Ruairidh MacMhanainn Bóid
I HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH THE STATE OF ISRAEL.
See my third book, A Samaritan Plan of Religious History, which has a lot to say about my long-term research.
My main academic lecturing over a very long career has been on the history of the Near East, specialising on the Levant and specifically Palestine and Syria. I 'm mainly concerned with the Hellenistic period (including the time of Roman rule), but my work has continued into the Islamic period. I 'm interested in modern affairs in Palestine and Syria to some extent.
I can see that Christianity is not derived from the religion of Israel, whether in Samaritan or Jewish form, though it has artificially and unsuccessfully camouflaged itself. I'm not a supporter of any form of Zionism, which is inimical to Judaism as well as being self-confessedly criminal in its policy and method. The best explanation seems to be that Zionists worship Ialdabaoth. Christian Zionism negates Christianity.
ALL MY CURRENT WORK IS ON THE SAMARITANS. This itself is a wide field covering linguistics, literature, history of society, and history of religion. I've got a secondary interest in post-classical Arabic and the dialects of Arabic. I'm working on establishing the correct Arabic text of some difficult passages in the history of the Samaritans by Abu 'l-Fateh. bin Abi 'l-H.asan ad-Dinfi. At the same time I'm working on a series of studies on developments in Samaritan religion from the late Persian period to the early Islamic period. I am not a member of the Société d'Etudes samaritaines, for very good academic and political reasons.
Aside from this, I've always been intensively concerned with promoting the culture of all the Celtic countries and the Celtic languages all my life, specially in regard to Scotland and Ireland. I'm a long-term member of the Scottish National Party. I will accept the Anglicisation Roddie for social purposes. I've travelled extensively for long periods, specially to the Philippines, the Near East (erroneously called the Middle East in current usage in some countries), and western Europe. I don't intend to let on where I live now. For the moment, I don't intend to let on what university I'm connected with. If you want to contact me leave a short message on the Academia system with your email address. I always reply to correspondence except when there is a good reason not to. I value communication with academic colleagues. I also value communication with anyone interested in the history or culture or languages of the Celts in general over the centuries, or specifically Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, or the Isle of Man.
See my third book, A Samaritan Plan of Religious History, which has a lot to say about my long-term research.
My main academic lecturing over a very long career has been on the history of the Near East, specialising on the Levant and specifically Palestine and Syria. I 'm mainly concerned with the Hellenistic period (including the time of Roman rule), but my work has continued into the Islamic period. I 'm interested in modern affairs in Palestine and Syria to some extent.
I can see that Christianity is not derived from the religion of Israel, whether in Samaritan or Jewish form, though it has artificially and unsuccessfully camouflaged itself. I'm not a supporter of any form of Zionism, which is inimical to Judaism as well as being self-confessedly criminal in its policy and method. The best explanation seems to be that Zionists worship Ialdabaoth. Christian Zionism negates Christianity.
ALL MY CURRENT WORK IS ON THE SAMARITANS. This itself is a wide field covering linguistics, literature, history of society, and history of religion. I've got a secondary interest in post-classical Arabic and the dialects of Arabic. I'm working on establishing the correct Arabic text of some difficult passages in the history of the Samaritans by Abu 'l-Fateh. bin Abi 'l-H.asan ad-Dinfi. At the same time I'm working on a series of studies on developments in Samaritan religion from the late Persian period to the early Islamic period. I am not a member of the Société d'Etudes samaritaines, for very good academic and political reasons.
Aside from this, I've always been intensively concerned with promoting the culture of all the Celtic countries and the Celtic languages all my life, specially in regard to Scotland and Ireland. I'm a long-term member of the Scottish National Party. I will accept the Anglicisation Roddie for social purposes. I've travelled extensively for long periods, specially to the Philippines, the Near East (erroneously called the Middle East in current usage in some countries), and western Europe. I don't intend to let on where I live now. For the moment, I don't intend to let on what university I'm connected with. If you want to contact me leave a short message on the Academia system with your email address. I always reply to correspondence except when there is a good reason not to. I value communication with academic colleagues. I also value communication with anyone interested in the history or culture or languages of the Celts in general over the centuries, or specifically Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, or the Isle of Man.
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There is unending confusion over the traditional Samaritan dating of historical events in modern academic writing. This has caused confusion over the real dates of important historical events. Most authors rely on Chronicle Adler, a composition in Hebrew made in 1900. It is forgotten that this book relies on older books that are known, even though this has long been common knowledge. In this book information is often changed without evidence for the author's own purpose, and all dates are changed or invented. This article shows where the traditional dating is to be found. It also shows how not to be misled by the current erroneous reckoning used from about 1950. There is extensive documentation not used up till now. A considerable amount of new information on Samaritan theology and history emerged in the course of the investigation. The often overlooked importance of the symbol of a special Jubilee to Jesus's purpose and a resemblance to the Samaritan concept is pointed out.
Note that there is one typing mistake in the translation. At 83:6 I left out "copper or" before "glass". The Arabic is typed correctly. At 82:11 my explanation of the phrase is wrong. It is corrected in my forthcoming book. My explanation of the epithet زرعه is wrong. The explanation is in my forthcoming book. In my note on 82:14, I was wrong in saying Dosithean Priests did not eat teruma. The question is more complicated. See my book. My identification of Sakte's pavilion with the roofless stone enclosure is wrong. I now know that what is meant by saying they did not observe the Passover slaughter follows on from saying they did not observe the Festivals. The explanation in both cases is that they did not go up the Mountain. I did not realise that all parts of what A.F. reports here about the attitude towards the Mountain are specifically about Sakte and not all Dositheans in his time and not any Dositheans at all before or after him. I now acknowledge that when A.F. speaks of a person's shadow falling on a grave, he might mean just that, the actual blockage of sunlight, but might mean being within four cubits. Either or both might have been considered a form of contact. It remains true that there is nothing about shadows of graves just before this.
The later history of transmission is then traced. There is a long excursus on the state of the text of the history by Abu 'l-Fateh. Some textual difficulties are solved as examples of what has to be considered before a reliable Arabic text of this book can be printed. There is a description of the extraordinarily important Comprehensive History by Khad.ir bin Ish.âq, first described in print by Yahuda in 1908, then by Ben-Hayyim, then by me in this article. All three articles are unknown to Pummer, so he does not list the Comprehensive History in his supposedly complete list of Samaritan histories and chronicles. There is a repetition of the proof of the worthlessness of the Hebrew history first put on sale in early 1908 and spruiked by Macdonald, and then used by numerous careless authors ever since Macdonald's publication. Yahuda proved the true origin of the Joshua section, then Ben-H.ayyim for the whole book, but I add more evidence. All this is unknown to Pummer. Very many authors at the moment including Pummer and Florentin treat this book as a modern composition with old content, not knowing that what is genuine comes from the Comprehensive History and the rest is massive copying from the Jewish scriptures and then published history books. Florentin used it as part of the material for his book Late Samaritan Hebrew, never twigging that he was describing Masoretic Hebrew. (He did admittedly describe some real Samaritan compositions as well). It has long been known that Chronicle Adler is an abridged Hebrew translation of the Comprehensive History, but altering the description of what happened by careful omission or rewording so as to suit the author's ideology. Numerous current authors too careless to read Abu 'l-Fateh. and who have never heard of the Comprehensive History, and have never read what has been demonstrated about Chronicle Adler, have accepted what is in Chronicle Adler as uncorrupted transmission and come up with numerous serious mistakes. In my forthcoming book there is a set of examples of serious blunders due to this kind of carelessness by Yitshak Magen, but others are mentioned here and there in the book.
Very much in this article is connected with some of the aspects of Samaritan doctrinal history treated in my forthcoming book. Specially important is the silence or ambiguity of the account of the end of the Time of Favour in regard to the consequences for the right form of the sanctuary after the end of the Time of Favour.
