Page "Samaritan Pentateuch" Paragraph 11

Manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch are written in a different Hebrew script than is used in other Hebrew Pentateuchs.

Samaritans employ the Samaritan alphabet which is derived from the paleo-Hebrew alphabet used by the Israelite community prior to the Babylonian captivity.

Afterwards Jews adopted a script based on the Aramaic alphabet that developed into the Hebrew alphabet.

Originally all manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch consisted of unvocalized text written using only the letters of the Samaritan alphabet.

Beginning in the 12th century, some manuscripts show a partial vocalization resembling the Jewish Tiberian vocalization used in Masoretic manuscripts.

More recently a few manuscripts have been produced with full vocalization.

However, many extant manuscripts show no tendency towards vocalization.

The Pentateuchal text is divided into 904 paragraphs.

Divisions between sections of text are marked with various combinations of lines, dots or an asterisk ; a dot is used to indicate the separation between words.