The Samaritans: A Profile

By Reinhard Pummer

Authoritative introduction to the Samaritan tradition from antiquity to the present

Most people associate the term "Samaritan" exclusively with the New Testament stories about the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Very few are aware that a small community of about 750 Samaritans still lives today in Palestine and Israel; they view themselves as the true Israelites, having resided in their birthplace for thousands of years and preserving unchanged the revelation given to Moses in the Torah.

Reinhard Pummer, one of the world's foremost experts on Samaritanism, offers in this book a comprehensive introduction to the people identified as Samaritans in both biblical and nonbiblical sources. Besides analyzing the literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources, he examines the Samaritans' history, their geographical distribution, their version of the Pentateuch, their rituals and customs, and their situation today. There is no better book available on the subject.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Oct 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781467444064

Reinhard Pummer

Reinhard Pummer is professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. 

Book preview

The Samaritans

The Samaritans

A Profile

Reinhard Pummer

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN / CAMBRIDGE, U.K.

© 2016 Reinhard Pummer

All rights reserved

Published 2016 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

www.eerdmans.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pummer, Reinhard, author.

The Samaritans : a profile / Reinhard Pummer.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8028-6768-1 (pbk. : alk. paper); 978-1-4674-4406-4 (ePub); 978-1-4674-4366-1 (Kindle)

1. Samaritans — History. I. Title.

BM910.P855 2016

296.8’17 — dc23

2015029837

Cover illustration: Top — Passover Pilgrims praying on Mount Gerizim (Reinhard Pummer).

Bottom — Delos inscription 2; see Fig. 8 on p. 94 with the discussion on pp. 92-95 (EfA/Ph. Bruneau)

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Illustrations

Introduction

I. The Identity of the Samaritans

1. The Samaritan View

2. The Traditional Jewish View

3. Modern Scholarly Views

II. Samaritans in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament?

III. The Samaritans and the New Testament

1. The Gospel of Matthew

2. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts

3. The Gospel of John

4. Samaritan Influence on New Testament Writings?

IV. Samaritans in Jewish Writings of Antiquity

1. Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Writings

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls

3. Flavius Josephus

4. Rabbinic Literature

V. Archaeological Excavations

1. Mount Gerizim

2. Synagogues

3. Amulets and Oil Lamps

4. Ritual Baths — Miqvaʾot

VI. Samaritan Sects

1. Samaritan Sources

2. Muslim and Karaite Sources

3. Patristic Sources

VII. The Samaritans in History

1. Hellenistic and Early Roman Periods

2. Late Roman and Byzantine Periods

3. Early Muslim Period

4. Crusader Period

5. Mamluk Period

6. Ottoman Period

7. Modern Period

VIII. Geographical Distribution and Demography

1. Palestine

2. Diaspora

3. Demography

IX. The Samaritan Pentateuch

1. The Nature of the Samaritan Pentateuch

2. Ancient Translations of the Samaritan Pentateuch

3. The Samaritan Pentateuch in Western Scholarship

4. The Samaritan Script

X. Samaritan Literature

1. Exegesis

2. Halakhah

3. Liturgy

4. Chronicles

5. Linguistic Writings

6. Folktales

7. Interactions with European Scholars

XI. Samaritan Rituals and Customs

1. The Samaritan Calendar

2. Passover and Maṣot

3. The Feast of Weeks

4. The First Day of the Seventh Month

5. The Day of Atonement

6. Tabernacles

7. The Eighth Day of Tabernacles — Shemini Aṣeret

8. Ṣimmut Pesaḥ and Ṣimmut Sukkot

9. Pilgrimage

10. Circumcision

11. Redemption of the First Born

12. Completion of the Reading of the Torah

13. Betrothal and Wedding

14. Funeral

15. Prayer

16. Music

17. Art

XII. The Samaritans Today

XIII. New Challenges

Bibliography

Index of Sources

Index of Modern Authors

Index of Subjects

Preface

Nothing demonstrates more clearly the change from the almost total neglect of anything that has to do with the Samaritans to a heightened interest in their history and religion, than two remarks made almost one hundred years apart: In 1907, an anonymous reviewer of James Montgomery’s influential book, The Samaritans, The Earliest Jewish Sect: Their History, Theology, and Literature, wondered: Are the Samaritans worth a volume of 360 pages?¹ In 2000, the situation had changed to such an extent that the authors of an encyclopedia article on the Samaritans in New Testament times could refer to an explosion in recent years in the publication of Samaritan texts and secondary discussions based upon them.² Others speak of the last two decades as a boom time for Samaritan studies.³ Editions and translations of Samaritan works have appeared or been announced for publication, numerous linguistic studies have been and are being published, and the excavations in Samaria — and above all on Mt. Gerizim — have opened up new vistas. Moreover, the past of the community is no longer the only focus of interest to scholars, as the results of research by social anthropologists are beginning to appear, shedding light on the modern-day community of the Samaritans. This in turn enables us to make comparisons between contemporary practices and beliefs on the one hand, and the practices and beliefs as recorded in the documents of the past on the other. That the interest in the Samaritans is not confined to specialized scholars but extends to a wider readership is shown by the very publication of several books of haute vulgarization.