This was the best copy I could get. No text is lost. The pages that are askew can be straightened up by using Adobe Acrobat 2017 Pro, but they can still be read as they are. The letters can be sharpened a lot on the same apparatus by using the "Edit" setting,.
Key-words: Karaites. Oral Torah. Sadducees. Pharisees. Anan.
Books by Ruairidh MacMhanainn Bóid
This book is a collection of all recorded variants in the text of Isaiah I to XXXV in all the midrashim. The variants are thoroughly examined to distinguish between what are certainly real variants, what are probably real variants, and what are probably or certainly copying mistakes. These data are then made part of detailed proof that there is variation within the Masoretic Text and always has been. Most of the variants are minor, but not all. This book follows on from the collection of variants to the Former Prophets by Avigdor Aptowitzer. It, is, however, the first theoretical study. My theoretical work has not been superseded. It is noticeable that there is more variation within the MT of the Former Prophets than the Latter Prophets. The reason could be that excerpts from the Former Prophets were constantly recited in public worship.
A copy of my book was given to Chaim Rabin, who put it in the working reference collection of the Hebrew University Bible Project and drew it to the attention of Goshen-Gottstein. I reminded Goshen-Gottstein of this in a meeting in his office in September 1972. He was openly hostile that I had dared write on a field he thought to be owned by the HUBP and therefore owned by him personally, with him having the authority to give or withhold permission to do research, though he made it clear that no-one living outside the State of Israel would ever be given such permission. He never acknowledged the book's existence anywhere in any publication. The exempIar vanished from the shelves soon after. I have no way of knowing how much it was used by him or anyone else in the HUBP. It corrected a lot of their collations, but there was more, such as work on assessing readings one by one.
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND EXPANDED ARMISTICE DAY 2024.
This is my third book.
This book is the first ever substantial study of the Samaritan expression of the religion of Israel in the first and second centuries A.D., with some reference to the third century. Some later events foreshadowed by the events of the times are brought in.
The Foreword must be read before tackling the book. It is needed as a guide to the structure of the book.
There is extensive documentation, very much of which had been undeciphered or unrecognised. The existence of a Samaritan sanctuary building up till 484 A.D. is documented. It is shown that there were only two parties, Sebuaeans and Dositheans. Some early Christian authors mistakenly attributed some Samaritan characteristics to the Sadducees or confused the two of them. The developments within the Dosithean party are shown to be easily and simply described. The reasons for the conflicting reports on whether Samaritans believed in resurrection at that time are explained. The early date of the ending of sacrifices for strong theological reasons is proven. The favourable policy of Pagan Rome to the Samaritans is proven. The Christian Church strove for centuries to wipe out Samaritan religion by means of massacres in Palestine and the diaspora and economic coercion. The Christian Church's long-term obscuring of the numbers and activity of Samaritans was taken over by pseudo-scholarship, with consequences to this very day. The actual content of the book attributed to Simon is documented and shown to be in accord with the Torah. The Ebionites are identified and their core doctrine is documented.
START WITH THE CONCLUSIONS. They will be useful to readers with sundry interests, and will be enough for most readers. Specialists can use the Conclusions for orientation.
There are earlier studies of aspects of Samaritan halachah, but this book is unique in its method of investigation and depth of historical conclusions. Nothing has been added on the subject by anyone since. There is more on some aspects of history and theory of halachah as a secondary theme in my third book, "A Samaritan Plan of Religious History", which is the first substantial work ever written on Samaritan religion in the first to third centuries A.D.
Chapters by Ruairidh MacMhanainn Bóid
There is extensive use of my work taken from this chapter and from my book without acknowledgment in the book A Companion to Samaritan Studies, edited and compiled by Crown, Tal, and Pummer.
The reason for the misprints is that I was never given adequate access to the proofs by Crown.
Book Reviews by Ruairidh MacMhanainn Bóid
The file of this review came to me with three other reviews by me and one by Christa Müller-Kessler following my review of the translation of the Hebrew grammar. All these are useful. Have a look.
