Stefan Schorch - Böcker

This volume provides a view of the pre-industrial, traditional daily life of Palestine's Arab inhabitants at the turn of the century, as seen in the Old Testament.

Beside the Masoretic text, the orally transmitted Samaritan reading tradition is the most important source for the vocalisation of the Torah. The author points to parallel developments in Qumran, and sees the development of the Samaritan tradition from the 2nd century BC as part of the creation of specific group identities within Judaism, and examines its transmission. In addition, the work offers a comprehensive analysis of the more than 400 textually relevant differences in vocalisation between the Samaritan and Masoretic traditions in the Book of Genesis.

The work of Egyptologists, scholars in Ancient Oriental Studies and biblical exegesis concentrates on texts which are translated, commented on, and used as sources. The production and reception of texts in these closely interrelated cultures hardly seems comparable to corresponding models in our world. The present volume resulted from a conference on those differences and commonalities, and addresses the question of what constitutes a linguistic "text" in the cultures referred to. It presents papers on the reconstruction of culturally specific concepts of text from the perspective of the disciplines concerned.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. BZAW welcomes submissions that make an original and significant contribution to the field; demonstrate sophisticated　engagement with the relevant secondary literature; and are written in readable, logical, and engaging prose.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. BZAW welcomes submissions that make an original and significant contribution to the field; demonstrate sophisticated　engagement with the relevant secondary literature; and are written in readable, logical, and engaging prose.

The volume collects eighteen studies authored by specialists of various fields. The contributions gathered in this volume mostly originate in lectures delivered at the 8th Congress of the Société d’Etudes Samaritaines (Erfurt, 2012). In these studies, specialists of various fields deal with various aspects of Samaritan languages, especially Samaritan Hebrew and Samaritan Aramaic, with central Samaritan texts, mostly the Samaritan Hebrew Pentateuch, the Samaritan Aramaic Targum, as well as medieval Samaritan exegetical texts in Arabic, and also with traditions relating to the image of the Samaritans, as emerging from the New Testament and Rabbinic literature, to Samaritan theology and to Samaritan genealogy, and with magical traditions as found in Samaritan amulets, and with the contribution of Samaritan traditions to the literary history of the Pentateuch. The volume provides thus a multifarious reflection of the current status quaestionis in Samaritan studies.

A critical edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch is one of the most urgent desiderata of Hebrew Bible research. The present volume on Leviticus is the first out of a series of five meant to fill this gap. The text from the oldest mss. of SP is continuously accompanied by comparative readings, gathered from the Samaritan Targum and the oral reading, as well as MT, the DSS, and the LXX, creating an indispensable resource for Biblical research.

A critical edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch is one of the most urgent desiderata of Hebrew Bible research. The present volume on Genesis is the second out of a series of five meant to fill this gap. It provides a diplomatic edition of the five books of the Samaritan Torah, based on the oldest preserved Samaritan manuscripts.Throughout the entire work, the Samaritan Hebrew text as gathered from 30 different manuscripts is compared with further Samaritan witnesses (esp. the Samaritan Targum, the Samaritan Arabic translation, and the oral Samaritan reading tradition) as well as with non-Samaritan witnesses of the Pentateuch, especially the Masoretic text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Septuagint, creating an indispensable resource and tool not only for those working with the Samaritan Pentateuch, but for any scholar interested in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible in general, and particularly the Pentateuch.