The present work is neither intended to be a Summa Samaritana nor an encyclopedia encompassing everything that can be said about the Samaritans. As the title indicates, it is meant to be a profile of the Samaritans in the sense of a concise biographical and character sketch of the community as it developed throughout the centuries. My aim is to present the main facets of the history, religion, and life of the Samaritans in the light of recent developments in historical, archaeological, philological, and anthropological studies by setting forth the present state of our knowledge and providing references that enable readers to pursue in greater detail questions of special interest to them. The time frame extends from antiquity to the present.

In my studies of the Samaritans throughout many years, a number of scholars have influenced my work more than others. Among them are two who are no longer with us, but whose memory is especially dear to me. They are Alan Crown and Ferdinand Dexinger. Both have not only significantly advanced Samaritan studies throughout their academic careers, but they were also exceptional human beings with generous and warm personalities. In archaeology, it is without doubt Yitzhak Magen who revolutionized our view of early Samaritan history. I was fortunate during several stays in Israel to receive first-hand information from him in situ, both on Mt. Gerizim and at the synagogue sites that he excavated. My thanks are due to him also for giving me permission to include some of his photographs and charts in this book. Last but not least, Benyamim Tsedaka was not only the first Samaritan I met, but also a source of information that never dries up. My thanks are due to him for the many informative and enjoyable hours spent with him and his family in Ḥolon and on Mt. Gerizim, as well as the occasions where we were able to meet not only at the Samaritan congresses, but also in Ottawa and Toronto. Needless to say, none of these persons is responsible for any deficiencies contained in this book. My warmest thank-you goes to my wife, Lucille, who has supported my research in more ways than I can enumerate: from our travels to the Samaritans in Ḥolon, Nablus, and on Mt. Gerizim — observing and participating in Samaritan life and ceremonies — to proofreading and commenting on the manuscripts of my publications for as long as I have been engaged in Samaritan studies.

Abbreviations

AbrN Abr-Nahrain

AJBA Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology

AJPA American Journal of Physical Anthropology

ATLA American Theological Library Association

b. Babylonian Talmud

BA Biblical Archaeologist

BAR Biblical Archaeology Review

BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

BJPES Bulletin of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society

BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

BSac Bibliotheca sacra

BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CPJ Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, edited by Victor A. Tcherikover. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957-1964.

DBSup Dictionnaire de la Bible: Supplément, edited by Louis Pirot and André Robert. Paris: Letouzey & Ané, 1928-.

DSD Dead Sea Discoveries

HBO Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft

HTR Harvard Theological Review

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal

JA Journal asiatique

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JPOS Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society

JQR Jewish Quarterly Review

JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism

JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism: Supplement Series

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series

JSS Journal of Semitic Studies

LXX Septuagint

m. Mishna

MNDPV Mittheilungen und Nachrichten des deutschen Palästina-Vereins

MT Masoretic Text

NEAEHL The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, edited by Ephraim Stern. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society & Carta, 1993-2008.

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NTOA Novum testamentum et orbis antiquus

NTS New Testament Studies

OEANE The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, edited by Eric M. Meyers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

OLZ Orientalistische Literaturzeitung

PEFQS Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement

PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly

PJ Palästina-Jahrbuch

RB Revue biblique

REJ Revue des études juives

RevQ Revue de Qumran

RVV Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten

SP Samaritan Pentateuch

STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

t. Tosefta

VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

y. Jerusalem Talmud

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft

ZDPV Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche

---

1. Anonymous, review of The Samaritans, The Earliest Jewish Sect: Their History, Theology, and Literature, by James Montgomery, Expository Times 18 (1907): 548.

2. H. G. M. Williamson and Craig A. Evans, Samaritans, in Dictionary of New Testament Background (ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter; Downers Grove, IL and Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 1056.

3. H. G. M. Williamson, review of Tradition Kept: The Literature of the Samaritans, by Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 3 (2007): 162.

Illustrations

Fig. 1. Mt. Gerizim. General view from the north. (Yitzhak Magen, Mount Gerizim Excavations I, 1)

Fig. 2. Tell er-Ras as seen from the main peak of Mt. Gerizim. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 3. Roman Neapolis coin with the main peak of Mt. Gerizim and Tell er-Ras. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 4. Mt. Gerizim — Palaeo-Hebrew inscription, Yhwh. (Yitzhak Magen, Mount Gerizim Excavations I, 254, inscription 383)

Fig. 5. Palaeo-Hebrew inscription from Mt. Gerizim, priest(s). (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 6. Delos — overview of the ruins. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 7. Delos — Inscription 1. (EfA/Ph. Bruneau)

Fig. 8. Delos — Inscription 2. (EfA/Ph. Bruneau)

Fig. 9. Distribution map of Samaritan synagogues in the Land of Israel. (Yitzhak Magen, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan, p. 117, Fig. 24)

Fig. 10. Khirbet Samara synagogue. (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 11. Khirbet Samara synagogue — reconstruction. (Yitzhak Magen, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan, p. 131, Fig. 23)

Fig. 12. Khirbet Samara synagogue — apse and miqveh. (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 13. Khirbet Samara synagogue — mosaic depicting a temple facade. (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 14. El-Khirbe synagogue. (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 15. El-Khirbe synagogue — reconstruction. (Yitzhak Magen, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan, p. 131, Fig. 23)

Fig. 16. El-Khirbe — remains of mausoleum. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 17. El-Khirbe — miqveh. (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 18. El-Khirbe — central carpet of the mosaic floor. (Yitzhak Magen)

Fig. 19. Kiryat Luza — the Samaritan settlement Luza on Mt. Gerizim. (Bible Walks)

Fig. 20. Interior of Mt. Gerizim synagogue. (Bible Walks)

Fig. 21. Synagogue in Ḥolon. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 22. Bathtub from building A of the city on Mt. Gerizim. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 23. Olive press in Qedumim. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 24. Distribution map of Samaritan settlements in antiquity. (Yitzhak Magen, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan, p. 80)

Fig. 25. The Abisha Scroll. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 26. Samaritan scripts. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 27. Preparing the lambs for roasting. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 28. Putting a lamb on the roasting spit. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 29. Tannurim and fire wood. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 30. Fire in roasting pits. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 31. Sukkah. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 32. Pilgrims on Mt. Gerizim. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 33. Pilgrims praying on Mt. Gerizim. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 34. Mt. Gerizim — Isaac’s Altar, view from the west. (Yitzhak Magen, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan, p. 263)

Fig. 35. Prayers on the Eternal Hill. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 36. Marriage contract (1820). (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 37. Funeral on Mt. Gerizim. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 38. Prayers in the synagogue. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 39. Modern mezuzah on the wall of a house in Nablus. (Reinhard Pummer)

Fig. 40. Musical notations of Exod. 15:1 and 3, as corrected by the author. (Ulrike-Rebekka Nieten, Die Kantillation bei den Samaritanern, p. 236)

Fig. 41. Waving of the Torah scroll. (Ori Orhof)

Fig. 42. Amulet, modern, paper, original size 7 x 8.8 cm. (Reinhard Pummer)

Introduction

In cultures with Christian roots — and even among people who do not have a Christian cultural background — the Samaritans are almost exclusively associated with the New Testament stories about the members of this religious group. What comes to mind when Samaritans are mentioned is above all Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan who helped a person in distress, as told by Luke in his Gospel (Luke 10:25-37). In contrast to the two functionaries of the Jerusalem temple, a Samaritan literally went out of his way to help a man who was left wounded on the road by robbers. A measure of the unparalleled fame of this parable is the fact that the expression to be a good Samaritan is synonymous with the phrase to help somebody. In North America in particular, when Samaritans are mentioned, many people think first and foremost of the organization called Samaritans, which, according to its website, is a confidential emotional support service, available twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, to provide emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of emotional distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide.¹ Similarly, many other European and non-European organizations which provide help to people in difficulties include Samaritan in their names. An online search of databases will result in innumerable hits relating to these associations. There is even an organization called The Wandering Samaritan which enables international travelers to create random acts of kindness along their journey, as their website announces.²

But very few people are aware that there is a community of Samaritans in existence today in Palestine and Israel whose members see themselves as the true Israelites, having resided in their birthplace for thousands of years and preserving unchanged the revelation given to Moses in the Torah. Once a sizable people, they presently number approximately eight hundred individuals. Because the existence of this Samaritan community is virtually unknown to most people in the West, the community leaders felt compelled to publish a brochure with the title, The Good Samaritans: A Living People.³ Since they attach great importance to their identity as the true Israelites, they added a note that their self-identification is not Samaritans, but Israelites whose center of life is Mt. Gerizim. Generally, they call themselves Israelite Samaritans. They now maintain a website with information about their history and life at http://www.israelite-samaritans.com/. Despite their small size as a community, they are proud of their tradition and do everything in their power to preserve and practice their age-old beliefs and customs.

For specific groups, however, the Samaritans have been the subject of interest for a long time, beginning with the church fathers, rabbinic authors, Holy Land pilgrims, Middle East travelers, and Bible scholars, as well as modern-day anthropologists, geneticists, and other field researchers. The knowledge accumulated by these groups has been greatly expanded in recent years with new editions not only of the Samaritan Pentateuch, but also of other Samaritan writings, and above all with the results of excavations in the district of Samaria. These excavations have brought to light the remains of Samaritan synagogues and, most importantly, the remains of a city and a sacred precinct on the top of the Samaritans’ sacred mountain, Mount Gerizim, near the modern city of Nablus. Still, a great deal of Samaritan history is only poorly known due to the dearth of sources available to us. Many Samaritan writings have not yet been critically edited and translated into modern languages despite some progress in this area. In 1984, the Société d’Études Samaritaines was founded as an association of scholars engaged in Samaritan studies and cognate fields for the purposes of organizing congresses at regular intervals, promoting the academic study of all aspects of Samaritanism, and publishing its proceedings.

In the contemporary situation, new approaches are being taken to study the day-to-day living of the Samaritans and the way they understand and practice their traditions. Until recent times we had to rely extensively on written reports from travelers and pilgrims for these aspects,⁴ but this type of text-based study is now being supplemented by research conducted with social-anthropological methods, enabling us to gain insights into the life of the community as it is concretely lived in our age. A first attempt at documenting the life of the Samaritan community in the latter part of the twentieth century which combined historical and ethnographic approaches was my monograph, The Samaritans, published in the series Iconography of Religions in 1987.⁵ With the help of a collection of annotated photographs taken during several stays with the Samaritans in the 1970s and 1980s, it provides a glimpse into the life of the Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim and in Ḥolon.

