Samaritan script

The Samaritan Hebrew script, or simply Samaritan script, is the alphabet used by the Samaritans for their religious and liturgical writings. It serves as the script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of texts in Samaritan Hebrew, and of commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic.

Historically, the Samaritan script is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, the script in which much of the Hebrew Bible was originally written and which was used by the people of Israel and Judah during the Iron Age. In classical antiquity, the better-known "square" Hebrew alphabet—a stylized form of the Aramaic script known as Ashurit (אשורי, “Assyrian”)—came into use and, from the period of the Babylonian exile onward, became the standard script of Jewish writing. Paleo-Hebrew letter forms, however, continued to appear on Jewish coinage and in certain sacred contexts, while both paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic scripts are attested among the Samaritans in this period.

The precise date of the Samaritan script's emergence is debated. Some scholars have argued that it diverged from paleo-Hebrew in the late Hasmonean or early Roman period. More recent epigraphic and archaeological research, however, indicates that the script was developed in the 4th century CE. Inscriptions, mosaic texts, and inscribed pottery lamps attest to its use from Late Antiquity onward.

The Samaritan script derives from the ancient paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which was used in ancient Israel during the Iron Age. Although most Jews adopted the square Aramaic ("Jewish") script during the Second Temple period, paleo-Hebrew letter forms were preserved on Jewish coins from the First Jewish Revolt (66–70 CE) and the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE). Samaritan traditions and Jewish sources (e.g., the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 21b) suggest that the Samaritans continued to use paleo-Hebrew for sacred texts into Late Antiquity, possibly as late as the 3rd century CE.

Scholars differ on the precise date of the Samaritan script's emergence. Frank Moore Cross, James Purvis, and others argued that it branched from the paleo-Hebrew alphabet during the late Hasmonean or early Roman period, while some have suggested a 1st-century CE origin. More recent research by Dan Barag, based on epigraphic and archaeological evidence—such as inscribed lamps, mosaic inscriptions, and architectural fragments—indicates that the Samaritan alphabet was created in the 4th century CE.

Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim provide important early evidence for the history of Samaritan writing. Hundreds of texts in Aramaic and Jewish "square" script, along with a handful in palaeo-Hebrew, have been discovered at the site, all predating the destruction of the Samaritan temple by John Hyrcanus in 113/112 BCE. None of these are written in the Samaritan script, a fact that suggests the alphabet was not yet in use during this period.

The first clear attestations of the Samaritan script appear only several centuries later. A notable example is the Emmaus Capital, a limestone capital inscribed with a Samaritan blessing alongside the Greek invocation Εἷς Θεός ("One God"). Although some scholars once proposed a 1st-century CE date, the use of this Greek formula indicates that the inscription cannot predate the mid-4th century CE. Similarly, the lintel from Beit el-Ma, discovered near Shechem, bears a Samaritan version of the Ten Commandments. Scholarly opinion on its dating has ranged from the 3rd to the 12th century, but the prevailing view places it within the late Roman or Byzantine period, between the 4th and 6th centuries CE.

The use of the script by the Samaritans is documented as early as the 4th century CE by the Christian scholar Jerome, who records having seen authentic examples of Samaritan writing. In one of his works, he remarks: