To give you a better sense of how ancient Israelis felt about Samaritans, you gotta think about how
Yeah, there y’go. Distrust. Uncertainty.
Samaritans had a similar reputation in ancient Judea. The Judeans figured they were right, and Samaritans wrong. Really wrong. Dangerously wrong. They considered them
And Samaritans believed precisely the same thing right back at Judeans. They considered themselves the actual descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the real successors and keepers of
Samaritans still exist, by the way. They never went anywhere. Lots became Christian, but many stayed Samaritan, stayed in the land, and survived the Romans, Rashiduns, Ummayads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, Brits, and Israelis. Still think Jews and Christians are heretics.
Oh, there are parallels aplenty between Judeans and Samaritans back then, and Christians and Muslims today. And let’s not forget the hate crimes: Some Judean would get a little political power, and decide to go into Samaria and slaughter a bunch of Samaritans. Some Samaritan would get vengeful and attack Judeans as they traveled through Samaritan territory. Not for any good reason; solely because of old grudges. By Jesus’s day this behavior had been going on for the past 400 years. Like the Israeli-Palestinian situation, but without explosions.
Gotta remember that animosity, fear, and rage they had towards one another, whenever we read about Jesus visiting Samaria.
Samaritan history.
Where did Samaritans come from? If you remember your Old Testament, the tribes of Israel split into two countries in the 9th century
After two centuries of pagan or apostate kings in northern Israel, the L
2 Kings 17.24-34 NRSVue - 24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria and settled in its cities. 25 When they first settled there, they did not worship the L
ORD ; therefore the LORD sent lions among them that killed some of them. 26 So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them; they are killing them because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” 27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him go and live there and teach them the law of the god of the land.” 28 So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the LORD . - 29 But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived; 30 the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima; 31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 They also worshiped the L
ORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. 33 So they worshiped the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. 34 To this day they continue to practice their former customs. - They do not worship the L
ORD , and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.
Bear in mind the “priests whom you carried awy from there”
So basically the Samaritans were considered just the same as the Samarians before them: They worshiped God wrong, and worshiped all their other pagan gods at the same time. The only reason they bothered with the L
Various Christians describe Samaritans as “half-breed Jews.” That’s a little offensive… but partly true. The Assyrians deported Samaria’s city-dwellers, but they largely left behind everyone else. Many of those Samarians fled to Judah, and their descendants became Judeans, and then Jews. But many Samarians stayed—and intermarried with the people the Assyrians settled there. And that’s what happened to “the lost tribes of Israel”: They’re not lost. They became either Jews or Samaritans.
Southern Israel was later invaded by the neo-Babylonians, and its city-dwellers were dragged off to Iraq and Persia. Less than a century later, after the Persian Empire took over, they were permitted to return and rebuild Jerusalem. So when a whole bunch of Babylonian Jews showed up in southern Israel and tried to set up a colony, they quickly got pushback from the Samaritans who lived just north of them—who’d been there three centuries by then, and believed they were native. You know, same as white Americans do. Or Palestinians, when European Jews started settling Israel in the early 20th century. (History repeats itself a lot.)
By Jesus’s day, Judeans considered the Samaritans worthless; a bunch of half-pagan heretics, a blight of
Samaritan religion.
Though the Old Testament describes Samaritans as a bunch of pagans who barely followed the L
But not the same way Pharisees and
Just like the Muslims believe Arabs are ethnic Hebrews descended from Abraham, Samaritans likewise believe they’re ethnic Hebrews. They dismiss any Assyrian or Mesopotamian ancestry they might have (and in case you’ve forgotten, Abraham was also a Mesopotamian). They believe they’re full descendants of Israel. Therefore they do so have a covenant with the L
The Jews, Samaritans insist, are the ones who have it wrong. They figure the head priest Eli and his sons, whom God condemned for their sins,
Same as the Judeans, the Samaritans had multiple denominations. There were orthodox Samaritans; like Sadducees, they ran the temple and limited the bible to the Law. There were the Dositheans, followers of the Samaritan prophet Disitheus; like the Pharisees, they had synagogues. These groups didn’t appear to have too many differing beliefs. Most of their disagreements were about who held power—the priests or the rabbis.
The main things they believed were:
- God’s proper temple was at Mt. Gerazim.
- The Law is scripture. The rest of the bible is just prophetic commentary.
- There’d be a second coming of Moses. Not literally; he’d be like Moses.
Dt 18.15 Nonetheless they called him the Taheb, the “returning one.”
Arguably, the Taheb was who the Samaritan woman meant when she talked with Jesus about how Messiah was coming.
Samaritan Christians.
Of course we know of when Jesus met a Samaritan woman and prophesied to her, and she in turn led her village to meet their Messiah.
But Jesus wants to save heretics too.
Historians lost track of the growing Samaritan Christian community in the second century. We figure they were simply absorbed into the other Christian congregations in the area.
Later, when the Roman Empire officially became Christian, overzealous Christian nationalists would occasionally persecute Samaritans and force ’em to become Christian, and this is likely why their numbers are so few. Of course Jesus does not wanna save people that way; persecuting ’em into Christianity don’t create followers, but terrified hypocrites who will say anything to stay alive. As soon as persecution is over, or their persecutors get distracted, they’ll go right back to what they were. But you try telling a nationalist this.