In 1993, Monika Humer submitted a master’s thesis to the Institut für Völkerkunde at the University of Vienna, Austria, entitled Symbole samaritanischer Ethnizität: Ethnographische Fallstudie an einer levantinischen Minderheit (Symbols of Samaritan ethnicity: An ethnographic case study of a Levantine minority),⁶ in which she examined the role of the kinship and marriage practices of the community. A similar study was Sean Ireton’s master’s thesis entitled The Samaritans: Strategies for Survival of an Ethnoreligious Minority in the Twenty-First Century,⁷ submitted to the University of Kent at Canterbury in Great Britain in 2003. Ireton examined the Samaritans’ management of their traditions and the innovations they employ to uphold their distinctiveness and to enable them to survive changes in the Israeli and Palestinian societies in which they live: namely, the principle of patrilineality and the conversion and acceptance of Jewish women, the role of kinship and hierarchies, and the importance of rituals and ceremonies as boundary markers.

Another more detailed and in-depth work in this area of research was Monika Schreiber-Humer’s doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Vienna, Austria, in 2009, subsequently published in 2014, entitled ‘The Comfort of Kin’: Samaritan Community, Kinship, and Marriage.⁸ From her analysis of Samaritan marriage and kinship rules and practices, Schreiber paints a picture of the Samaritan society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that raises the question whether, at this stage in their long history, the traditional ways are still apt to sustain them as a unique community in the sea of Muslim and Jewish cultures.

The use of the past — specifically the Samaritans’ myth of their origin 3,600 years ago — as a means of maintaining their identity, and the transmission of this tradition in the Samaritan community, is the subject of the Mémoire de Master II by Fanny Urien, entitled Frontières, mémoire et médiation dans la communauté samaritaine, séparée entre Israël et les territoires palestiniens (Frontiers, memory and mediation in the Samaritan community, divided between Israel and the Palestinian territories), approved by the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 2011.⁹ Urien is now preparing her doctoral dissertation under the title Rendre visible ses origines et attester son authenticité. Organisation sociale, transmission et construction identitaire dans la communauté samaritaine, située entre Holon (Israël) et Kiryat Luza (Cisjordanie) (Making visible one’s origins and testifying to one’s authenticity: Social organization, transmission and identity construction in the Samaritan community, situated between Ḥolon [Israel] and Kiryat Luza [Westbank]). In her dissertation, she will analyze the strategies employed by the Samaritans to prove that they are rooted in Israeli and Palestinian soil, especially their recourse to genealogies, the dynamics of their heritage, the genetics of their population, and the use of new information and communication technologies.

In 2014, a book was published called The Dynamics of Coexistence in the Middle East: Negotiating Boundaries Between Christians, Muslims, Jews and Samaritans¹⁰ by Julia Droeber, a social anthropologist presently teaching at An-Najah University in Nablus. Droeber describes the ways in which the Muslim, Christian, and Samaritan citizens of Nablus see their commonalities and mark out their differences and identities; what this means in their everyday lives; and how the Jewish occupation of the country challenges their relationships.

The works listed above expand Samaritan studies through close analyses of the present situation of the community. Yet in any study of the Samaritans, terminology also plays an important part. According to many Bible translations, the Old Testament mentions the Samaritans only once in 2 Kings 17:29, in connection with the conquest of the northern Israelite kingdom by the Neo-Assyrians and its resettlement with foreigners in the eighth century B.C.E. This passage has led to the view that the Samaritans were syncretists, worshiping not only Yhwh, but also idols. Such a view dominated the thinking of many Jews and Christians for a long time, and for some it still does. Closer analysis has shown, however, that the Hebrew term in this passage should not be translated Samaritans, but people of Samaria. In order to avoid confusion, the name Samaritans is now reserved for the members of the Yhwh-worshiping community of Samarians centered on Mt. Gerizim, excluding Jerusalem and originating as a separate religion at a much later time than the eighth century B.C.E. In the New Testament and in the writings of Flavius Josephus, we encounter the Greek equivalents of Samaritans a number of times — in certain instances clearly referring to the Gerizim group, but in others probably only to inhabitants of Samaria in general without indicating the religious affiliation of the persons so called.

Other terms used by scholars in this context are Proto-Samaritans and Samarian Yahwists. Both terms refer to Yhwh-worshiping inhabitants of Samaria who had their own temple on Mt. Gerizim but had not yet rejected the temple in Jerusalem as an illegitimate place of worship. Of course, the ancient sources do not distinguish between inhabitants of Samaria in general and Samaritans in the sense of the Gerizim community as we understand it. The term Samaritans in these ancient sources may refer to any of the groups residing in Samaria: that is, to Jewish, pagan, or Yahwistic Samarian inhabitants. It is therefore up to the modern reader to try to determine from the context which group is meant — a task that is sometimes difficult or even impossible.

The use of terms such as Judahites, Judeans, or Jews represents a similar case. Some authors refer to the residents of Judah/Yehud during the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Hellenistic periods as Judeans to differentiate them from the Jews of the Roman period.¹¹ Since this distinction is not crucial to my purpose in this book, I use Jews and Judeans interchangeably.

A question that has preoccupied students of Samaritanism and cognate fields for a long time now is the status of the Samaritan religion: Is it a sect of Judaism which separated from the mother religion and went its own way, or is it a form of ancient Yahwism? In chapter 1, The Identity of the Samaritans, I will look at the various positions taken by scholars throughout the history of the study of Samaritanism.

Some scholars find hints and implied polemics against the Samaritans in parts of the Old Testament. For them, certain texts suggest animosity between Jews and Samaritans. I will discuss this question in chapter 2, Samaritans in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament? It will become clear that such claims depend on what date an author assigns to a text and to the origin of the Samaritans.

In addition to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), the New Testament contains several other passages in which the Samaritans play a role or are mentioned: Matthew 10:5-6 (Jesus forbids the apostles to enter Samaritan towns); Luke 9:51-53 (Jesus is refused hospitality by a Samaritan village); Luke 17:11-19 (only one of ten healed lepers returns to thank Jesus — a Samaritan); John 4:4-42 (Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman by Jacob’s Well); and John 8:48 (Jesus is called a Samaritan). I will discuss these passages in chapter 3, Samaritans and the New Testament.

Information about the Samaritans preserved in ancient Jewish literature will be the focus of chapter 4, Samaritans in Jewish Writings of Antiquity. The methodological problems one encounters in trying to interpret the data in such texts are particularly acute. It should go without saying that none of these documents may be used to reconstruct Samaritan history without taking into account the purpose for and circumstances under which they were written. Although this is true for all historical sources, it is a major issue in any attempt to derive information about the Samaritans from works such as Josephus’s War and Antiquities or from the rabbinic writings.

In chapter 5, Archaeological Excavations, I outline the contribution of archaeology to our knowledge of the early history of the Samaritans. Most important are the excavations on Mt. Gerizim where the precincts of a sanctuary from the Persian and Hellenistic times have been found. Monumental staircases and other remains testify to the importance of the site in both periods. In addition, a large, hitherto unknown city around the sanctuary has been partially unearthed. Other important discoveries include the remains of a number of Samaritan synagogues, ritual baths, installations for wine-making, oil lamps, and amulets.

From Samaritan as well as non-Samaritan sources we know that at one time the community was not homogeneous, but divided into a number of sects. These sects form the subject of chapter 6. Samaritan Chronicles, church fathers, and Muslim authors all present tantalizingly small glimpses into this aspect of Samaritanism. What is certain is that there once existed such sectarian groups. Less certain are the details about their numbers, their founders, and their teachings. As far as we can ascertain from the scant information available to us, the various factions differed from each other in their attitude to Scripture, their halakhah, and their eschatological expectations.

Chapter 7, The Samaritans in History, presents an overview of the history of the Samaritans from the Hellenistic and Roman periods to modern times, outlining the fate of the community under successive regimes and the ups and frequent downs through which it went in the more than two millennia of its existence as a religion. I will show how the community dwindled from a substantial entity to a minute group which nevertheless succeeded in preserving its identity and traditions into the present.

Over the course of their history, the Samaritans not only inhabited their ancestral home, Samaria, but existed as a diaspora community in several Mediterranean countries as well. However, their numbers continued to diminish through persecutions and conversions to Christianity and Islam until the community was eventually confined to Palestine. In chapter 8, I outline the geographical distribution and demography of the Samaritans from antiquity to modern times.

The foundation and absolute reference point of faith and practice for the Samaritans is the Pentateuch. Although it is almost identical with the Masoretic Text, it differs from it in certain respects, some more important than others. Especially the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has enabled scholars to determine with greater precision the character and background of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which is the subject of chapter 9.

In chapter 10, I will review the other literature of the Samaritans: works concerned with exegesis, halakhah, chronicles, and grammatical writings; correspondence with European scholars in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries; and folklore.

The Samaritan calendar, annual and life cycle feasts, and music and art are the focus of chapter 11. To determine the time of the celebration of their feast days, the Samaritans have their own calendar which is different from the Jewish calendar. They observe only the biblical festivals based on the Pentateuch, and not the festivals that were added on the basis of biblical books they do not acknowledge as authoritative. They therefore do not observe the festivals of Purim and Hanukkah. Instead, their celebrations are limited to Passover, Maṣot, Sukkot, Yom Kippur, and certain minor festivals. The Samaritan life cycle observances include circumcision, the completion of the reading of the Torah, wedding, and funeral.

In chapter 12, I consider the present situation of the Samaritans both in their settlements on Mt. Gerizim and in Ḥolon, south of Tel Aviv. Now more than ever they underline the principles which constitute their identity and the beliefs that guide their faith. Compared to the past, the Samaritans of today are in a much better position than they were for centuries in every respect. This is not to deny that sometimes they do face discrimination on grounds of their religion. However, their greatest challenge comes from encountering modern ways of life that clash with their traditions and are apt to draw away young people attracted by what they experience in the society in which they live and work. Only the future will tell what the outcome of this confrontation will be. Judging by the past, everything leads us to believe that the Samaritan community will find ways to survive it.¹²

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1. Outreach: Our Mission Statement, accessed February 22, 2015, http://www.samaritans.org/branches/samaritans-chilterns/outreach.

2. The Wandering Samaritan.org, accessed February 22, 2015, http://thewanderingsamaritan.org/. This organization has nothing to do with the film, The Wandering Samaritan, discussed later in this book.

3. Aaron b. Ab-Hisda et al., The Good Samaritans: A Living People (Ḥolon, Israel: Institute of Samaritan Studies, 1987).

4. See the section Interactions with European Scholars in the chapter Samaritan Literature later in this study (pp. 252-56).

5. Reinhard Pummer, The Samaritans, Iconography of Religions, 23.5 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987).

6. Monika Humer, Symbole samaritanischer Ethnizität: Ethnographische Fallstudie an einer levantinischen Minderheit (Magisterarbeit, Universität Wien, 1993).

7. Sean Ireton, The Samaritans: Strategies for Survival of an Ethnoreligious Minority in the Twenty-First Century (master’s thesis, Canterbury: University of Kent at Canterbury, Department of Anthropology, 2003).

