Samaritans (; ; he, שומרונים, translit=Šōmrōnīm, lit=; ar, السامريون, translit=as-Sāmiriyyūn) are an
ethnoreligious group
An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of people who are unified by a common religious and ethnic background.
Furthermore, the term ethno-religious group, along with ethno-regional and ethno-linguistic groups, is a s ...
who originate from the ancient
Israelites
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
. They are native to the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
and adhere to
Samaritanism
Samaritanism is the Abrahamic, monotheistic, ethnic religion of the Samaritan people, an ethnoreligious group who, alongside Jews, originate from the ancient Israelites.
Its central holy text is the Samaritan Pentateuch, which Samaritans ...
, an
Abrahamic
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Jewish tradition ...
and
ethnic religion.
Samaritan tradition claims the group descends from the northern
Israelite tribes
The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( he, שִׁבְטֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל, translit=Šīḇṭēy Yīsrāʾēl, lit=Tribes of Israel) are, according to Hebrew scriptures, the descendants of the biblical patriarch Jacob, also known as Israel, throu ...
who were not
deported
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...
by the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
after the destruction of the
Kingdom of Israel. They consider Samaritanism to be the true
religion of the ancient Israelites and regard
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
as a closely related but altered religion. Samaritans also regard
Mount Gerizim (near both
Nablus and biblical
Shechem
Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first c ...
), and not the
Temple Mount
The Temple Mount ( hbo, הַר הַבַּיִת, translit=Har haBayīt, label=Hebrew, lit=Mount of the House f the Holy}), also known as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, lit. 'The Noble Sanctuary'), al-Aqsa Mosque compou ...
in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, to be the holiest place on Earth.
They attribute the schism between Samaritanism and Judaism to have been caused by
Eli
Eli most commonly refers to:
* Eli (name), a given name, nickname and surname
* Eli (biblical figure)
Eli or ELI may also refer to:
Film
* ''Eli'' (2015 film), a Tamil film
* ''Eli'' (2019 film), an American horror film
Music
* ''Eli'' (Jan ...
creating an alternate shrine at
Shiloh, in opposition to Mount Gerizim.
Once a large community, the Samaritan population shrank significantly in the wake of the brutal suppression of the
Samaritan revolts
The Samaritan revolts (c. 484–573) were a series of insurrections in Palaestina Prima province, launched by the Samaritans against the Eastern Roman Empire. The revolts were marked by great violence on both sides, and their brutal suppression ...
against the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
. Mass conversion to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
under the Byzantines and later to
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
following the
Muslim conquest of the Levant
The Muslim conquest of the Levant ( ar, فَتْحُ الشَّام, translit=Feth eş-Şâm), also known as the Rashidun conquest of Syria, occurred in the first half of the 7th century, shortly after the rise of Islam."Syria." Encyclopædia Br ...
further reduced their numbers. In the 12th century, the Jewish traveler
Benjamin of Tudela estimated that only around 1,900 Samaritans remained in the regions of
Palestine and
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. As of 2021, the community stood at around 840 individuals, divided between
Kiryat Luza
Kiryat Luza ( ar, قرية لوزة, he, קרית לוזה) is a Samaritan village situated on Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank. It is under the joint control of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, and is ...
on Mount Gerizim and the Samaritan compound in
Holon. There are also small populations in
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
and elsewhere. The head of the Samaritan community is the
Samaritan High Priest
The Samaritan High Priest is the high priest (''kohen gadol'') of the remaining Samaritan community in the Levant. According to Samaritan tradition, the office has existed continuously since the time of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and has been ...
. The Samaritans in Kiryat Luza speak
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic, also called Shami ( autonym: or ), is a group of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay on ...
, while those in Holon primarily speak
Israeli Hebrew
Israeli may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel
* Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel
* Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Mo ...
. For the purposes of
liturgy
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
,
Samaritan Hebrew and
Samaritan Aramaic
Samaritan Aramaic, or Samaritan, was the dialect of Aramaic used by the Samaritans in their sacred and scholarly literature. This should not be confused with the Samaritan Hebrew language of the Scriptures. Samaritan Aramaic ceased to be a ...
are used, both written in the
Samaritan script
The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic.
Samaritan is a direc ...
.
Samaritans have a standalone
religious status in Israel, and there are occasional conversions from Judaism to Samaritanism and vice versa, largely due to
interfaith marriages. While Israel's
rabbinic authorities came to consider Samaritanism to be a
sect of Judaism, the
Chief Rabbinate of Israel
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel ( he, הָרַבָּנוּת הָרָאשִׁית לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Ha-Rabbanut Ha-Rashit Li-Yisra'el'') is recognized by law as the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel. The Chief Rabbinate C ...
requires Samaritans to undergo a formal
conversion to Judaism
Conversion to Judaism ( he, גיור, ''giyur'') is the process by which non-Jews adopt the Jewish religion and become members of the Jewish ethnoreligious community. It thus resembles both conversion to other religions and naturalization. ...
in order to be officially recognized as
Halakhic Jews.
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...
rejected Samaritans unless they renounced Mount Gerizim as the historical Israelite holy site. Samaritans possessing only Israeli citizenship in Holon
are drafted into the
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
, while those holding dual Israeli and Palestinian citizenship in Kiryat Luza are exempted from mandatory military service.
Etymology and terminology
Inscriptions from the Samaritan diaspora in
Delos, dating as early as 150-50 BCE, and perhaps slightly earlier, provide the "oldest known self-designation" for Samaritans, indicating that they called themselves "Israelites". Strictly speaking, the Samaritans now refer to themselves generally as 'Israelite Samaritans.'
In
their own language the Samaritans
call themselves ''Shamerim'' (שַמֶרִים), meaning 'Guardians/Keepers/Watchers', and in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
( ar, السامريون, al-Sāmiriyyūn).
The term is
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with the
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
term ''Šomerim'', and both terms reflect a
Semitic root
The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...
שמר, which means "to watch, guard".
Historically, Samaritans were concentrated in
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
. In
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
, the Samaritans are called ''Shomronim'' , which also means "inhabitants of Samaria", literally, "Samaritans".
That the meaning of their name signifies ''Guardians/Keepers/Watchers
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
'', rather than being a toponym referring to the inhabitants of the region of Samaria, was remarked on by a number of Christian Church fathers, including Epiphanius of Salamis in the ''Panarion'', Jerome and Eusebius in the ''
Chronicon In historiography, a ''chronicon'' is a type of chronicle or annals. Examples are:
* ''Chronicon'' (Eusebius)
* ''Chronicon'' (Jerome)
*'' Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham''
*''Chronicon Burgense''
*'' Chronicon Ambrosianum''
*'' Chronicon Compostellan ...
'' and
Origen
Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, ...
in ''The Commentary on Saint John's Gospel.''
Josephus uses several terms for the Samaritans, which he appears to use interchangeably. Among them is reference to ''Khuthaioi'', a designation employed to denote peoples in Media and Persian putatively sent to Samaria to replace the exiled Israelite population. These Khouthaioi were in fact Hellenistic Phoenicians/Sidonians. ''Samareis'' (Σαμαρεῖς) may refer to inhabitants of the region of Samaria, or of the city of that name, though some texts use it to refer specifically to Samaritans.
Origins
The similarities between Samaritans and Jews was such that the rabbis of the
Mishnah
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...
found it impossible to draw a clear distinction between the two groups. Attempts to date when the
schism among Israelites took place, which engendered the division between Samaritans and Judaeans, vary greatly, from the time of
Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
down to the
destruction of Jerusalem
The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Jud ...
(70 CE) and the
Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136 CE). The emergence of a distinctive Samaritan identity, the outcome of a mutual estrangement between them and Jews, was something that developed over several centuries. Generally, a decisive rupture is believed to have taken place in the
Hasmonean period.
Ancestrally, Samaritans affirm that they descend from the tribes of
Ephraim and
Manasseh
Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse.
Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier
* Jacob Manasseh (die ...
in ancient
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
. Samaritan tradition associates the split between them and the
Judean
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...
-led Southern Israelites to the time of the biblical priest
Eli
Eli most commonly refers to:
* Eli (name), a given name, nickname and surname
* Eli (biblical figure)
Eli or ELI may also refer to:
Film
* ''Eli'' (2015 film), a Tamil film
* ''Eli'' (2019 film), an American horror film
Music
* ''Eli'' (Jan ...
, described as a "false" high priest who usurped the priestly office from its occupant, Uzzi, and established a rival shrine at
Shiloh, and thereby prevented southern pilgrims from Judah and
the territory of Benjamin from attending the shrine at Gerizim. Eli is also held to have created a duplicate of the
Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant,; Ge'ez: also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, is an alleged artifact believed to be the most sacred relic of the Israelites, which is described as a wooden chest, covered in pure gold, with an e ...
, which eventually made its way to the Judahite sanctuary in Jerusalem.
A Jewish Orthodox tradition, based on material in the Bible,
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
and the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
, dates their presence much later, to the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. In
Rabbinic Judaism
Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonia ...
, for example in the
Tosefta
The Tosefta ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: תוספתא "supplement, addition") is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the late 2nd century, the period of the Mishnah.
Overview
In many ways, the Tosefta acts as a supplement to the Mishnah ( ...
Berakhot, the Samaritans are called ''
Cuthites
The Cuthites is a name describing a people said by the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament of Christianity) and the first century historian Josephus to be living in Samaria around 500 BCE. The name comes from the Assyrian city of Kutha, in line with the ...
'' or Cutheans ( he, כותים, ''Kutim''), referring to the ancient city of
Kutha
Kutha, Cuthah, Cuth or Cutha ( ar, كُوثَا, Sumerian: Gudua), modern Tell Ibrahim ( ar, تَلّ إِبْرَاهِيم), formerly known as Kutha Rabba ( ar, كُوثَىٰ رَبَّا), is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. ...
, geographically located in what is today
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
.
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
in both the ''
Wars of the Jews
''The Jewish War'' or ''Judean War'' (in full ''Flavius Josephus' Books of the History of the Jewish War against the Romans'', el, Φλαυίου Ἰωσήπου ἱστορία Ἰουδαϊκοῦ πολέμου πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ...
'' and the ''
Antiquities of the Jews'', in writing of the destruction of the temple on Mt. Gerizim by
John Hyrcanus 1, also refers to the Samaritans as the Cuthaeans. In the biblical account, however, Kuthah was one of several cities from which people were brought to Samaria.
The Israeli biblical scholar
Shemaryahu Talmon
Shemaryahu Talmon (Hebrew: שמריהו טלמון) (born Shemaryahu Zelmanowicz; 1920 in Skierniewice, Poland – December 15, 2010) was J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known particularly for his work i ...
has supported the Samaritan tradition that they are mainly descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh who remained in Israel after the Assyrian conquest. He states that the description of them at as foreigners is tendentious and intended to ostracize the Samaritans from those Israelites who returned from the Babylonian exile in 520 BCE. He further states that could be interpreted as confirming that a large fraction of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (i.e., Samaritans) remained in Israel after the Assyrian exile.
Modern genetic studies support the Samaritan narrative that they descend from indigenous Israelites. Shen et al. (2004) formerly speculated that outmarriage with foreign women may have taken place. Most recently the same group came up with genetic evidence that Samaritans are closely linked to
Cohanim
Kohen ( he, , ''kōhēn'', , "priest", pl. , ''kōhănīm'', , "priests") is the Hebrew word for "priest", used in reference to the Aaronic priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. Levitical priests or ''kohanim'' are traditionally b ...
, and therefore can be traced back to an Israelite population prior to the Assyrian invasion. This correlates with expectations from the fact that the Samaritans retained
endogamous
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Endogamy is common in many cultu ...
and biblical
patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritan ...
marriage customs, and that the Samaritans remained a genetically isolated population.
Samaritan version
The Samaritan traditions of their history are contained in the ''Kitab al-Ta'rikh'' compiled by
Abu'l-Fath
Abu'l-Fath ibn Abi al-Hasan al-Samiri al-Danafi, ( ar, أبو الفتح إبن أبي الحسن السامري) was a 14th-century Samaritan chronicler. His major work is ''Kitab al-Ta'rikh'' ( ar, كتاب التاريخ). The work was commiss ...
in 1355. According to this, a text which Magnar Kartveit identifies as a "fictional"
apologia
An apologia (Latin for apology, from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is a formal defense of an opinion, position or action. The term's current use, often in the context of religion, theology and philosophy, derives from Justin Mar ...
drawn from earlier sources, including
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
but perhaps also from ancient traditions, a
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
erupted among the Israelites when
Eli, son of Yafni, the treasurer of the sons of Israel, sought to usurp the
High Priesthood of Israel from the heirs of
Phinehas
According to the Hebrew Bible, Phinehas or Phineas (; , ''Phinees'', ) was a priest during the Israelites’ Exodus journey. The grandson of Aaron and son of Eleazar, the High Priests (), he distinguished himself as a youth at Shittim with h ...
. Gathering disciples and binding them by an oath of loyalty, he sacrificed on the stone altar, without using salt, a rite which made the then High Priest Ozzi rebuke and disown him. Eli and his acolytes revolted and shifted to
Shiloh, where he built an alternative Temple and an altar, a perfect replica of the original on Mt. Gerizim. Eli's sons
Hophni and Phinehas
Hophni () and Phinehas or Phineas () were the two sons of Eli. The first book of Samuel describes them as the officiating priests at the sanctuary of Shiloh at the time of Hannah. According to Josephus, Phinehas officiated as high priest because ...
had intercourse with women and feasted on the meats of the sacrifice, inside the
Tabernacle
According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle ( he, מִשְׁכַּן, mīškān, residence, dwelling place), also known as the Tent of the Congregation ( he, link=no, אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד, ’ōhel mō‘ēḏ, also Tent of Meeting, etc.), ...
. Thereafter Israel was split into three factions: the original Mt. Gerizim community of loyalists, the breakaway group under Eli, and heretics worshipping idols associated with the latter's sons.
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
emerged later with those who followed the example of Eli.
Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of the Israelites from the time that Joshua conquered Canaan and the tribes of Israel settled the land. The reference to Mount Gerizim derives from the biblical story of Moses ordering Joshua to take the
Twelve Tribes of Israel
The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( he, שִׁבְטֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל, translit=Šīḇṭēy Yīsrāʾēl, lit=Tribes of Israel) are, according to Hebrew scriptures, the descendants of the biblical patriarch Jacob, also known as Israel, throu ...
to the mountains by Shechem (
Nablus) and place half of the tribes, six in number, on Mount Gerizim, the Mount of the Blessing, and the other half on
Mount Ebal
Mount Ebal ( he, ''Har ʿĒyḇāl''; ar, جبل عيبال ''Jabal ‘Aybāl'') is one of the two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the city of Nablus in the West Bank ( biblical ''Shechem''), and forms the northern side of the valley i ...
, the Mount of the Curse.
Biblical versions
![100](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/100.Foreign_Nations_Are_Slain_by_Lions_in_Samaria.jpg)
Accounts of Samaritan origins in respectively
2 Kings 17:6,24 and
Chronicles
Chronicles may refer to:
* ''Books of Chronicles'', in the Bible
* Chronicle, chronological histories
* ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', a novel series by C. S. Lewis
* ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', the collected works of Raphael Holinshed
* '' The Idh ...
, together with statements in both
Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
and
Nehemiah
Nehemiah is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. He was governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia (465–424 BC). The name is pronounced o ...
differ in important degrees, suppressing or highlighting narrative details according to the various intentions of their authors.
The emergence of the Samaritans as an ethnic and religious community distinct from other
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
peoples appears to have occurred at some point after the Assyrian conquest of the Israelite
Kingdom of Israel in approximately 721 BCE. The records of
Sargon II of
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
indicate that he deported 27,290 inhabitants of the former kingdom.
Jewish tradition affirms the Assyrian deportations and replacement of the previous inhabitants by forced resettlement by other peoples but claims a different ethnic origin for the Samaritans. The Talmud accounts for a people called
"Cuthim" on a number of occasions, mentioning their arrival by the hands of the Assyrians. According to
2 Kings 17:6, 24 and
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
, the people of Israel were removed by the king of the Assyrians (
Sargon II) to
Halah
Halah (; la, Hala) is a city that is mentioned in the Bible in 2 Kings 17:6 and in 1 Chronicles 5:26. It is noted when Tiglath Pileser III and later Sargon II invaded Israel, the Israelites were taken captive from Gilead and Samaria respectivel ...
, to
Gozan on the
Khabur River and to the towns of the
Medes
The Medes ( Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, ...
. The king of the Assyrians then brought people from
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
,
Kutha
Kutha, Cuthah, Cuth or Cutha ( ar, كُوثَا, Sumerian: Gudua), modern Tell Ibrahim ( ar, تَلّ إِبْرَاهِيم), formerly known as Kutha Rabba ( ar, كُوثَىٰ رَبَّا), is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. ...
,
Avva,
Hamath and
Sepharvaim
Sepharvaim ( he, סְפַרְוָיִם) was a city mentioned in the Bible as being captured by the Assyrians. It was taken by a king of Assyria, probably Sargon II, (cited in the Old Testament in 2 Kings 17:24, 31; 18:34; 19:13; Book of Isaiah 37 ...
to place in Samaria. Because God sent lions among them to kill them, the king of the Assyrians sent one of the priests from Bethel to teach the new settlers about God's ordinances. The eventual result was that the new settlers worshipped both the God of the land and their own gods from the countries from which they came.
In the
Chronicles
Chronicles may refer to:
* ''Books of Chronicles'', in the Bible
* Chronicle, chronological histories
* ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', a novel series by C. S. Lewis
* ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', the collected works of Raphael Holinshed
* '' The Idh ...
, following Samaria's destruction, King
Hezekiah
Hezekiah (; hbo, , Ḥīzqīyyahū), or Ezekias); grc, Ἐζεκίας 'Ezekías; la, Ezechias; also transliterated as or ; meaning "Yahweh, Yah shall strengthen" (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Kingdom of Jud ...
is depicted as endeavouring to draw the
Ephraimites,
Zebulonites,
Asherites and
Manassites closer to
Judah. Temple repairs at the time of
Josiah
Josiah ( or ) or Yoshiyahu; la, Iosias was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE) who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Josiah is credited by most biblical s ...
were financed by money from all "the remnant of Israel" in Samaria, including from Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin. Jeremiah likewise speaks of people from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria who brought offerings of frankincense and grain to the House of YHWH. Chronicles makes no mention of an Assyrian resettlement. Yitzakh Magen argues that the version of Chronicles is perhaps closer to the historical truth and that the Assyrian settlement was unsuccessful, a notable Israelite population remained in Samaria, part of which, following the conquest of Judah, fled south and settled there as refugees.
Adam Zertal
Adam Zertal ( he, אדם זרטל; 1936 – October 18, 2015) was an Israeli archaeologist and a tenured professor at the University of Haifa.
Biography
Adam Zertal grew up in Ein Shemer, a kibbutz affiliated with the Hashomer Hatzair movemen ...
dates the Assyrian onslaught at 721 BCE to 647 BCE, infers from a pottery type he identifies as Mesopotamian clustering around the Menasheh lands of Samaria, that they were three waves of imported settlers.
The ''
Encyclopaedia Judaica
The ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'' is a 22-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people, Judaism, and Israel. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, holidays, langu ...
'' (under "Samaritans") summarizes both past and present views on the Samaritans' origins. It says:
Furthermore, to this day the Samaritans claim descent from the tribe of Joseph.
Josephus's version
Josephus, a key source, has long been considered a prejudiced witness hostile to the Samaritans, He displays an ambiguous attitude, calling them both a distinct, opportunistic ethnos and, alternatively, a Jewish sect.
Dead Sea scrolls
The
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
' Proto-Esther fragment 4Q550
c has an obscure phrase about the possibility of a ''Kutha(ean)''(''Kuti'') man returning but the reference remains obscure. 4Q372 records hopes that the northern tribes will return to the land of Joseph. The current dwellers in the north are referred to as fools, an enemy people. However, they are not referred to as foreigners. It goes on to say that the Samaritans mocked Jerusalem and built a temple on a high place to provoke Israel.
History
Iron Age
The narratives in Genesis about the rivalries among the twelve sons of Jacob are viewed by some as describing tensions between north and south. According to the Hebrew Bible, they were temporarily united under a
United Monarchy
The United Monarchy () in the Hebrew Bible refers to Israel and Judah under the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. It is traditionally dated to have lasted between and . According to the biblical account, on the succession of Solomon's son Re ...
, but after the death of Solomon, the kingdom split in two, the northern
Kingdom of Israel with its last capital city
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
and the southern
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Ce ...
with its capital,
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. The
Deuteronomistic history
The Deuteronomist, abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D, may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy, or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deutero ...
, written in Judah, portrayed Israel as a sinful kingdom, divinely punished for its idolatry and iniquity by being destroyed by the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
in 720 BCE. The tensions continued in the post-exilic period. The
Books of Kings
The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the books ...
are more inclusive than
Ezra–Nehemiah
Ezra–Nehemiah ( he, עזרא נחמיה , ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible found in the Ketuvim section, originally with the Hebrew title of Ezra ( he, עזרא, links=no, ). The book covers the period from the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE t ...
since the ideal is of one Israel with twelve tribes, whereas the
Books of Chronicles
The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third sect ...
concentrate on the
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Ce ...
and ignore the
Kingdom of Israel.
Contemporary scholarship confirms that deportations did take place both before and after the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722-720 BCE. However, these deportations are thought to have been less severe than the Book of Kings portrays.
During the earlier Assyrian invasions, the
Transjordan Transjordan may refer to:
* Transjordan (region), an area to the east of the Jordan River
* Oultrejordain, a Crusader lordship (1118–1187), also called Transjordan
* Emirate of Transjordan, British protectorate (1921–1946)
* Hashemite Kingdom of ...
did experience significant deportations, with entire tribes vanishing; the tribes of
Reuben
Reuben or Reuven is a Biblical male first name from Hebrew רְאוּבֵן (Re'uven), meaning "behold, a son". In the Bible, Reuben was the firstborn son of Jacob.
Variants include Rúben in European Portuguese; Rubens in Brazilian Portugue ...
,
Gad,
Dan
Dan or DAN may refer to:
People
* Dan (name), including a list of people with the name
** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark
* Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa
**Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...
, and
Naphtali
According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Bilhah (Jacob's sixth son). He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali.
Some biblical commentators have suggested that the name ''Naphtali'' ...
are never again mentioned. However, Samaria was a larger and more populated area, and even if the Assyrians did deport 30,000 people as they claimed, many would have remained in the area. The cities of
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
and
Megiddo Megiddo may refer to:
Places and sites in Israel
* Tel Megiddo, site of an ancient city in Israel's Jezreel valley
* Megiddo Airport, a domestic airport in Israel
* Megiddo church (Israel)
* Megiddo, Israel, a kibbutz in Israel
* Megiddo Junction, ...
were mostly left intact, and the rural communities were generally left alone. Some scholars have claimed there's no evidence to support the settlement of foreigners in the area,
however, others disagree. Nevertheless, the
Book of Chronicles records that King
Hezekiah
Hezekiah (; hbo, , Ḥīzqīyyahū), or Ezekias); grc, Ἐζεκίας 'Ezekías; la, Ezechias; also transliterated as or ; meaning "Yahweh, Yah shall strengthen" (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Kingdom of Jud ...
of Judah invited members of the tribes of
Ephraim,
Zebulun
Zebulun (; also ''Zebulon'', ''Zabulon'', or ''Zaboules'') was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers,Genesis 46:14 the last of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's tenth son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Zebulun. Som ...
,
Asher
Asher ( he, אָשֵׁר ''’Āšēr''), in the Book of Genesis, was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Zilpah (Jacob's eighth son) and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Asher.
Name
The text of the Torah states that the name of ''Asher' ...
,
Issachar
Issachar () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fifth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's ninth son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Issachar. However, some Biblical scholars view this as an eponymous metaphor providing ...
and
Manasseh
Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse.
Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier
* Jacob Manasseh (die ...
to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover after the destruction of Israel. In light of this, it has been suggested that the bulk of those who survived the Assyrian invasions remained in the region. The Samaritan community of today is thought to be predominantly descended from those who remained.
Samaritans claim to be descended from the
Israelites
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
of ancient Samaria who were not expelled by the Assyrian conquerors of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE. They had their own sacred precinct on
Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. Moreover, they claimed that
their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by
Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
during the Babylonian exile. Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter the other's territories or even to speak to the other. During the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
period, the tensions were exploited by Roman authorities as they likewise had done between rival tribal factions elsewhere, and
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
reports numerous violent confrontations between Jews and Samaritans throughout the first half of the first century.
Persian period
![Samaritan inscription](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Samaritan_inscription.jpg)
According to Chronicles 36:22–23, the Persian emperor,
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...
(reigned 559–530 BCE), permitted the return of the exiles to their homeland and ordered the
rebuilding of the Temple (
Zion
Zion ( he, צִיּוֹן ''Ṣīyyōn'', LXX , also variously transliterated ''Sion'', ''Tzion'', ''Tsion'', ''Tsiyyon'') is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see Nam ...
). The prophet Isaiah identified Cyrus as "the Lord's
Messiah
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; ,
; ,
; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...
".
During the First Temple, it was possible for foreigners to help the Jewish people in an informal way until tension grew between the Samaritans and Judeans. This meant that foreigners could physically move into Judean land and abide by its laws and religion.
Ezra 4 says that the local inhabitants of the land offered to assist with the building of the new Temple during the time of
Zerubbabel
According to the biblical narrative, Zerubbabel, ; la, Zorobabel; Akkadian: 𒆰𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 ''Zērubābili'' was a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. Zerubbab ...
, but their offer was rejected. According to Ezra, this rejection precipitated a further interference not only with the rebuilding of the Temple but also with the reconstruction of Jerusalem. The issue surrounding the Samaritans offer to help rebuild the temple was a complicated one that took a while for the Judeans to think over. There had always been a division between the north and the south and this instance perfectly illustrates that. Following Solomon's death, sectionalism formed and inevitably led to the division of the kingdom. This division led to the Judeans rejecting the offer made by the Samaritans to centralise worship at the Temple.
The text is not clear on this matter, but one possibility is that these "people of the land" were thought of as Samaritans. We do know that Samaritan and Jewish alienation increased and that the Samaritans eventually built their own temple on Mount Gerizim, near
Shechem
Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first c ...
.
The term "Cuthim" applied by Jews to the Samaritans had clear
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
connotations, and is regarded as an insult to Samaritanism, implying that they were interlopers brought in from
Kutha
Kutha, Cuthah, Cuth or Cutha ( ar, كُوثَا, Sumerian: Gudua), modern Tell Ibrahim ( ar, تَلّ إِبْرَاهِيم), formerly known as Kutha Rabba ( ar, كُوثَىٰ رَبَّا), is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. ...
in Mesopotamia and rejecting their claim of descent from the ancient Tribes of Israel.
The archaeological evidence can find no sign of habitation in the Assyrian and Babylonian periods at Mount Gerizim, but indicates the existence of a sacred precinct on the site in the Persian period, by the 5th century BCE. According to most modern scholars, the split between the Jews and Samaritans was a gradual historical process extending over several centuries rather than a single schism at a given point in time.
Hellenistic period
Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Hellenization
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Antiochus IV Epiphanes (; grc, Ἀντίοχος ὁ Ἐπιφανής, ''Antíochos ho Epiphanḗs'', "God Manifest"; c. 215 BC – November/December 164 BC) was a Greek Hellenistic king who ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his deat ...
was on the throne of the
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
from 175 to 163 BCE. His policy was to
Hellenize
Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in the H ...
his entire kingdom and standardize religious observance. According to 1 Maccabees 1:41-50 he proclaimed himself the incarnation of the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
god
Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D ...
and mandated death to anyone who refused to worship him. In the 2nd century BCE, a series of events led to a revolution by a faction of Judeans against Antiochus IV.
The universal peril led the Samaritans, eager for safety, to repudiate all connection and kinship with the Jews. The request was granted. This was put forth as the final breach between the two groups. The breach was described at a much later date in the Christian Bible (John 4:9), "For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."
