The changed text is in the Samaritan Pentateuch at Deuteronomy 27:4 (scroll down in the link to verse 4 for comparison with MT).
Here is the Awake passage (g76 7/22 p. 27):
- Unlike the Jews, the Samaritans worshiped at Mount Gerizim, claiming that this was the holy mountain of God. However, they had no basis for this. The five books of Moses, which they accepted as their inspired Scriptures, did not justify their viewing Mount Gerizim as sacred. Evidently to give credence to their belief, the Samaritans changed a passage in the fifth book of Moses to read “Gerizim” instead of “Ebal.” (Deut. 27:4)
Here is how the NAC-Deuteronomy commentary (Eugene H. Merrill, pp. 342-43) describes the location aspect of 27:4
- The place selected for the ceremony of covenant renewal was also significant, for it marked the site of Abraham's first alter in Canaan and the Lord's promise there to give his descendants the land as an inheritance (Gen 12:6-7). It was also the location of Jacob's well (Gen 33:19; cf. John 4:5) and later the tomb of Joseph (Josh 24:32). The area as a whole was Shechem, two features of which were the twin mountains, Ebal and Gerizim. Moses had already described these mountains as the locales of covenant curse and blessing respectively (cf. Deut 11:29), but only Ebal appears here, probably as a pars pro toto ("part [taken] for the whole"; cf. Josh 8:30) and also because of the greater length of the curse section with which Ebal was associated. Indeed, the Samaritan Pentateuch has Gerizim for Ebal in the text, but this obviously reflects a Samaritan ideological preference and not the original reading.
In other words, "Ebal" in the MT of Deut 27:4 is probably shorthand for both the twin mountains Ebal and Gerizim (compare the context at Deut 27:11-14). The passage in John 4:20 has the Samaritan placing Jerusalem (not Ebal) in opposition to "this mountain" (Gerizim), which was probably in full view as Jesus and the Samaritan woman talked at Jacob's well.
About Jerusalem as a 'place for worship,' the BECNT-John commentary (Andreas J. Kostenberger; p. 154) says:
- Jewish tradition widely affirmed the religious supremacy of Jerusalem (e.g. Midr. Ps. 91.7 on Gen. 28:17). The Pentateuch, however, does not specifically identify Jerusalem as the proper place of worship - though other portions of Scripture do (see 2 Chron 6:6; 7:12; Ps 78:68-69) - which led the Samaritans to establish their own sanctuary on Mount Gerizim.
A footnote reads:
- C. Koester (1990b: 673-74) notes that while Samaritans claimed Moses had hidden the vessels of the tabernacle on Mount Gerizim (see Josephus, Ant. 18.4.1) the Jews traced the roots of Samaritan idolatry to when Jacob's wife Rachel stole and hid her father's household gods in that place (Gen 31:19, 34; cf. 35:4; see Gen. Rab. 81.3 [ca. A.D. 180]; Psuedo-Philo, Bib. Ant. 25.10)
The real problem for the Samaritans was, not so much changing "Ebal" to "Gerizim," but rather, restricting their belief in God's Word to just the first five books of Moses.