8. Monika Schreiber-Humer,  ‘The Comfort of Kin’: Samaritan Community, Kinship, and Marriage (Ph.D. diss., Vienna: Universität Wien, 2009).

9. Fanny Urien, Frontières, mémoire et médiation dans la communauté samaritaine, séparée entre Israël et les territoires palestiniens (master’s thesis, Paris: Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2011).

10. Julia Droeber, The Dynamics of Coexistence in the Middle East: Negotiating Boundaries Between Christians, Muslims, Jews and Samaritans (Library of Modern Middle East Studies, 135; London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2014).

11. For example, Gary N. Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

12. Note on names and transcriptions: As we will see below, in Samaritan tradition, men as well as women may have a Hebrew, an Aramaic, and an Arabic name at the same time. For a discussion of Samaritan personal names, see Alan D. Crown, Names, in A Companion to Samaritan Studies, ed. Alan D. Crown, Reinhard Pummer, and Abraham Tal (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993), pp. 165-66; and Alan D. Crown, Samaritan Scribes and Manuscripts is variously rendered Tsedaka, Ṣadaqa, or Ṣedaqa; and Shalmah b. Ṭabia is also transcribed as Salama b. Ṭabia, and his Arabic name as Salamah Ghazzal. To facilitate the recognition of names and terms familiar from other works, I have adopted the most common transcriptions, with diacritical marks reserved for consonants. I have done the same with titles of works not referenced in the bibliography.

I. The Identity of the Samaritans

The seemingly simple but frequently asked question, Who/What are the Samaritans?, receives different answers depending on who is being asked and who is giving the answer.¹ The Samaritans themselves will reply one way, Jews another, and scholars again in their own particular ways.

1. The Samaritan View

The Samaritans are convinced that they are the original and true Israelites, whereas the Jews have gone astray. In their medieval chronicles, the Samaritans call the Jews, among other epithets, the sons of Israel the erroneous ones, rebels, heretics, or the people of error.² From the chronicles to modern Samaritan history books,³ the split between Samaritans and Jews is said to have occurred in the time of Eli, who, according to 1 Samuel 1-4, was priest in Shiloh (modern Khirbet Seilun, approximately 30 km north of Jerusalem) in the days of Samuel’s youth, Shiloh being the site of the religious center of the Israelite tribes in the time prior to the monarchy (cf. Josh. 18:1). In Samaritan tradition, Eli tried to arrogate to himself the high priesthood on Mt. Gerizim but ended up moving to Shiloh where he set up a schismatic sanctuary. Detailed accounts of the clash between Eli and the officiating high priest Uzzi are preserved in the Samaritan Book of Joshua and in Abu l-Fatḥ’s Kitāb al-Tarīkh, both works incorporating modified elements from 1 Samuel and Josephus, the latter possibly via another work.⁴ The earliest extant chronicle, the Tūlīda).⁶ Presumably, the account of the split between the two groups was added to the Samaritan tradition only in the time after the compilation of the Tūlīda.⁷ The salient passage in the Book of Joshua conveys the essence of this conflict:

Discord had arisen between the descendant of Fînahas (ʾOzi) and his cousin Ilî (Eli), whose name being interpreted means: the insidious. This erring man was of the tribe of Itamar (Ithamar) the brother of el-ʾAzar the imâm. Now the right of administration belonged to the tribe of Fînahas, and it was the one which was offering up the sacrifices upon the brazen altar, and stone altar. And this man – the insidious – was fifty years old, and being great in riches had obtained for himself the lordship over the treasure house of the children of Isrâîl; and he had obtained, through the knowledge of magic, what he had acquired of riches, proud rank and wealth. And his self-importance being great in his own estimation, he gathered to himself a company, and said unto them: I am one to whom to serve a boy [Uzzi] is impossible, and I will not reconcile myself to this, and I hope that ye will not be content to have me do this. And the company answered him: We are under thy command, and under obedience to thee; command us in whatsoever thou willest. And he put them under covenant that they would follow him unto the place where they purposed going on the morning of the second day (of the week). And he offered up offering on the altar without salt,⁸ as if he was ignorant, and immediately started out on the journey with his outfit and company, and cattle, and every thing that he possessed, and settled in Seilûn (Shiloh). And he gathered the children of Isrâîl into a schismatical sect … And there was collected to him a multitude in Seilûn, and he built for himself a shrine there, and organized matters for himself in it on the model of the temple, and erected in it one altar, on which he might sacrifice and offer up offerings.⁹

While Uzzi was high priest in the line of Aaron’s son Eleazar and Eleazar’s son Phinehas, Eli in Samaritan tradition was priest in the line of Ithamar, Aaron’s other son who survived his father. It is noteworthy that only the Samaritans, Josephus and rabbinic sources connect Eli to Ithamar.¹⁰ Thus, both Uzzi and Eli were descended from Aaron, but they did not belong to the same lineage — Uzzi, being descended from the line of Eleazar and Phinehas, was the lawful high priest in the Samaritans’ opinion; Eli, being descended from the line of Ithamar, should have deferred to Uzzi despite the latter’s young age. In the Jewish Bible (Josh. 18:1) Shiloh was the place where Joshua set up the Ark of the Covenant after he had conquered the whole country. The Samaritans claim, however, that the Ark was originally set up on Mt. Gerizim and that the controversy between Eli and Uzzi caused the former to move to Shiloh with a group of like-minded Israelites, building his own sanctuary there — modeled on that on Mt. Gerizim — and causing thus a schism among the people; as Abu l-Fatḥ succinctly states: Thus Israel was split in factions.¹¹ One of these factions set up its cult center in Shiloh (and eventually moved to Jerusalem¹²).