Anderson notes that during the reign of Antiochus IV (175–164 BCE):
Josephus Book 12, Chapter 5 quotes the Samaritans as saying:
Destruction of the temple
During the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
, Samaria was largely divided between a Hellenizing faction based in Samaria (
Sebastia) and a pious faction in
Shechem
Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first c ...
and surrounding rural areas, led by the High Priest. Samaria was a largely autonomous state nominally dependent on the
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
until around 110 BCE, when the
Hasmonean ruler
John Hyrcanus
John Hyrcanus (; ''Yōḥānān Hurqanōs''; grc, Ἰωάννης Ὑρκανός, Iōánnēs Hurkanós) was a Hasmonean ( Maccabean) leader and Jewish high priest of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until his death in ...
destroyed the Samaritan temple and devastated Samaria. Only a few stone remnants of the temple exist today.
Roman period
Early Roman era
Under the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
, Samaria became a part of the Herodian Tetrarchy, and with the deposition of the Herodian ethnarch Herod Archelaus in the early 1st century CE, Samaria became a part of the province of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea.
Samaritans appear briefly in the Christian gospels, most notably in the account of the Samaritan woman at the well and the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the former, it is noted that a substantial number of Samaritans accepted Jesus through the woman's testimony to them, and Jesus stayed in Samaria for two days before returning to Cana. In the latter, it is only the Samaritan who helped the man stripped of clothing, beaten, and left on the road half dead, his Abrahamic covenantal circumcision implicitly evident. The priest and Levite walked past. But the Samaritan helped the naked man regardless of his nakedness (itself religiously offensive to the priest and Levite), his self-evident poverty, or to which Hebrew sect he belonged.
The Temple of Gerizim was rebuilt after the
Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans, around 136 CE. A building dating to the second century BCE, the Delos Synagogue, is commonly identified as a Samaritan synagogue, which would make it the oldest known Jewish or Samaritan synagogue.
Much of the Samaritan liturgy was set by the high priest Baba Rabba in the 4th century.
Byzantine times
According to Samaritan sources, List of Byzantine emperors, Eastern Roman emperor Zeno (emperor), Zeno (who ruled 474–491 and whom the sources call "Zait the King of Edom") persecuted the Samaritans. The Emperor went to Neapolis (
Shechem
Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first c ...
), gathered the elders and asked them to convert to Christianity; when they refused, Zeno had many Samaritans killed, and re-built the synagogue as a church. Zeno then took for himself
Mount Gerizim, and built several edifices, among them a tomb for his recently deceased son, on which he put a cross, so that the Samaritans, worshiping God, would prostrate in front of the tomb. Later, in 484, the Samaritans revolted. The rebels attacked Sichem, burned five churches built on Samaritan holy places and cut the finger of bishop Terebinthus, who was officiating at the ceremony of Pentecost. They elected a Justa (rebel), Justa (or Justasa/Justasus) as their king and moved to Caesarea, where a noteworthy Samaritan community lived. Here several Christians were killed and the church of St. Sebastian was destroyed. Justa celebrated the victory with games in the circus. According to the Chronicon Paschale, the ''dux Palaestinae'' Asclepiades, whose troops were reinforced by the Caesarea-based Arcadiani of Rheges, defeated Justa, killed him and sent his head to Zeno. According to Procopius, Terebinthus went to Zeno to ask for revenge; the Emperor personally went to Samaria to quell the rebellion.
Some modern historians believe that the order of the facts preserved by Samaritan sources should be inverted, as the persecution of Zeno was a consequence of the rebellion rather than its cause, and should have happened after 484, around 489. Zeno rebuilt the church of St. Procopius in Neapolis (Sichem) and the Samaritans were banned from Mount Gerizim, on whose top a signaling tower was built to alert in case of civil unrest.
According to an anonymous biography of Mesopotamian monk named Barsauma, whose pilgrimage to the region in the early 5th century was accompanied by clashes with locals and the forced conversion of non-Christians, Barsauma managed to convert Samaritans by conducting demonstrations of healing. Jacob, an ascetic healer living in a cave near Porphyreon, Mount Carmel in the 6th century CE, attracted admirers, including Samaritans who later converted to Christianity. Under growing government pressure, many Samaritans who refused to convert to Christianity in the sixth century may have preferred paganism and even Manichaeism, Manicheism.
Under a charismatic authority, charismatic, Messiah#Messianic figure, messianic figure named Julianus ben Sabar (or ben Sahir), the Samaritans launched a war to create their own independent state in 529. With the help of the Ghassanids, Emperor Justinian I crushed the revolt; tens of thousands of Samaritans died or were slavery, enslaved. The Samaritan faith, which had previously enjoyed the status of ''religio licita'', was virtually outlawed thereafter by the Christian
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
; from a population once at least in the hundreds of thousands, the Samaritan community dwindled to tens of thousands.
Middle Ages
The Samaritan community dropped in numbers during the various periods of Muslim rule in the region. The Samaritans could not rely on foreign assistance as much as the Christians did, nor on a large number of Jewish diaspora, diaspora immigrants as did the Jews. The once-flourishing community declined over time, either through emigration or conversion to Islam among those who remained.
By the time of the
Muslim conquest of the Levant
The Muslim conquest of the Levant ( ar, فَتْحُ الشَّام, translit=Feth eş-Şâm), also known as the Rashidun conquest of Syria, occurred in the first half of the 7th century, shortly after the rise of Islam."Syria." Encyclopædia Br ...
, apart from Jund Filastin, Palestine, small dispersed communities of Samaritans were living also in History of Muslim Egypt, Arab Egypt, Bilad al-Sham, Syria, and Muslim conquest of Persia, Iran. Like other non-Muslims in the empire, such as Jews, Samaritans were often considered to be People of the Book, and were guaranteed religious freedom. Their minority status was protected by the Muslim rulers, and they had the right to practice their religion, but, as dhimmi, adult males had to pay the jizya or "protection tax". This however changed during late Abbasid period, with increasing persecution targeting the Samaritan community and considering them infidels which must convert to Islam. The tradition of men wearing a red tarboosh may go back to an order by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil (847-861 CE) that required non-Muslims to be distinguished from Muslims.
According to Milka Levy-Rubin, many Samaritans converted under Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid and Tulunids, Tulunid rule (878-905 CE), having been subjected to harsh hardships such as droughts, earthquakes, persecution by local governors, high taxes on religious minorities and anarchy.
During the Crusades, the Frankish takeover of
Nablus, where the majority of Samaritans lived, was relatively peaceful compared to the massacres elsewhere where one can assume that Samaritans shared the fate of Arabs and Jews generally in Palestine by being put to death or enslaved. Such acts took place in Samaritan maritime communities in Apollonia–Arsuf, Arsuf, Caesarea, Acre, Israel, Acre and perhaps Ashkelon, Ascalon. During the initial Razzia (military), razzia in Nablus, nonetheless, the invading Franks destroyed Samaritan buildings and sometime latter tore down their mikveh, ritual bath and synagogue on Mt. Gerizim. Christians bearing crosses successfully pleaded for a calm transition. Like the non-Latin Christian inhabitants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, came to be tolerated and perhaps favored because they were docile and had been mentioned positively in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
. The calamities that befell them during the Frankish reign came from Muslims such as the commander of the Dasmascene army, Bazwȃdj, who raided Nablus in 1137 and abducted 500 Samaritan men, women and children back to Damascus.
Ottoman rule
![Gerizim2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Gerizim2.jpg)
While the majority of the Samaritan population in Damascus was massacred or converted during the reign of the Ottoman Pasha Mardam Beqin in the early 17th century, the remainder of the Samaritan community there, in particular, the Danafi family, which is still influential today, moved back to Nablus in the 17th century.
The Nablus community endured because most of the surviving diaspora returned, and they have maintained a tiny presence there to this day. In 1624, the last
Samaritan High Priest
The Samaritan High Priest is the high priest (''kohen gadol'') of the remaining Samaritan community in the Levant. According to Samaritan tradition, the office has existed continuously since the time of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and has been ...
of the line of Eleazar son of Aaron died without issue, but according to Samaritan tradition, descendants of Aaron's other son, Ithamar, remained and took over the office.
By the late Ottoman period, the Samaritan community dwindled to its lowest. In the 19th century, with pressure of conversion and persecution from the local rulers and occasional natural disasters, the community fell to just over 100 persons.
British Mandate
![Interior of the Synagogue of the Samaritans Nablus c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Interior_of_the_Synagogue_of_the_Samaritans_Nablus_c._1920.jpg)
The situation of the Samaritan community improved significantly during the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate of Palestine. At that time, they began to work in the public sector, like many other groups. The censuses of 1922 census of Palestine, 1922 and 1931 census of Palestine, 1931 recorded 163 and 182 Samaritans in Palestine, respectively. The majority of them lived in Nablus.
Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian rule
After the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the subsequent establishment of the State of Israel, some of the Samaritans who were living in Jaffa emigrated to Samaria and lived in Nablus. By the late 1950s, around 100 Samaritans left the West Bank for Israel under an agreement with Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, the Jordanian authorities in the West Bank. In 1954, President of Israel, Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi fostered a Samaritan enclave in Holon, Israel, located in 15a Ben Amram Street.
During Jordanian rule in the West Bank, Samaritans from Holon were permitted to visit Mount Gerizim only once a year, on Passover.
In 1967, Israel conquered the West Bank during the Six-Day War, and the Samaritans there came under Israeli rule. Until the 1990s, most of the Samaritans in the West Bank resided in the West Bank city of
Nablus below
Mount Gerizim. They relocated to the mountain itself near the Israeli settlement of Har Brakha as a result of violence during the First Intifada (1987–1990). Consequently, all that is left of the Samaritan community in Nablus itself is an abandoned synagogue. The Israel Defense Forces, Israeli army maintains a presence in the area. The Samaritans of Nablus relocated to the village of
Kiryat Luza
Kiryat Luza ( ar, قرية لوزة, he, קרית לוזה) is a Samaritan village situated on Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank. It is under the joint control of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, and is ...
. In the mid-1990s, the Samaritans of Kiryat Luza were granted Israeli citizenship. They also became citizens of the Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian Authority following the Oslo Accords. As a result, they are the only people to possess dual Israeli-Palestinian citizenship.
![Sofi Tzadka](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Sofi_Tzadka.jpg)
Today, Samaritans in Israel are fully integrated into society and serve in the
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
. The Samaritans of the West Bank seek good relations with their Palestinian neighbors while maintaining their Israeli citizenship, tend to be fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, and use both a Hebrew and Arab name.
Genetic studies
Demographic investigation
Demographic investigations of the Samaritan community were carried out in the 1960s. Detailed pedigrees of the last 13 generations show that the Samaritans comprise four lineages:
* The priestly Kohen, Cohen lineage from the tribe of Levi.
* The Tsedakah lineage, claiming descent from the tribe of Manasseh
* The Joshua-Marhiv lineage, claiming descent from the tribe of Ephraim
* The Danafi lineage, claiming descent from the tribe of Ephraim
Y-DNA and mtDNA comparisons
Recently several genetic studies on the Samaritan population were made using haplogroup comparisons as well as wide-genome genetic studies. Of the 12 Samaritan males used in the analysis, 10 (83%) had Y chromosomes belonging to Haplogroup J (Y-DNA), haplogroup J, which includes three of the four Samaritan families. The Joshua-Marhiv family belongs to Haplogroup J-M267 (formerly "J1"), while the Danafi and Tsedakah families belong to haplogroup J-M172 (formerly "J2"), and can be further distinguished by the M67 SNP—the derived allele of which has been found in the Danafi family—and the PF5169 SNP found in the Tsedakah family. However the biggest and most important Samaritan family, the Cohen family (Tradition: Tribe of Levi), was found to belong to Haplogroup E (Y-DNA), haplogroup E.
A 2004 article on the genetic ancestry of the Samaritans by Shen ''et al.'' concluded from a sample comparing Samaritans to several Jews, Jewish populations, all currently living in Israel—representing the Beta Israel, Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews, as well as Israeli Druze and Palestinians—that "the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim) with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel."
Demographics
Figures
![Shomroni tora2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Shomroni_tora2.jpg)
There were 1 million Samaritans in biblical times,
but in recent times the numbers are smaller. There were 100 in 1786 and 141 in 1919, then 150 in 1967.
This grew to 745 in 2011, 751 in 2012, 756 in 2013, 760 in 2014, 777 in 2015, 785 in 2016, 796 in 2017, 810 in 2018 and 820 in 2019.
Half reside in modern homes at
Kiryat Luza
Kiryat Luza ( ar, قرية لوزة, he, קרית לוזה) is a Samaritan village situated on Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank. It is under the joint control of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, and is ...
on
Mount Gerizim, which is sacred to them, and the rest in the city of
Holon, just outside Tel Aviv. There are also four Samaritan families residing in Binyamina-Giv'at Ada, Matan, Israel, Matan, and Ashdod.
As a small community physically divided between neighbors in a hostile region, Samaritans have been hesitant to overtly take sides in the Arab–Israeli conflict, fearing that doing so could lead to negative repercussions. While the Samaritan communities in both the West Bank's Nablus and Israeli Holon have assimilated to the surrounding respective cultures, Hebrew has become the primary domestic language for Samaritans. Samaritans who are Israeli citizens are drafted into the military, along with the Jewish citizens of Israel.
![Aabed-El ben Asher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Aabed-El_ben_Asher.png)
Relations of Samaritans with Israeli Jews, Islam in Palestine, Muslim and Palestinian Christians, Christian Palestinians in neighboring areas have been mixed. Samaritans living in both Israel and in the West Bank have Israeli citizenship law, Israeli citizenship.
Samaritans in the Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian Authority-ruled territories are a minority in the midst of a Muslim majority. They had a reserved seat in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the 1996 Palestinian general election, election of 1996, but they no longer have one. Samaritans living in the West Bank have been granted passports by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Community survival
One of the biggest problems facing the community today is the issue of continuity. With such a small population, divided into only four families or houses (Kohen, Cohen, Tsedakah, Danafi, and Marhiv, with the Matar family dying out in 1968), and a general refusal to accept converts, it is common for Samaritans to marry within their extended families, even first cousins. There has been a history of genetic disorders within the group due to the small gene pool. To counter this, the Holon Samaritan community has allowed men from the community to marry non-Samaritan (primarily, Israeli Jewish) women, provided that the women agree to follow Samaritan religious practices. There is a six-month trial period before officially joining the Samaritan community to see whether this is a commitment that the woman would like to take. This often poses a problem for the women, who are typically less than eager to adopt the strict interpretation of biblical (Levitical) laws regarding menstrual cycle, menstruation, by which they must live in a separate dwelling during their periods and after childbirth. There have been a few instances of interfaith marriage, intermarriage. In addition, all marriages within the Samaritan community are first approved by a geneticist at Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer Hospital, in order to prevent the spread of genetic disorders. In meetings arranged by "mail-order bride, international marriage agencies", a small number of women from Russia and Ukraine who agree to observe Samaritan religious practices have been allowed to marry into the Qiryat Luza Samaritan community in an effort to expand the gene pool.
