The Mount Ebal site isn't Joshua's Altar

The biggest issue is that it’s on the northern side of the Mountain while Gerizim is to the South, and Ebal is the taller of the two mountains. Since the blessing ritual foretold in Deuteronomy 11 and 27 and fulfilled in Joshua 8 requires people to stand on both mountains facing each other, Joshua’s Altar must have been on the south side.

But also when I read Deuteronomy and Joshua I don’t picture a full structure like this site, I picture just the Stones with the Law written on them, Stones that were probably removed at some point and so are unlikely to be found by archeologists. 

This site is supported by the same Biblical Archaeology YouTube Channels that promote the 1446 BC Amenhotep II Exodus simply because they want to cling to every seemingly Bible verifying Archaeology site that isn’t seen as complete wackery like Ron Wyatt’s claims. So they ignore or explain away the fact that it is archaeologically an early Iron Age site. 

Late Exodus proponents like David Falk promote it because broadly an early Iron Age date for Joshua suits them. But since the use of this site starts in 1220 BC it’s actually too early for Falk’s model which has the conquest start in 1215 BC 40 years after the death of Ramses II’s first son, which is the earliest plausible Ramses II Exodus date. 

The fact that the animals offered here were all Levitically Clean is evidence this was an Israelite not Canaanite site, I won’t dispute that. But this wouldn’t be the only Israelite cultic site we’ve found not otherwise mentioned in Scripture, there’s also the Tel-Motza Temple and the Tel-Arad Temple. 

Arad is easy enough to expect such a thing from due to its association with the Kenites, the Pre-Aaronic Priesthood of the Father In-Law of Moses in Judges 1:16. 

But Motza is a very obscure place mentioned in The Bible only once.  I had at one point tried theorizing it was Nob using Isaiah 10 as evidence it must be very close to Jerusalem, but Isaiah 10 also seems to be intending locations north of Jerusalem, the direction from which  Assyria’s army was approaching. 

Back to the subject of this northern Ebal Altar. I at first considered Jeroboam (the theory that his calves at Bethel and Dan were like the Cherubim of a Nationwide Holy Place and so his Capital of Shechem was where Sacrifices were made), but he’s too late for 1220-1000 BC even in Ussher’s timeframe for Solomon. 

There is a certain type of Fundamentalist who thinks Josiah’s ban on making sacrifices anywhere other than The Temple must have applied all the way back to Moses because it seems at face value similar to the commands in Leviticus 17:3-4 and Deuteronomy 12:13-14 and 18. That of course would be a problem for even Joshua’s Altar still being a place of Sacrifices after The Tabernacle was set up at Shiloh. 

In the case of Deuteronomy this ignores the context of verse 12 being about the Levites in many Gates and verse 15 saying you can eat flesh in any Gates which would seem to contradict Leviticus 17 saying you only eat Animals offered in Levitical Sacrifices. The word for “One” in Deuteronomy 12:14 is Echad, the same word that says The Lord is One which Trinitarians should take note of.  Deuteronomy 12:21 clarified that these offerings can be made at other places that are far from the main place. Joshua 22:10-34 shows that the Trans-Jordan Tribes had at least one Altar of their own. 

The natural reconciliation of these issues is that sacrifices have to be made at proper Levitical locations.  Which means any of the Levitical Cities from Joshua 21 could house legitimate places for Sacrifices. Not all of them had whole structures like these built, but it seems some did and maybe more will be found some say.

Shechem (which both mountains are considered part of) is one of those cities, it could be the Shechemite place for offering was originally where Joshua’s Altar was, but some events that happened during the transition from the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age caused it to change. 1220 BC is in my preferred timescale for the very late Judges period.

Or since Shechem was also the border between Ephraim and Manasseh they may have had places for making Sacrifices both on the South of Gerizim for Ephraim and the North of Ebal for Manasseh. That could be part of why Western Manasseh has less Levitical cities in Joshua 21 then other tribes, they were also sharing Shechem with Ephraim. I assume Gerizim is less excavated than Ebal because of its sacredness to the Samaritan Community, even if no remains exist there could be any number of reasons Ebal’s Early Iron Age altar survived but Gerizim’s did not. Or maybe Ebal always had the larger full structure because it was for sharing with Manasseh. 

City names that appear only in Joshua 21 are likely known by other names elsewhere including earlier in Joshua, that’s what I’ve already argued in prior posts about Ai/Hai and Kibzaim. Since Motza/Moza appears only in Joshua 18 and Almon only in Joshua 21 the possibility that they’re the same can’t be ruled out. It’s also possible that Nob is another name for Gibeon or the part of Gibeon where the Levites lived.

