Ben Hur, the novel, part 20

So, Book VII.

Chapter 1 has a falsehood about the tribes of Israelites. Whatever tribes composed the Samaritans, it was not known at that time who they were, except for the kohanim. In the 21^st century, DNA testing has confirmed that Samaritan kohanim are descended in the male line from the same male forebear as Jewish kohanim. There are three other genetic entities among the Samaritans, two of which are more closely related to each other than to the third. We have no surviving members of any of the ten northern tribes to compare their DNA to, so as to see which ones the three are – except that while they are Israelites, they are not Judeans.

In fact, in Deuteronomy 34:1-3, where Mosheh looks out from Mt. Pisgah over the land and sees the territories of the tribes, each tribe is named. In Jewish Torah at any rate. In Samaritan Pentateuch, no tribes are named. All of that was swept away in the Assyrian conquest. The missing tribal names are an indicator that Samaritan Pentateuch transmitted orally for a long time, during which tribal distinctions were forgotten and evaporated out of the recital. This evaporation over time of geographical data is part of Olrik’s principles.

But of course if Wallace wasn’t bothering to read his own Bible, he wouldn’t have studied Samaritan Pentateuch.

Now, it’s Nisan and Wallace has forgotten part of his Christian scripture. He has said nothing about the moneychangers in the Temple. In fact, all the people with Judah would have known about this. Purim is the time of year when Jews pay their poll tax, which goes to fix roads so that pilgrims can get to Jerusalem for Passover. Villages can collect the tax and send it to Jerusalem with a delegate so as not to interrupt everybody’s springtime work.

The tax has to be paid as a half shekel. You cannot pay in Greek or Roman coin. Therefore everybody has to change what coins they have for shekels. That’s why there were tables set up in the Temple where the coins were being changed. Whipping these people out of the Temple disrupted people obeying a mitsvah, which contributed to upkeep of the temple and observance of another mitsvah, Passover.

Whichever Christian scripture discusses that tale was not written by anybody who knows about Judaism, let alone cares about Jewish observance.

Skipping chapters 2-4, I will note that we are up to about 8 Nisan, and Passover starts the 14^th.