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1 The Samaritans The Samaritans are an ethno religious group of the Levant, descended from ancient Semitic inhabitants of the region. Religiously the Samaritans are adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism. Based on the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans claim their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered and amended religion, brought back by those returning from exile. Ancestrally, Samaritans claim descent from a group of Israelite inhabitants of the ancient Levant from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph son of Jacob) as well as some descendant from the priestly tribe of Levi,[1] who have connections to ancient Samaria from the period of their entry into the land of Canaan, while some suggest that it was from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the Samaritan Kingdom of Baba Rabba. The Samaritans, however, derive their name not from this geographical designation, but rather from the Hebrew term Shamerim "Keepers [of the Law]".[2] In the Talmud, a central post-Second Temple religious text of Judaism, Samaritan claim of ancestral origin was disputed, and in those texts they are called Cutheans (Hebrew: , Kuthim), referring to the ancient city of Cuthah (Kutha), geographically located in what is today Iraq.[3] In the Biblical account, however, Cuthah was just one of several cities from which people were brought to Samaria, and the Samaritans were later called "Cutheans" to spite them,[4] with the added assertion that the men of Kuth made Nergal their god.[5] Modern genetics has suggested some truth to both the claims of the Samaritans and the mainstream Jewish accounts in the Talmud.[6] Historically, Samaritans were a large community up to more than a million in late Roman times, but were then gradually reduced to several tens of thousands a few centuries ago their unprecedented demographic shrinkage has been a result of various historical events, including, most notably, the bloody suppression of the Third Samaritan Revolt (529 CE) against the Byzantine Christian rulers, and mass conversion to Islam in the Early Muslim period of Palestine.[7] According to their tally, there were 751[8] Samaritans as of January 1, 2012, living exclusively in two localities, one in Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank, and the other in the Israeli city of Holon.[9] Also eight families in Gaza City were found to be Samaritans. There are followers of various backgrounds adhering to Samaritan traditions outside of Israel, especially in the United States. With the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language by Jews in Israel, and its growth and officialization following the establishment of the state, most Samaritans in Israel today speak Modern Hebrew. The most recent spoken mother tongue of the Samaritans was Arabic, as it is for those in the West Bank city of Nablus. For liturgical purposes, Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic, and Samaritan Arabic are used, all of which are written in the Samaritan alphabet, a variant of the Old Hebrew alphabet, distinct from the so-called square script Hebrew alphabet of Jews and Judaism, which is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet.[10] Hebrew and later Aramaic were languages in use by the Jewish and [11]Samaritan inhabitants of Judea prior to the Roman exile. According to Samaritan tradition, 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 number of which did not include the priestly tribe of Levi) to the mountains by Nablus and place half of the tribes, six in number, on the top of Mount Gerizim, the Mount of the Blessing, and the other half in Mount Ebal, the Mount of the Curse. The two mountains were used to symbolize the significance of the commandments and serve as a warning to whoever disobeyed them (Deut. 11:29; 27:12; Josh. 8:33). The Samaritans have insisted that they are direct descendants of the Northern Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who survived the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The inscription of Sargon II records the deportation of a relatively small proportion of the Israelites from Samaria (27,290, according to the annals), so it is quite possible that a sizable population remained that could identify themselves as Israelites, the term that the Samaritans prefer for themselves. Samaritan historiography places the basic schism from the remaining part

of Israel after the tribes of Israel conquered and returned to the land of Canaan, led by Joshua. After Joshua's death, Eli the priest left the tabernacle which Moses erected in the desert and established on Mount Gerizim, and built another one under his own rule in the hills of Shiloh. Abu l-Fath, who in the 14th century wrote a major work of Samaritan history, comments on Samaritan origins as follows: [12] A terrible civil war broke out between Eli son of Yafni, of the line of Ithamar, and the sons of Pincus (Phinehas), because Eli son of Yafni resolved to usurp the High Priesthood from the descendants of Pincus. He used to offer sacrifices on an altar of stones. He was 50 years old, endowed with wealth and in charge of the treasury of the children of Israel... He offered a sacrifice on the altar, but without salt, as if he were inattentive. When the Great High Priest Ozzi learned of this, and found the sacrifice was not accepted, he thoroughly disowned him; and it is (even) said that he rebuked him. Thereupon he and the group that sympathized with him, rose in revolt and at once he and his followers and his beasts set off for Shiloh. Thus Israel split in factions. He sent to their leaders saying to them, anyone who would like to see wonderful things, let him come to me. Then he assembled a large group around him in Shiloh, and built a Temple for himself there; he constructed a place like the Temple (on Mount Gerizim). He built an altar, omitting no detail it all corresponded to the original, piece by piece. At this time the Children of Israel split into three factions. A loyal faction on Mount Gerizim; a heretical faction that followed false gods; and the faction that followed Eli son of Yafni on Shiloh. Further, the Samaritan Chronicle Adler, or New Chronicle, believed to have been composed in the 18th century using earlier chronicles as sources states: And the children of Israel in his days divided into three groups. One did according to the abominations of the Gentiles and served other gods; another followed Eli the son of Yafni, although many of them turned away from him after he had revealed his intentions; and a third remained with the High Priest Uzzi ben Bukki, the chosen place. The emergence of the Samaritans as an ethnic and religious community distinct from other Levant 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 indicate that he deported 27,290 inhabitants of the former kingdom. Jewish tradition maintains a different 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 and Josephus[13] the people of Israel were removed by the king of the Assyrians (Sargon II) to Halah, to Gozan on the Khabur River and to the towns of the Medes. The king of the Assyrians then brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avah, Emath, and Sepharvaim 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. This account is contradicted by the version in Chronicles, where, following Samaria's destruction, King Hezekiah is depicted as endeavouring to draw the Ephraimites and Manassites closer to Judah. Temple repairs at the time of Josiah were financed by moneys 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 frankioncense and grain to the house of the Lord. Chronicles makes no mention of an Assyrian resettlement.[14] Yitzakh Magen argues that the version of Chronicles is perhaps closer to the historical truth, and that the Assyrian settlement was unsuccessful, a notable population remained in Samaria, part of which, following the conquest of Judah, fled south and settled there as refugees.[15] A Midrash (Genesis Rabbah Sect. 94) relates about an encounter between Rabbi Meir and a Samaritan. Zertal dates the Assyrian onslaught at 721 BCE to 647 BCE and discusses three waves of imported settlers. He shows that Mesopotamian pottery in Samaritan territory cluster around the lands of Menasheh and that the type of pottery found was produced around 689 BCE. Some date

their split with the Jews to the time of Nehemiah, Ezra, and the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. Returning exiles considered the Samaritans to be nonIsraelites and, thus, not fit for this religious work. The Encyclopaedia Judaica (under "Samaritans") summarizes both past and the present views on the Samaritans' origins. It says: Until the middle of the 20th century it was customary to believe that the Samaritans originated from a mixture of the people living in Samaria and other peoples at the time of the conquest of Samaria by Assyria (722721 BCE). The Biblical account in II Kings 17 had long been the decisive source for the formulation of historical accounts of Samaritan origins. Reconsideration of this passage, however, has led to more attention being paid to the Chronicles of the Samaritans themselves. With the publication of Chronicle II (Sefer ha-Yamim), the fullest Samaritan version of their own history became available: the chronicles, and a variety of non-Samaritan materials. According to the former, the Samaritans are the direct descendants of the Joseph tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, and until the 17th century CE they possessed a high priesthood descending directly from Aaron through Eleazar and Phinehas. They claim to have continuously occupied their ancient territory and to have been at peace with other Israelite tribes until the time when Eli disrupted the Northern cult by moving from Shechem to Shiloh and attracting some northern Israelites to his new followers there. For the Samaritans, this was the 'schism' par excellence. Furthermore, to this day the Samaritans claim descent from the tribe of Joseph: The laymen also possess their traditional claims. They are all of the tribe of Joseph, except those of the tribe of Benjamin, but this traditional branch of people, which, the Chronicles assert, was established at Gaza in earlier days, seems to have disappeared. There exists an aristocratic feeling amongst the different families in this community, and some are very proud over their pedigree and the great men it had produced. The narratives in Genesis about the rivalries among the twelve sons of Jacob describe tensions between north and south. Those were temporarily united under the strong kingship of David and Solomon, but at the death of Solomon, the kingdom split into two: northern Israel with its capital Samaria and southern Judea with its capital Jerusalem. The Deuteronomistic Historians, writing in Judah, saw northern Israel as a sinful kingdom, divinely punished for its idolatry and iniquity by being destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BCE. (Ironically, the Chronicler is very generous to the south Judah and considers it God's will to recover the chosen people that they were destroyed by Babylon and exiled to Babylon.) The tensions continued in the postexilic period. According to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra-Nehemiah is hostile toward its northern neighbors and considers the northern Israel except for the "true Israel" Chronicles is more inclusive than Ezra-Nehemiah since for the Chronicler the ideal is of one Israel with twelve tribes; the Chronicler concentrates on Judah and ignores northern Israel.[16] Unlike the Chronicler, the Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. They had their own temple 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 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 each other's territories or even to speak to one another. During the New Testament period, although the tensions went unrecognized by Roman authorities, Josephus reports numerous violent confrontations between Jews and Samaritans throughout the first half of the first century.[17] According to the Jewish version of events, when the Judean exile ended in 538 BCE and the exiles began returning home from Babylon, they found their former homeland populated by other people who claimed the land as their own and Jerusalem, their former glorious capital, in ruins. The inhabitants worshiped the Pagan gods, but when the then-sparsely populated areas became infested with dangerous wild beasts, they appealed to the king of Assyria for Israelite priests to instruct them on how to worship the "God of that country." The result was a syncretistic religion, in which national groups worshiped the Hebrew god, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. According to 2 Chronicles 36:2223, the Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great (reigned 559 BCE 530 BCE), permitted the return of the exiles to their homeland and ordered the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (Zion). The prophet Isaiah identified Cyrus as "the Lord's Messiah"