The only proposed locations for Ramoth-Gilead I consider plausible are those south of the Zargo/Jabbok River, it’s in the territory of Gad not Manasseh and is the middle of the Trans-Jordan Cities of Refuge leading me to conclude it should be close to the same latitude as Shechem. It may also be the site of both the Joshua 22 Altar and Penuel. 

But also sometimes the Israelites did just do things they weren't supposed to. 

On the mostly unrelated subject of the textual variations in the references to these Mountains in Deuteronomy. The DSS fragments of Deuteronomy and the LXX agree that the Altar was on Ebal. 

To the people who argue that even independent of everything else the Samaritans are clearly inserting about Gerizim it feels wrong for the Law to be placed on the Mountain of The Curse rather then Blessing. Christians should realize that this perfectly predicts Paulian theology in Galatians 3:10-13. 

It is precisely the fact that the Law being on Gerizim in the SP fixes an apparent problem that proves it's not the original, people don't alter texts to create problems. Same with Terah's lifespan being shortened in Genesis 11. 

Stephen was probably not a Samaritan

There is a claim out there that some of the odd things Stephen says in Acts 7 can be explained by him perhaps being a Samaritan or influenced by their traditions. While I found this idea interesting at first, I quickly came to realize that the specific pillars of the claim are faulty, and it has some major counter-evidence.

Stephen is Pro-David while the Samaritan Tradition is Anti-David. The way Stephen uses Psalm 132 even implies the location of David's Tabernacle not Solomon’s Temple is the true intended location of the Mishkan, not very compatible with the Samaritan Gerizim tradition. Stephen also quotes Prophets the Samaritans don’t recognize like Isaiah and Amos. 

The Samaritan Pentateuch reflects the Samaritan Custom of saying Shehmaa (The Name) instead of Adonai (The Lord) as stand in for the Tetragrammaton. Stephen in Acts 7 is definitely following the Jewish custom here, in verses 30-37, 49 and 59-60. Saying The Name did also become a custom in Rabbinic Judaism, but it seems to have developed later, I’m aware of no example of it in the First Century CE or BCE. The New Testament certainly never does it, the word name is only ever a descriptor never used as a Name or Title for God. 

Some of the things alleged to be explained by textual differences between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic Text, like saying 75 rather than 70 people went to Egypt, are just as easily explained by following the Septuagint which is what you’d expect from him being a leader in a Greek Speaking Jewish Community, but more than that so were his accusers which included Jews of Alexandria and Cyrene the specific communities most likely to be attached to the LXX. Stephen’s quote of Amos is another case of him using the LXX. 

As an enemy of LXX primacy and the popular claim that the NT consistently uses it I consider Stephen in Acts 7 the one case where the Septuagint likely is the source material being used.  I believe the overall message of Stephen’s sermon is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but since he’s not an Apostle I wouldn't treat as infallible specific details unique to him or his choice of text. 

Saying Terah died right before Abraham leaves Harran at 75 is not a conclusion you need the Samaritan Pentateuch to come to.  In fact if you aren’t stopping to do the math then it is in all versions the natural conclusion since Genesis describes Terah dying and then Abraham being called out of Harran. Now sometimes Genesis does describe things like this out of order, especially when changing which generation is now the Main Character, so this alone isn’t proof Stephen was right on this matter but it does show you can jump to this assumption no matter which text you’re using. 

The apparent contradiction caused by the math that only the SP lacks is easily resolved by remembering that Genesis 5:32 and 6:10 and 7:13 and 9:18 and 10:1 all list Noah’s sons as Shem, Ham and Japheth while the rest of Genesis 10 clearly treats Japheth as the oldest and explicitly says he is in verse 21. Sometimes the sons are named not in birth order but in an order that lists the one the overall Biblical Genealogy goes through first. So Abraham being listed first in Genesis 11:26-27 repeats that pattern, Nachor seems to be Terah’s first born since he and his descendants inherited Terah’s land in Harran. 

It’s Acts 7:16 that really seems to a casual observer very Samaritan.  Except that the Samaritan Pentateuch doesn’t actually disagree with the Masoretic text on either issue Stephen is alleged to be contradicting the Masoretic Text on. In the SP the first three Patriarchs are buried at Mamre in Kirjath-Arba aka Hebron and Jacob not Abraham bought a field near Shechem from Hamor/Emmor the father of Shechem/Sychem. We also saw in verses 8-9 that Stephen used the term Patriarch primarily of Jacob’s sons, not Jacob and his ancestors. And verse 15 explicitly distinguished the fathers who died in Egypt he’s talking about from Jacob.

