accessible to the general student. His remarks would thus be confined to Jewish works, commencing in the second and third centuries A.D. He pointed out that after the subsidence of all political conflicts between that sect and the Jews, two causes presented themselves which operated in perpetuating the division between the two recipients of the religion of Moses. The first cause was to be found in the formulation of the Tenth Com. mandment in the Samaritan Codex of the Five Books of Moses, whereby a startling innovation was introduced. After those words in Exodus, chap. xx., which in the respective creeds of the Jews and the Christians are accepted as the actual Ten Commandments, and which by the Samaritans are contracted into a series of only nine, the Tenth Commandment runs thus : "And it shall come to pass when the law of thy God shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanite, whither thou goest to take possession of it, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and thou shalt wash them with lime [plaster]. And thou shalt write on the stones all the words of this law. And it shall come to pass when you cross the Jordan, ye shall raise these stones which I command you this day in Mount Gerizim." (Cf. Deuteronomy, chap. xxvii., verses 2-8 2-8.) The words which follow are in part adapted to Exodus, chap. xx., v. 24-" And thou shalt build there an altar to the Lord thy God, an altar of stones. Thou shalt not lift up upon them any iron. Of perfect stones thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God. And thou shalt offer thereon burnt offerings to the Lord thy God. And thou shalt sacrifice peace offerings, and thou shalt eat there, and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God. That mountain is on the other side of the Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, who dwell in the plain over against Gilgal, beside the plain (? tree) of Moreh, opposite Shechem." The Aramaic version (the Samaritan Targum) of the Pentateuch, which was composed at the time when the Samaritans still spoke the Aramaic dialect, retains the word "Shechem," which occurs in the concluding part of the foregoing quotation, but in the Arabic versions of the Samaritan Pentateuch Shechem is rendered by Nablus. By making Nablus, even according to the revelation of Moses, the centre of the community of Israel, the schism became irreconcilable for all future times. Thus the seed was sown for those polemical discussions which afterwards sprang up in great abundance, and only decreased when both sectaries became accustomed to ignore each other. The second important cause of creating a permanent division between the Samaritans and the Jews was pointed out by Mr. Löwy in the fact that the Samaritans retained the Archaic mode of writing. Mr. Löwy quoted several allusions which are made in the Talmud with reference to this difference. |