That's what my friend James Charlesworth (NOT pictured here) just announced after Azusa Pacific’s new acquisition of 5 Qurman fragments. Of course the rest of scholarship can't accept Charlesworth's certainty. After all, they wonder, it supports the claims of the Samaritans to possessing the 'right' text of the Bible. Doesn't that destroy every biased claim we have in favor of the superiority of the Jewish claims for the gospel?Here's what Daniel O McClean has to say about matters, namely that the fragment:
evidently points to Gerizim as the location of the altar to be built by the Israelites, not Ebal. This supports the Samaritan Pentateuch against the Masoretic texts on the location of that altar, but Qumran has a number of texts that are very closely aligned with SP (as well as many that are not). I don’t think it is as black and white as now having the original text, but it definitely adds another piece to the puzzle.
Of course Gerizim is the right mountain. I wonder if McClean has ever noticed that the city of 'Jerusalem' isn't even referenced in the 'Jewish' Torah. Gee, I wonder why that is?
The truth is that the Samaritans are closer to the original traditions of Israel than anyone else. Benny Tsedaka, my Samaritan friend from Tel Aviv will be at my house in November. Anyone that has any questions about the Samaritans or their customs pass them along. He will answer them 'live' when he's over here.
I have actually asked him to do a chapter by chapter Samaritan interpretation of the Torah but no luck so far.
We will undoubtedly be going over to see the manuscript as we have done it before.
