There are five blessings, one before, and the others after, the haftarah reading. These blessings may go back as far as the haftarah ritual itself. It will be immediately noticed that the haftarah has more, and longer, blessings than the reading of the Torah itself; it is plausible that the reading from the Prophets was given this distinction in order to emphasize the sacred nature of the Prophetic books in the face of Samaritan rejection. If the haftarah is read by the "maftir", then he had already recited two blessings for the Torah reading and the five haftarah blessings means he has recited a total of the significant number of seven blessings. The first blessing is not recited until the Torah scroll has been rolled shut, so that the roller may listen without distraction. And, similarly, the haftarah text itself - whether a book or a scroll - remains open on the lectern until after the final haftarah blessing is concluded. The blessings have changed but only a little over the centuries, the current text apparently coming from the late 11th century "Machzor Vitry", with slight differences from the texts perpetuated in the tractate Massekhet Soferim (possibly 7th or 8th century), and the writings of Maimonides, dating back to the 12th century.