While it is true that Eli alone was not the cause of the end of the period of Grace and the calamities that befell the Israelites, it is also true that the split came about because of Eli’s actions. The disastrous effect of what he did merited him the epithets the insidious and the erring man, and his death evokes the comment: And so this man received rewards for his action in this world, and he shall also be brought to account in the next.¹³ Clearly, it was an inner-Israelite dispute — the Book of Joshua states that Eli gathered the children of Isrâîl into a schismatical sect and speaks explicitly of the schism among the children of Israel;¹⁴ the Shiloh-faction was not seen as outsiders,¹⁵ but the followers of Eli continued to worship Yhwh.¹⁶ Following this account in the Samaritan Book of Joshua and Abu l-Fatḥ’s Kitāb is the story of Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, their misdeeds and their demise in the battle against the nations, as well as Eli’s sudden death on learning of their fate. In all this, the compilers of the chronicles rely on 1 Samuel, modifying the biblical account as needed for their changed premises: in 1 Samuel, Eli is priest in Shiloh, but Uzzi is not mentioned; Eli himself is not evil,¹⁷ but his two sons are scoundrels whose sin was very great in the sight of the Lord (1 Sam. 2:17); their misbehavior in the sanctuary — eating from the offerings what did not belong to the priests and having intercourse with women in the sanctuary — becomes the reason why God takes away the priesthood from the house of Eli (cf. also 1 Kings 2:27); the ark plays the same role in the biblical account as in the Samaritan chronicle — it was taken from the Israelites in battle; Eli’s two sons fell and Eli died the same way in both sources. It may well be that the negative view of Shiloh in the Samaritan story of the division of the Israelite people was also influenced by the dire warnings in Jeremiah 7:12, 14; 26:6, 9: God destroyed the temple in Shiloh because of the wickedness of the people, and he may do so again if they do not mend their ways. The Samaritan chronicles explain thus the parting of the ways by having recourse to characters and stories from a portion of the Hebrew scriptures which they do not consider part of their own sacred writings, using the account in 1 Samuel selectively and adapting it to their view of the history of Israel as they saw it in the Middle Ages when the chronicles were compiled.

2. The Traditional Jewish View

It goes without saying that the Samaritans’ view is rejected by the Jews. In particular, orthodox Jews — together with various Christian groups — believe that the Samaritans are a mixed people whose religion was contaminated when the Assyrians settled foreigners in the former kingdom of Israel in the eighth century B.C.E. according to a certain understanding of the account in 2 Kings 17.¹⁸ After one of the places where these settlers originated, Cutha in Mesopotamia (50 km north-east of Babylon, modern Hila, which lies 85 km south of Baghdad), rabbinic sources call the Samaritans by the pejorative name Kutim (Cutheans).¹⁹ More liberal Jews, on the other hand, admit that the Samaritans are their kin, notwithstanding important differences in beliefs and practices.

An example of the contemporary orthodox view of the Samaritans is the following. As noted in the chapter on History, in 1842 the Samaritans were saved from Muslim persecution by the testimony of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Haim Abraham Gagin, who testified that the Samaritans are a branch of the children of Israel. In 2005, the website Ask The Rabbi of the Beit-El Yeshiva Center in the West Bank near Ramallah, published, in the category The Nation of Israel — Who is a Jew?, the following exchange:²⁰

Question:

I take exception to Rabbi Lewis’ answer to a question where he stated that Samaritans are not Jewish. In 1842, the Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, Haim Gaggin, and the Bet Din in Jerusalem, stated categorically that the Samaritans were a branch of the House of Israel. I interpret that to mean that they have been recognized as Jews for the last 160 years.

Answer:

In the Tanach Kings 2 17; 24-31 the origin of the Samaritans is from tribes brought over by the Assyrian kings and they are not Jews. See also Ezra 4;2. The Rambam holds them as non Jews and in a way even worse. (Commentary on Mishna Brachot 8; 8). Rabbi Eshtori HaParchi in his book Kaftor VaFerach follows the path the Rambam went.

The term A branch of the house of Israel given by the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Rabbi Avraham Chaim Gaggin does not mean at all they are Jews but that their belief in the five books of Moshe (though they twist it a lot) and in one G-d binds them in a way with the Jews, it’s a politically correct way of saying they are not Jews….

More so, though I’m no authority in Jewish history, it seems like this statement was given only to save the Samaritans from genocide by the Muslims of the time and such a statement of the chief Rabbi could protect them from being wiped out.

Bottom line is the Samaritans were and remain non Jews and that is the official approach of Halachic Judaism today.