What I say about the form of the Samaritan sanctuary in my review of Böhm's book is superseded in my book "A Samaritan Plan of Religious History". My review of Niessen's book was written before I had seen how carelessly the identification of the content of the mss. had been handled. See the important added information in my article "The Transmission of the Samaritan Joshua-Judges".
There is unending confusion over the traditional Samaritan dating of historical events in modern academic writing. This has caused confusion over the real dates of important historical events. Most authors rely on Chronicle Adler, a composition in Hebrew made in 1900. It is forgotten that this book relies on older books that are known, even though this has long been common knowledge. In this book information is often changed without evidence for the author's own purpose, and all dates are changed or invented. This article shows where the traditional dating is to be found. It also shows how not to be misled by the current erroneous reckoning used from about 1950. There is extensive documentation not used up till now. A considerable amount of new information on Samaritan theology and history emerged in the course of the investigation. The often overlooked importance of the symbol of a special Jubilee to Jesus's purpose and a resemblance to the Samaritan concept is pointed out.
Note that there is one typing mistake in the translation. At 83:6 I left out "copper or" before "glass". The Arabic is typed correctly. At 82:11 my explanation of the phrase is wrong. It is corrected in my forthcoming book. My explanation of the epithet زرعه is wrong. The explanation is in my forthcoming book. In my note on 82:14, I was wrong in saying Dosithean Priests did not eat teruma. The question is more complicated. See my book. My identification of Sakte's pavilion with the roofless stone enclosure is wrong. I now know that what is meant by saying they did not observe the Passover slaughter follows on from saying they did not observe the Festivals. The explanation in both cases is that they did not go up the Mountain. I did not realise that all parts of what A.F. reports here about the attitude towards the Mountain are specifically about Sakte and not all Dositheans in his time and not any Dositheans at all before or after him. I now acknowledge that when A.F. speaks of a person's shadow falling on a grave, he might mean just that, the actual blockage of sunlight, but might mean being within four cubits. Either or both might have been considered a form of contact. It remains true that there is nothing about shadows of graves just before this.
The later history of transmission is then traced. There is a long excursus on the state of the text of the history by Abu 'l-Fateh. Some textual difficulties are solved as examples of what has to be considered before a reliable Arabic text of this book can be printed. There is a description of the extraordinarily important Comprehensive History by Khad.ir bin Ish.âq, first described in print by Yahuda in 1908, then by Ben-Hayyim, then by me in this article. All three articles are unknown to Pummer, so he does not list the Comprehensive History in his supposedly complete list of Samaritan histories and chronicles. There is a repetition of the proof of the worthlessness of the Hebrew history first put on sale in early 1908 and spruiked by Macdonald, and then used by numerous careless authors ever since Macdonald's publication. Yahuda proved the true origin of the Joshua section, then Ben-H.ayyim for the whole book, but I add more evidence. All this is unknown to Pummer. Very many authors at the moment including Pummer and Florentin treat this book as a modern composition with old content, not knowing that what is genuine comes from the Comprehensive History and the rest is massive copying from the Jewish scriptures and then published history books. Florentin used it as part of the material for his book Late Samaritan Hebrew, never twigging that he was describing Masoretic Hebrew. (He did admittedly describe some real Samaritan compositions as well). It has long been known that Chronicle Adler is an abridged Hebrew translation of the Comprehensive History, but altering the description of what happened by careful omission or rewording so as to suit the author's ideology. Numerous current authors too careless to read Abu 'l-Fateh. and who have never heard of the Comprehensive History, and have never read what has been demonstrated about Chronicle Adler, have accepted what is in Chronicle Adler as uncorrupted transmission and come up with numerous serious mistakes. In my forthcoming book there is a set of examples of serious blunders due to this kind of carelessness by Yitshak Magen, but others are mentioned here and there in the book.
Very much in this article is connected with some of the aspects of Samaritan doctrinal history treated in my forthcoming book. Specially important is the silence or ambiguity of the account of the end of the Time of Favour in regard to the consequences for the right form of the sanctuary after the end of the Time of Favour.