Stephen is not directly saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried in Shechem, the intent to me is clearly to refer to people who died in Egypt and were at first laid to rest there until the Exodus. The actual Hebrew Bible Texts only directly refer to Joseph having his body moved and buried at Shechem on the land bought from Hamor in Joshua 24:32, but it's reasonable to infer others were with him. 

Saying Abrahm bought the field from Emmor is not quite as easy to explain. It could be it was land Abraham intended to buy but it wasn’t carried out till Jacob.  Like how Elisha fulfilled some missions first given to Elijah like anointing Jehu and Hazael. We do know that Abraham had spent time in the area of Shechem in Genesis 12:6 where he did build an Altar.

People just assumed off vibes that saying something unusual about Shechem sounds Samaritan.  I do see some people word this as about Samaritan Traditions not the SP text itself, but whether or not such a tradition exists, it’s not the only way to come to Stephen’s conclusion. The Samaritan tradition is that all of Jacob’s sons were buried at Shechem, not just Joseph, no contradiction on where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried. Stephen could be referring to that, or he could be referring to sons and grandsons of Joseph.  The only Shechem based Samaritan disagreement about events involving Abraham is wanting the location of Isaac’s offering in Genesis 22 to be Moreh rather than Moriah, that too involved no textual difference it seems just interpreting them to be the same name, and is irrelevant to anything in Acts 7.

Stephen also doesn't have to be a Samaritan to see himself as a descendent of specifically the Joseph Tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. I do believe the Samaritans descend from Ephraim and Manasseh not the gentiles settled in the region by the Assyrians as I talked about in a prior post. But they aren’t the only descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, those who in 2 Chronicles 30 took part in Hezekiah’s Passover I believe became citizens of Judah and thus Jews. 

Another appeal to Samaritan tradition is the idea that God first called Abraham when he was still in Ur Kassidim.  Nothing in the actual Text of Genesis contradicts such a thing, I'm sure you can find plenty of purely Jewish fan fiction depicting God already calling Abraham at Ur Kassidim.  In fact the KJV reading of Genesis 12:1 says " now YHWH had said unto" implying now isn't the first time.

Hebrew Textual Variations

I have been a strong supporter of staying strictly Masoretic for the Hebrew text.  And I'm still against any changes that are supported only by the Septuagint.  But I've rethought a few things.

Number one would be differences that do not actually change a single letter, but just the vowel indicators that didn't come into existence till well after New Testament times (and thus can't be included in the Jot and Tittle reference).

This can explain why Acts 15:16 says Man/Mankind(Anthropos) where Amos 9:12 says Edom.  Edom and Adam are spelled the same in Hebrew but pronounced differently.  From that I've wondered if other apparent references to Edom could be the same, like Isaiah 34 which lacks any references to specific Edomite tribal or place names like Teman or Mt Sier.  (Ezekiel 35-36 however does refer to Mt Sier.)

And it seemingly was also merely a difference in vowel indicators that lead one now gone Interlinear Torah website I used to visit to say that Nimrod's name means Rebel in the Masoretic Text but Leopard in the Samaritan Pentateuch.  The spelling is the same, the difference is if it's Marad with an N prefix or Namer with a D suffix.  The Samaritan meaning makes sense in the immediate context of Nimrod being a hunter since Leopards are animals who hunt.  And contrary to what people who want to vilify Nimrod will tell you "Before The LORD" here is not an expression of hostility in the Hebrew, it's the same phrase used of many things done in worship of Yahuah elsewhere.  So no Nimrod isn't rebelling against anything here.  So it's interesting then that Jeremiah 13:23 poetically compares Cushites to Leopards.

But that leads me to the subject of variations that would require changing at least one letter, or more, since the Samaritan Pentateuch has plenty of those.  But it is a received text as well, not some random text found rotting somewhere like the Alexandrian Bibles.

Any Samaritan variation about Mt Gerizim I inherently don't trust, those were motivated by their peculiar reverence for that mountain. And in the case of Deuteronomy 27:4 there are reasons why even non Samaritans might be uncomfortable with placing the Law on Mount Ebal, the Mountain of the Curse, so no, one non Samaritan text agreeing with the Samaritan here doesn't impress me.  But for Christians Paulian Theology explains exactly why that was, meanwhile both Joshua 8:30-33 and Archaeology agree that Mount Ebal is where the Altar was constructed.

Some have suggested the Vulgate supports saying Moreh instead of Moriah in Genesis 22, but that's based on it translating the meaning rather then transliterating the name which really fits both names equally, in meaning Moriah is just Moreh made into a Yah theophoric name by the adding of one additional Yot. And in Genesis 12 Moreh is a plain not a mountain.