Rabbi Elchanan Lewis

The above statement succinctly summarizes the current position of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. It means that a Samaritan wanting to enter the Jewish community for whatever reason has to undergo conversion, as is illustrated by the case of the two Samaritan sisters who married Jewish men in the mid-1980s.²¹

3. Modern Scholarly Views

Many scholars, past and present, see the Samaritans as a branch, or a sect, of Judaism, citing various events when the split is said to have occurred. More recently, however, this view has been called into question by a number of authors. From what was said above, it becomes apparent that the issue of the identity of the Samaritans is intimately connected with that of their origin. More precisely, we have to ask: are the Samaritans as we know them now and as they have been known for many centuries, descendants — religiously and otherwise — of the Israelite inhabitants of the North? Or are they a sect of Judaism which separated from its mother religion and eventually became a religion in its own right? We begin the following brief survey of scholarly opinions with those voices that answer the second question in the affirmative because they have been dominant for a very long time.

a. Samaritanism as a Jewish Sect

More than one hundred years ago, the first scholar to present a modern synthesis of what was known about the Samaritans at the beginning of the twentieth century, James Alan Montgomery, gave his important and influential book The Samaritans the subtitle The Earliest Jewish Sect. In his chapter on the The Modern Samaritans he lays out his view that not only his own work but also that of all recent scholars studying the beliefs and practices of the Samaritans show that they are a sect of Judaism, even if anthropology says they are Hebrews of the Hebrews.²² He summarizes his discussion with the words: The facts given in this Chapter abundantly prove the thesis that, whatever its beginning, Samaritanism has become and is a Jewish sect.²³ Montgomery was followed in this characterization of the Samaritans by numerous other authors. John William Lightley, for instance, devoted a long chapter to the Samaritans in his book Jewish Sects and Parties in the Time of Jesus. Marcel Simon in his short book Jewish Sects at the time of Jesus notes that the Samaritans are a sect in the modern usage of the term²⁴ — but then does not discuss them. James D. Purvis entitled his book on the Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect. He expressed his opinion again in a later article, The Samaritan Problem: A Case Study in Jewish Sectarianism in the Roman Era, affirming that Samaritanism is an alternative form of Judaism based on a narrow dimension of the Jewish heritage, clearly one of the Jewish sects of the Roman period, no matter what the Samaritans thought of themselves.²⁵ He argued that the Samaritans must be a Judean sect because they exhibit none of the characteristic elements of northern Israelite religion known from biblical and archaeological sources. Among these elements Purvis enumerated the syncretistic cult practices ascribed to Bethel, the open air sanctuaries, the idiosyncratic kind of Yahwism contained in the Elephantine writings, and the admixture of Yahwism and paganism reported in II Kings 17:24-41.²⁶ Furthermore, Shaye J. D. Cohen enumerates the Samaritans as one of the Jewish sects in his book From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, as does Lester Grabbe in his work Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian. Uriel Rappaport, in his article Reflections on the Origins of the Samaritans, clearly comes out in favor of designating the Samaritans a Jewish sect, rather than a people, living more or less in their own territory and having their own cultic center.²⁷ Shemaryahu Talmon, too, includes Samaritanism in his discussions of the "Emergence of Jewish Sectarianism in the Early

Reviews for The Samaritans

[maimonedes_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Samaritans are cousins of we Jews - religiously speaking that is. They have synagogues where they read from a Torah; they celebrate Passover and Yom Kippur – albeit at slightly different times from us; they acknowledge Moses as their only prophet, and their priests count their descent from Moses’ brother Aaron. And yet, their most holy site is not Jerusalem; it is Mount Gerizim near the West Bank city of Nablus; this is where half of the worldwide population of Samaritans – about 800 people - now lives. The Samaritan messiah will be a descendent of Joseph, from the tribe of Ephraim - not, like ours, a descendent of David, from the tribe of Judah. They consider themselves the true Children of Israel, and that we Jews are followers of a deviant path. According to the Samaritan narrative, the Jews were led astray by the Biblical priest Eli, who stole the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant away from its rightful place on Mount Gerizim, and installed it at Shiloh.If this story of the “other” Israelites fascinates you, read this book. It tells you everything you could want to know – probably more – about the Samaritans. It covers their origins, their history right up to the modern day, their version of the Pentateuch and other Samaritan literature, their beliefs and practices and the existential challenges facing them today. The traditional Jewish view of the Samaritans is that they were originally foreigners, brought into northern Israel from the east by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE, in exchange for the original Israelite population – the “lost” ten tribes – who were exiled after the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. According to the Book of Kings, these foreigners adopted Israelite worship so as to appease the “local” deity of their new homeland. The author informs us that scholarly opinion, which once accepted this view of Samaritan origins, now favors a different narrative. According to most scholars, the Samaritans were not immigrants, but members of the original Israelite population who were not exiled - neither by the Assyrian nor by the Babylonian conquerors – and who remained living in the land of Israel throughout.With each regarding the other as deviant or inauthentic, it is unsurprising that there have been tensions in the past between the Samaritan and Jewish communities. However, the fact is that Jews’ return to Israel in modern times – there are no Samaritans outside of Israel – has greatly benefited and provided practical support for the Samaritan community, which was down to about 160 souls in the early 20th century. There were very few Samaritan women and, were it not for the advice of Israel’s second president, Yitshak Ben-Tsvi, they might well have disappeared by now. He convinced them that marrying a Jewish woman was not “marrying out”, and they now also benefit from genetic counselling in Israel. I believe that the Samaritans give something to Jews too. A few years ago, I attended their Passover celebrations on Mount Gerizim; the men slaughter and then roast yearling lambs over huge outdoor fire pits, and then the whole community sits down to consume the Pascal lamb. Despite the differences between this and our rather more sedate Seder celebrations, I found it strangely moving to see, and to know that their beliefs and practices derive from the same sources as ours. In a way, the Samaritan presence in the land of Israel complements and validates our own. And if they are indeed descendants of the ten tribes who were never really lost, then that will save us a lot of searching.