Editing Samaritan Pentateuch (section)

===Scholarly perspective===
Modern scholarship connects the formation of the Samaritan community with events which followed the [[Babylonian captivity]]. One view is that the Samaritans are the people of the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Kingdom of Israel]] who separated from the [[Kingdom of Judah]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=U1UfMyO-RiEC&pg=PA83 Tov 2001, p. 82]</ref> Another view is that the event happened somewhere around 432 BCE, when Manasseh, the son-in-law of [[Sanballat the Horonite]], founded a community in Samaria, as related in the [[Book of Nehemiah]] 13:28 and ''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]'' by [[Josephus]].<ref>''Antiquities'' XI.7.2; 8.2.</ref> Josephus, however, dates this event and the [[Yahwism|building of the temple]] at [[Shechem]] to the time of [[Alexander the Great]]. Others believe that the real schism between the peoples did not take place until [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean]] times, when the Temple on [[Mount Gerizim]] was destroyed in 128 BCE by [[John Hyrcanus]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=U1UfMyO-RiEC&pg=PA83 Tov 2001], p. 83.</ref>

The script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, its close connections at many points with the [[Septuagint]], and its even closer agreements with the present [[Masoretic Text]], all suggest a date about 122 BCE.<ref name="Buttrick52-35">Buttrick 1952, p. 35.</ref> Excavation work undertaken since 1982 by [[Yitzhak Magen]] has firmly dated the temple structures on Gerizim to the middle of the 5th century BCE, built by Sanballat the Horonite, a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived more than 100 years before the Sanballat mentioned by Josephus.<ref>Magen, Y. ''[http://www.antiquities.org.il/Article_eng.aspx?sec_id=36&subj_id=286&id=472 The Temple on Mount Gerizim]''. Israeli Antiquities Authority.</ref>

The adoption of the Pentateuch as the sacred text of the Samaritans before their final schism with the Judean Jewish community provides evidence that it was already widely accepted as a canonical authority in that region.<ref name = "Buttrick52-35" />