But for differences that aren't in any way connected to that issue, the possibility that the Samaritan could be closer to the original is worth considering.  But one thing I'll always be looking for is another witness to that alternate reading.

First off is the Chrono-Genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11.  The Book of Jubilees agrees with the Samaritan on the Genesis 5 ages but not 11.  The Samaritan matches the Septuagint for Genesis 11 except that it doesn't have an additional Cainan/Kenen between Arphaxad and Selah (something I think Christian copyists added to the Septuagint) and has different dates for Terah having him die when Abraham is called at 75 therefore lacking a timeline confusion other versions have.  Someday I could make a whole post on just this issue.

Meanwhile in Genesis 10 what reads Dodanim in the Masoretic is Rodanim in the Samaritan.  However all texts of 1 Chronicles 1:7 read Rodanim here, and the Septuagint transliteration also begins with an R rather then a D.  Yet the KJV uses Dodanim in 1 Chronicles 1:7 even though there is no Hebrew or Greek textual support for that, and the Strongs just claims Rodanim is a scribal error.  I think it's possible the context of what Javan actually refereed to in antiquity fits this name referring to Rhodes better then any identity a spelling that begins with a D leads to.

I've also seen it claimed that the Samaritan Pentateuch agrees with the Septuagint in saying Gog rather then Agag in Numbers 24:7.  Here is a website talking about that issue without firmly taking a side on it.
http://mydigitalseminary.com/gog-or-agag-jesus-or-david/
Now I can add that some have theorized Agag and Gog are basically different forms of the same name.  This is another subject that could become it's own post.  The Samaritans don't revere Ezekiel or any Prophetic books, so there is no reason for them to want to add Gog to a verse he wasn't originally in.  Meanwhile Ezekiel seems to say Gog is a figure already foretold elsewhere.

I may update this post to add more examples in the future.  For now these are the ones that have caught my attention.  None of them change any essential doctrine of Scripture, and are more relevant to my interests as a History Nerd.

Update: DSS(Dead Sea Scrolls) and the Isaiah Scroll.

I guess I should talk about DSS variants.  I talked in my Sethie View post about a DSS variant in the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32) where the Samaritan sides with the Masoretic against the DSS variant.

The Samaritan is of course only relevant to the Pentateuch.  That now dead interlinear website I mentioned above compared Masoretic and Samaritan versions and included DSS readings when there were some, however there were not many from what I recall going over.

The Isaiah Scroll is the only complete book among the DSS manuscripts.  When it comes to talking about how much it agrees with the Masoretic text Wikipedia is the most unbiased discussion of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Scroll#Scribal_Profile_and_Textual_Variants

Now at first it may look like the statement that it mostly agrees with the Masoretic might seem contradicted by saying there were 2600 variations.  Isaiah is a big book, you could theoretically fit that many variations into one of the longer chapters.  Most of them are just stuff like different spellings of the same word or the words being in a different order in ways that do not effect the meaning at all.  A lot of them could just be the Isaiah Scroll using less Yots and Vavs then the Masoretic in places where the Masoretic used those letters as vowels.

There are other DSS fragments of Isaiah, and when it comes to these variations other DSS Isaiah texts tend to agree with the Masoretic over the Isaiah Scroll.    So it doesn't make much sense to use the Isaiah Scroll to invalidate the Masoretic text, yet people try to sometimes to fit various agendas.  Maybe the very reason the Isaiah Scroll is unique among DSS manuscripts of Canonical texts in being complete is because it was a variant non standard text?  But again the variations aren't even significant.

In Isaiah 34:14 the Masoretic Text uses the spelling Lilith but the Isaiah Scroll uses Liliyyoth. I don't know if there are any other DSS manuscripts of Isaiah 34:14 but the Lilith spelling is used in Songs of The Sage (4Q510–511).  The Wikipedia page for Lilith says the Masoretic Spelling is singular and the Isaiah Scroll spelling is plural, but elsewhere ending with a th at all is defined as inherently a feminine plural while the feminine singular is ending with a Heh.  The context of Lilith's reference in 4Q510-511 has everything else listed around Lilith being plural.  So I think the meaning is intended to be plural regardless of which spelling is the original.

An author named Margraret Barker has claimed that the Isaiah Scroll reading of Isaiah 7:11 says "Ask a sign from the Mother of the LORD your God".  Most scholars disagree with this reading of the Isaiah Scroll, and I myself am far from convinced of it.  But Barker popularized this claim to support a fringe theory of ancient Hebrew Goddess worship.  The idea that it could instead lend support to the Christian reading of Isaiah 7:14, that Immanuel is YHWH incarnate, and in turn Cyrillian Christianity's insistence on calling Mary Theotokos, isn't talked about much.