This was the best copy I could get. No text is lost. The pages that are askew can be straightened up by using Adobe Acrobat 2017 Pro, but they can still be read as they are. The letters can be sharpened a lot on the same apparatus by using the "Edit" setting,.
Key-words: Karaites. Oral Torah. Sadducees. Pharisees. Anan.
This book is a collection of all recorded variants in the text of Isaiah I to XXXV in all the midrashim. The variants are thoroughly examined to distinguish between what are certainly real variants, what are probably real variants, and what are probably or certainly copying mistakes. These data are then made part of detailed proof that there is variation within the Masoretic Text and always has been. Most of the variants are minor, but not all. This book follows on from the collection of variants to the Former Prophets by Avigdor Aptowitzer. It, is, however, the first theoretical study. My theoretical work has not been superseded. It is noticeable that there is more variation within the MT of the Former Prophets than the Latter Prophets. The reason could be that excerpts from the Former Prophets were constantly recited in public worship.
A copy of my book was given to Chaim Rabin, who put it in the working reference collection of the Hebrew University Bible Project and drew it to the attention of Goshen-Gottstein. I reminded Goshen-Gottstein of this in a meeting in his office in September 1972. He was openly hostile that I had dared write on a field he thought to be owned by the HUBP and therefore owned by him personally, with him having the authority to give or withhold permission to do research, though he made it clear that no-one living outside the State of Israel would ever be given such permission. He never acknowledged the book's existence anywhere in any publication. The exempIar vanished from the shelves soon after. I have no way of knowing how much it was used by him or anyone else in the HUBP. It corrected a lot of their collations, but there was more, such as work on assessing readings one by one.
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND EXPANDED ARMISTICE DAY 2024.
This is my third book.
This book is the first ever substantial study of the Samaritan expression of the religion of Israel in the first and second centuries A.D., with some reference to the third century. Some later events foreshadowed by the events of the times are brought in.
The Foreword must be read before tackling the book. It is needed as a guide to the structure of the book.
There is extensive documentation, very much of which had been undeciphered or unrecognised. The existence of a Samaritan sanctuary building up till 484 A.D. is documented. It is shown that there were only two parties, Sebuaeans and Dositheans. Some early Christian authors mistakenly attributed some Samaritan characteristics to the Sadducees or confused the two of them. The developments within the Dosithean party are shown to be easily and simply described. The reasons for the conflicting reports on whether Samaritans believed in resurrection at that time are explained. The early date of the ending of sacrifices for strong theological reasons is proven. The favourable policy of Pagan Rome to the Samaritans is proven. The Christian Church strove for centuries to wipe out Samaritan religion by means of massacres in Palestine and the diaspora and economic coercion. The Christian Church's long-term obscuring of the numbers and activity of Samaritans was taken over by pseudo-scholarship, with consequences to this very day. The actual content of the book attributed to Simon is documented and shown to be in accord with the Torah. The Ebionites are identified and their core doctrine is documented.
START WITH THE CONCLUSIONS. They will be useful to readers with sundry interests, and will be enough for most readers. Specialists can use the Conclusions for orientation.
There are earlier studies of aspects of Samaritan halachah, but this book is unique in its method of investigation and depth of historical conclusions. Nothing has been added on the subject by anyone since. There is more on some aspects of history and theory of halachah as a secondary theme in my third book, "A Samaritan Plan of Religious History", which is the first substantial work ever written on Samaritan religion in the first to third centuries A.D.
There is extensive use of my work taken from this chapter and from my book without acknowledgment in the book A Companion to Samaritan Studies, edited and compiled by Crown, Tal, and Pummer.
The reason for the misprints is that I was never given adequate access to the proofs by Crown.
The file of this review came to me with three other reviews by me and one by Christa Müller-Kessler following my review of the translation of the Hebrew grammar. All these are useful. Have a look.
What I say about the form of the Samaritan sanctuary in my review of Böhm's book is superseded in my book "A Samaritan Plan of Religious History". My review of Niessen's book was written before I had seen how carelessly the identification of the content of the mss. had been handled. See the important added information in my article "The Transmission of the Samaritan Joshua-Judges".