The Samaritans : their Testimony to the Religion of Israel.
By the Rev. J. E. H. Thomson. (Oliver and Boyd. 16s. net.)— Dr. Thomson's learned work, based on a close acquaintance with the last surviving Samaritan community at Nablus as well as on the study of their literature, is designed to throw light on the history of the Pentateuch. He holds that the Samaritans always maintained their religious independence, as against their Jewish neighbours, from the earliest times, clinging steadfastly to the primitive Israelite monotheism. He thinks that Sargon did not deport the whole nation to Assyria but only the leading classes, and that the mass of the Samaritans remained in Central and Northern Palestine—thus destroying the hypothesis on which is based the German theory that Jesus Christ was of Aryan descent. His scholarly account of their history, their sacred books, and their script leads up to the conclusion that the Pentateuch was in existence, in its present form, long before Ezra returned to Jerusalem. Dr. Thomson's book is so well written that, like Dr, Macalister's essay on the Philistines, it will interest ordinary readers who know nothing of Biblical controversy.
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