The Samaritan community in Israel also faces demographic challenges as some young people leave the community and convert to Judaism. A notable example is Israeli television presenter Sofi Tsedaka, who has made a documentary about her leaving the community at age 18.
The head of the community is the
Samaritan High Priest
The Samaritan High Priest is the high priest (''kohen gadol'') of the remaining Samaritan community in the Levant. According to Samaritan tradition, the office has existed continuously since the time of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and has been ...
, who is the 133rd generation since Ithamar, a son of Aaron the priest's line from 1624 CE onward; before then, the line of priesthood went through Eleazar, Elazar, son of Aaron (biblical figure), Aaron the priest.
The current high priest is Aabed-El ben Asher ben Matzliach who assumed the office on 19 April 2013. The High Priest of every generation is selected by the eldest in age from the priestly family and resides on
Mount Gerizim.
Samaritan origins of Palestinian Muslims in Nablus
Much of the local Palestinians, Palestinian population of
Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam. According to the historian Fayyad Altif, large numbers of Samaritans converted due to persecution under various Muslim rulers, and because the monotheistic nature of Islam made it easy for them to accept it. The Samaritans themselves describe the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman period as the worst period in their modern history, as many Samaritan families were forced to convert to Islam during that time. Even today, certain Nabulsi family names such as Al-Amad, Al-Samri, Maslamani, Yaish, and Shaksheer among others, are associated with Samaritan ancestry.
For the Samaritans in particular, the passing of the Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, al-Hakim Edict by the Fatimid Caliphate in 1021, under which all Jews and Christians in the Southern Levant were ordered to either convert to Islam or leave, along with another notable forced conversion to Islam imposed at the hands of the rebel ibn Firāsa, would contribute to their rapid unprecedented decrease, and ultimately almost complete extinction as a separate religious community. As a result, they had decreased from nearly a million and a half in late Roman (Byzantine) times to 146 people by the end of the Ottoman period.
In 1940, the future Israeli president and historian Yitzhak Ben-Zvi wrote an article in which he stated that two thirds of the residents of Nablus and the surrounding neighboring villages were of Samaritan origin.
He mentioned the name of several Palestinian Muslim families as having Samaritan origins, including the Al-Amad, Al-Samri, Buwarda and Kasem families, who protected Samaritans from Muslim persecution in the 1850s.
He further claimed that these families had written records testifying to their Samaritan ancestry, which were maintained by their priests and elders.
Samaritanism
Samaritanism is centered on the Samaritan Pentateuch, which Samaritans believe to be the original and unaltered version of the Torah that was given to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai (Bible), Mount Sinai. The Samaritan Pentateuch contains some differences from the Masoretic Text, Masoretic version of the Torah used in Judaism; according to Samaritan tradition, key parts of the Jewish text were fabricated by
Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
. The Book of Joshua (Samaritan), Samaritan version of the Book of Joshua also differs from Book of Joshua, the Jewish version, which focuses on
Shiloh. According to Samaritan tradition, Joshua built a temple (''al-haikal'') on Mount Gerizim and placed therein a tabernacle (''al-maškan'') in the second year of the Israelites' entry into the land of Canaan.
According to Samaritan scripture and tradition,
Mount Gerizim, located near the Biblical city of
Shechem
Shechem ( ), also spelled Sichem ( ; he, שְׁכֶם, ''Šəḵem''; ; grc, Συχέμ, Sykhém; Samaritan Hebrew: , ), was a Canaanite and Israelite city mentioned in the Amarna Letters, later appearing in the Hebrew Bible as the first c ...
(on the southern side of modern-day
Nablus, West Bank), has been venerated as the holiest place for the Israelites since the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, long before the Temple in Jerusalem was established under Davidic and Solomonic rule over the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), United Kingdom of Israel. This view differs from Jewish belief which views the
Temple Mount
The Temple Mount ( hbo, הַר הַבַּיִת, translit=Har haBayīt, label=Hebrew, lit=Mount of the House f the Holy}), also known as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, lit. 'The Noble Sanctuary'), al-Aqsa Mosque compou ...
in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
as the holiest site in the world to worship God in Abrahamic religions, God. It is commonly taught in Samaritan tradition that there are 13 references to Mount Gerizim in the Torah to prove their claim of holiness in contrast to Judaism, which relies solely on the later Prophets in Judaism, Jewish prophets and writings to back Jerusalem in Judaism, their claims of the holiness of Jerusalem.
Other Samaritan tradition books include the Memar Marqah (The teachings of Marqah), the Samaritan liturgy known as "the Defter", and Samaritan law codes and biblical commentaries.
Samaritans outside the Holy Land observe most Samaritan practices and rituals such as the Sabbath, ritual purity, and all festivals of Samaritanism with the exception of the Passover sacrifice, which can only be observed at Mount Gerizim.
Samaritan Temple
According to Samaritans, it was on Mount Gerizim that Abraham was commanded by God to Binding of Isaac, offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God then causes the sacrifice to be interrupted, explaining that this was the ultimate test of Abraham's obedience, as a result of which all the world would receive blessing.
The Torah mentions the place where God chooses to establish his name (Deuteronomy 12:5), and Judaism takes this to refer to Jerusalem. However, the Samaritan text speaks of the place where God to establish his name, and Samaritans identify it as Mount Gerizim, making it the focus of their spiritual values.
The legitimacy of the Samaritan temple was attacked by Jewish scholars including Andronicus ben Meshullam.
In the Christian Bible, the Gospel of John relates an Samaritan woman at the well, encounter between a Samaritan woman and Jesus in which she says that the mountain was the center of their worship. She poses the question to Jesus when she realizes that he is the Messiah. Jesus affirms the Jewish position, saying "You [that is, the Samaritans] worship what you do not know," although he also says, "a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem."
Religious beliefs
* There is one God, YHWH, (informally referred to by Samaritans as ''"Names of God in Judaism#HaShem, Shehmaa"''), the same God recognized by the Hebrew prophets.
* The Torah was given by God to Moses.
*
Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the one true sanctuary chosen by Israel's God.
* Many Samaritans believe that at the end of days, the dead will be resurrection, resurrected by the Taheb, a restorer (possibly a prophet, some say Moses).
* Resurrection and Paradise. Samaritans accept the Universal resurrection, resurrection of the dead on the basis of Deuteronomy 32 also known as the Haazinu#In Samaritan interpretation, Song of Moses, a tradition that is traced back to their sage Marqah.
* The priests are the interpreters of the law and the keepers of tradition; scholars are secondary to the priesthood.
* The authority of post-Torah sections of the Tanakh, and classical Jewish Rabbinic literature, Rabbinical works (the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
, comprising the
Mishnah
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...
and the Gemara) is rejected.
* They have a Ten Commandments#Samaritan, significantly different version of the Ten Commandments (for example, their 10th commandment is about the sanctity of Mount Gerizim).
The Samaritans have retained an offshoot of the Samaritan alphabet, Ancient Hebrew script, a Samaritan High Priest, High Priesthood, the slaughtering and eating of Lamb and mutton, lambs on Passover eve, and the celebration of the first month's beginning around springtime as the New Year. Yom Teru'ah (the biblical name for "Rosh Hashanah"), at the beginning of Tishrei, is not considered a New Year as it is in Rabbinic Judaism. The Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Jewish Masoretic Text as well. Some differences are doctrinal: for example, the Samaritan Torah explicitly states that Mount Gerizim is "the place that God " to establish his name, as opposed to the Jewish Torah that refers to "the place that God ". Other differences are minor and seem more or less accidental.
File:Samaritans.jpg, Samaritans, from a photo by the Palestine Exploration Fund.
File:Lilien The Samaritan.jpg, ''The Samaritan'', engraving, ''c'', by Ephraim Moses Lilien. 1920
File:2106 WLM - OVEDC - Mount Gerizim - SUKUT 15.jpg, Sukkot on Mount Gerizim
File:Bitknest2.jpg, Entrance to a modern Samaritan synagogue in the city of Holon, Israel
Relationship to Rabbinic Judaism
![Samaritan doorpost](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Samaritan_doorpost.jpg)
Samaritans refer to themselves as ''Benai Yisrael'' ("Children of Israel") which is a term used by all Jewish denominations as a name for the Jewish people as a whole. They, however, do not refer to themselves as ''Yehudim'' (literally "Judeans"), the standard Hebrew name for Jews.
The Talmudic attitude expressed in Minor tractate, tractate Kutim is that they are to be treated as Jews in matters where their practice coincides with Rabbinic Judaism but as non-Jews where their practice differs. Some claim that since the 19th century, Rabbinic Judaism has regarded the Samaritans as a Jewish sect and the term "Samaritan Jews" has been used for them.
Religious texts
Samaritan law is not the same as Halakha (Rabbinic Jewish law). The Samaritans have several groups of religious texts, which correspond to Jewish Halakha. A few examples of such texts are:
* Torah
** ''Samaritan Pentateuch'': There are some 6,000 differences between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic Jewish Pentateuch text; and, according to one estimate, 1,900 points of agreement between it and the Greek LXX version. Several passages in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
would also appear to echo a Torah textual tradition not dissimilar to that conserved in the Samaritan text. There are several theories regarding the similarities. The variations, some corroborated by readings in the Old Latin, Syriac and Ethiopian translations, attest to the antiquity of the Samaritan text.
* Historical writings
** ''Samaritan Chronicle, The Tolidah'' (Creation to the time of Abishah)
** Book of Joshua (Samaritan), ''Samaritan Chronicle'', The Chronicle of Joshua (Israel during the time of divine favor) (4th century, in Arabic and Aramaic)
** ''Samaritan Chronicle, Adler'' (Israel from the time of divine disfavor until the exile)
* Hagiography, Hagiographical texts
** ''Samaritan Halakhic Text'', The Hillukh (Code of Halakha, marriage, circumcision, etc.)
** ''Samaritan Halakhic Text'', the Kitab at-Tabbah (Halakha and interpretation of some verses and chapters from the Torah, written by Abu Al Hassan 12th century CE)
** ''Samaritan Halakhic Text'', the Kitab al-Kafi (Book of Halakha, written by Yosef Al Ascar 14th century CE)
** ''Al-Asatir''—legendary Aramaic texts from the 11th and 12th centuries, containing:
*** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Abu'l Hasan al-Suri
*** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Memar Markah—3rd or 4th century theological treatises attributed to ''Hakkam'' Markha
*** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Pinkhas on the Taheb
*** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Molad Maseh (On the birth of Moses)
* ''Defter'', prayer book of psalms and hymns.
* ''Samaritan Haggadah''
Christian sources: New Testament
Samaria or Samaritans are mentioned in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
books of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Luke, Luke, Gospel of John, John and Acts of the Apostles, Acts. The Gospel of Mark contains no mention of Samaritans or Samaria. The best known reference to the Samaritans is the Parable of the Good Samaritan, found in the Gospel of Luke. The following references are found:
* When instructing his disciples as to how they should spread the word, Jesus tells them not to visit any Gentile or Samaritan city, but instead, go to the "lost sheep of Israel".
* A Samaritan village rejected a request from messengers travelling ahead of Jesus for hospitality, because the villagers did not want to facilitate a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, a practice which they saw as a violation of the Torah, Law of Moses. Two of his disciples want to "call down fire from heaven and destroy them," but Jesus rebukes them.
* The Parable of the Good Samaritan.
* Jesus healed ten lepers, of whom only one returned to praise God, and he was a Samaritan.
* Jesus asks Samaritan woman at the well, a Samaritan woman of Shechem, Sychar for water from Jacob's Well, and after spending two days telling her townsfolk "all things" as the woman expected the Messiah to do, and presumably repeating the Good News (Christianity), Good News that he is the Messiah, many Samaritans John 4#Evangelisation of the Samaritans, become followers of Jesus. He accepts without comment the woman's assertion that she and her people are Israelites, descendants of Jacob.
* Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan and being demon-possessed. He denies the latter accusation explicitly, and denies the former previously—having already done so in his conversation with the Samaritan woman.
* Christ tells the apostles that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and that they would be his witnesses in "Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."
* The Apostles are being persecuted. Philip preaches the Gospel to a city in Samaria, and the Apostles in Jerusalem hear about it. So they send the Apostles Peter and John to pray for and lay hands on the baptized believers, who then receive the Holy Spirit (vs. 17). They then return to Jerusalem, preaching the Gospel "in many villages of the Samaritans".
* Acts 9:31 says that at that time the churches had "rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria".
* Acts 15:2–3 says that Paul and Barnabas were "being brought on their way by the church" and that they passed through "Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles". (''Phoenicia'' in several other English versions).
Notable Samaritans
* Baba Rabba
* Justa (rebel), Justa
* Justin Martyr
* Marinus of Neapolis
See also
* Crimean Karaites
* Karaite Judaism, Karaite Jews
* Mandaeans
Notes
Citations
Sources
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External links
"Samaritans"in ''The Jewish Encyclopedia''
"Good Samaritans: Israel's smallest religious minority offers Jews a glimpse of what might have been" by Benjamin Balint, ''Tablet Magazine''
David Steinberg
* [https://www.livius.org/saa-san/samaria/samaritans.htm "Samaritans"] (theory on the Samaritan–Jewish tensions), Jona Lendering
"Guards of Mount Gerizim" Alex Maist
b
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Media
* [https://orhof.smugmug.com/SamaritanHolidays Samaritan Holidays & Feasts in the Land of Israel]
"Samaritans in Nablus and the West Bank" Rüdiger Benninghaus
Who are The Samaritans?2021-11-09-2021 By Religion for Breakfast
{{Authority control
Samaritans,
Ancient peoples
Ancient peoples of the Near East
Ethnic groups in Israel
Ethnic groups in the Middle East
Ethnic groups in the State of Palestine
Ethnoreligious groups
Ethnoreligious groups in Asia
Hebrew Bible nations
Indigenous peoples of Western Asia
Israelites
Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)
Semitic-speaking peoples
Ten Lost Tribes