139 Journal of Semitic Studies LXI/1 Spring 2016 doi: 10.1093/jss/fgv034 © The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved. PROPER NOUNS IN THE SAMARITAN VERSION OF SAADYA GAON’S TRANSLATION OF THE PENTATEUCH 1 TAMAR ZEWI UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA Abstract The article examines the methods of rendering personal names and place names in the Samaritan version of Saadya Gaon’s translation of the Pentateuch in MS BL OR7562. The examination is based on examples from Genesis 11 to Exodus 1, which are part of the first hand stage in the manuscript. The renderings are compared to those found in various manuscripts and printed editions of Saadya Gaon’s translation of the Pentateuch in Hebrew and Arabic script, in the Samaritan Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, given in two different versions, the old one and its later revision, in Shehadeh’s edition, and in pre-Saadyan Arabic translations. 1. Introduction In the versions of Saadya Gaon’s Arabic translation of the Pentateuch written in Hebrew script a consistent scheme is generally used 1 This research received the support of the Israel Science Foundation (no. 18/09). The article presented here is the English revised version of Zewi 2014, based on a paper presented at the 4 th international meeting of the Center for the Study of Jew- ish Languages and Literatures that took place in Jerusalem on 21 st –24 th June 2010 and at the symposium held in honour of Professor Yosef Tobi in Haifa on 14 th November 2011. I thank Professor Tobi for reading the Hebrew version of this paper and for his important comments. I also thank my student, Dr Mikhal Oren, for her assistance in preparing this version of the article. In Judaeo-Arabic words in Hebrew script an apostrophe stands for diacritical points, as given by the first hand in MS BL OR7562. Square brackets in these quotations indicate restorations of letters and diacritical marks. Superscript apostrophes in square brackets indicate restorations of diacritical marks on letters on which diacritics are not usually noted by the first hand in this manuscript (i.e. ]'[ תand ]'[ ד). Note that the Samaritan transliteration conventions for خand غare ' חand ' עrespectively, unlike ' כand 'ג/ ג in Judaeo-Arabic. by guest on March 12, 2016 http://jss.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from