(Mashiach; see Isaiah 45:1). The word "Messiah" refers to an anointed one, such as a king or priest. 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, 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 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. The rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem took several decades. The project was first led by Sheshbazzar (about 538 BCE), later by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and later still by Haggai and Zechariah (520515 BCE). The work was completed in 515 BCE. The term "Cuthim" applied by Jews to the Samaritans had clear pejorative connotations, implying that they were interlopers brought in from Kutha in Mesopotamia and rejecting their claim of descent from the ancient Tribes of Israel. However, the following account of the Assyrian kings, which was among the archaeological discoveries in Babylon, differs from the Samaritan and Jewish Biblical accounts: [the Samarians [who had agreed with a hostile king]...I fought with them and decisively defeated them]....carried off as spoil. 50 chariots for my royal force ...[the rest of them I settled in the midst of Assyria]....The Tamudi, Ibadidi, Marsimani and Hayappa, who live in distant Arabia, in the desert, who knew neither overseer nor commander, who never brought tribute to any king--with the help of Ashshur my lord, I defeated them. I deported the rest of them. I settled them in Samaria/Samerina.(Sargon II Inscriptions, COS 2.118A, p. 293). Also, The inhabitants of Samaria/Samerina, who agreed [and plotted] with a king [hostile to] me, not to do service and not to bring tribute [to Ashshur] and who did battle, I fought against them with the power of the great gods, my lords. I counted as spoil 27,280 people, together with their chariots, and gods, in which they trusted. I formed a unit with 200 of [their] chariots for my royal force. I settled the rest of them in the midst of Assyria. I repopulated Samaria/Samerina more than before. I brought into it people from countries conquered by my hands. I appointed my eunuch as governor over them. And I counted them as Assyrians. (Nimrud Prisms, COS 2.118D, pp. 295-296)

[1] Who are the Samaritans? Shomronim.com Retrieved 2011-12-05. Available @ www.wikipedia.org/wiki/samaritans [Accessed 07-12-2012]. [2] David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:941(New York: Doubleday, 1996), 99. [3] Henry Burgess, Cutheans were a very early race, widely extended and powerful. That from Assyria they extended to India, China, Arabia Petraea and Abyssinia, Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record (Henry Burgess- Kessinger Publishing, May 1, 2003 ), 481. [4] Yitzakh Magen, The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mt Gerism in Light of Archaeological Evidence, in Oded Lipschitz, Gary N. Knoppers, Rainer Albertz (eds). Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., Eisenbranus, 2007, 157. Available On Line @ www. Mammals.com/mam/the Samaritans [Accessed 09-12-2012]. [5] Clarkes Commentary on the Bible 2 Kings 17:30. [6] Reconstruction of Patrilineages of Samaritans and Other Israeli Populations Fro YChromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation PDF. Available On line www.wikipwdia.org/wiki/Patrilinerages of Samaritans. [Accessed 03-08-2012]. [7] M. Levy-Rubin, New Evidence relating to the process of Islamization in Palestine in

the Early Muslim Period- The Case of Samaria, in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 43 (3), 257-276,2000, Springer. [8] http://www.thesamaritanupdate.com [Accessed 18-12-2012]. [9] Matti Friedman, Israeli Signs for her estranged people. Associated Press. Yahoo! News. Pp. (Sun March 18, 2007, 2:45 PM ET). Archieved from the original on 2007-03-26. Today there are precisely 705 Samaritans, according to the sects own tally. Half live near the West Bank city of Nabulus on Mt. Gerizim. The other half live in a compound in the Israeli city of Holon, near Tel Aviv.) From the original. Available @ http://www.Google.ng.com/gog/History of Samaria [Accessed 07-08-2012.] [10] John Elwolde, A History of the Hebrew Language. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 59. [11] The Samaritans Passover sacrifice, net news, May 2, 2007. Available @ www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans [Accessed 08-08-2012]. [12] Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles, The Keepers, An introduction to the History and Culture of the Samaritans (Hendrickson Publishing, 2002,) 11-12. [13] Yitzakh Magen, The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mt Gezim in Light of Archaeological Evidence, in Oded Lipschitz, Gary N. Knoppers, Riner Albertz (eds.) Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., Eisenbrauns, 2007, 157-212. The author of Chronicles conceals the information that is given prominence in Kings, and vice versa. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah adopt a narrow sectarian approach that seeks to maintain the uniqueness and racial purity of the exiles in Babylonia, while Chronicles is more broad-minded and views the Israelite nation as a great people that includes all the tribes of Judah and Israel. [14] Yitzakh Magen, Op Cited, 187. [15] Ibid., [16]Ibid [17] Mark A. Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey. The People of Palestine at the time of Jesus. (USA: Baker Academic, 2009), 89.

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