Samaritans

A people mentioned 15x in the New Testament, perhaps most famously remembered as living in intense animosity with the Jews ("You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" asked the woman Jesus met at the well (Jn 4:9). John goes on to explain in a parenthesis that "For Jews do not associated with Samaritans." The Samaritans, however, were also the people Jesus picked to depict the true "neighbour" in the so-called Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:33). They lived in the region known in NT times as Samaria. A small community of Samaritans remains in modern Israel today, centered around Mount Gerizim.

The author, left, with a Samaritan elder, right, in 2000.

At first glance it may be assumed that the term 'Samaritans' refers simply to the citizens of the city of Samaria. That they lived in the region that derived its name from the city, which in turn gave them their name is certain. But it says little about their origin, which remains a matter of debate.

The impression given by the Old Testament is that they were the descendants of the mixed marriages between those Israelites who were left behind in the land when the twelve northern tribes were exiled by the Assyrians in 722 BC and those peoples the Assyrians resettled from their conquests elsewhere. (2 Ki 17:23-41). For the Jews, these people became both ethically and spiritually suspect. In the time of Jesus, six centuries later, Jews would have nothing in common with the Samaritans. Jesus clearly though of Samaritans as foreigners. Lk 17 reports Jesus's healing of ten lepers but only one of them, a Samaritan, came back to thank him, throwing himself at Jesus's feet; "Was no-one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" (v18). To the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well, he clearly asserted that "salvation is from the Jews" (Jn 4:22). Jesus's instruction to the disciples in Matt 10:5 not to "go among the Gentiles or enter any towns of the Samaritans" also affirms this observation.

The Samaritans, obviously, viewed (and still view) things differently, as is evident in Jn 4:20: "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." They naturally saw, and still see, themselves as the true guardians of the true religion as taught by Moses. They hold the Pentateuch as alone canonical, and every year they gather on Mount Gerizim to celebrate the Passover according to the Mosaic instructions (which is more than what modern Jews can claim to do).