Sylvia Mann<\/b><\/p>\n
[Mrs Mann is a freelance journalist and writer specializing in archaeological and historical subjects. Her books include Atarei Yerushalayim, Tour Jerusalem, and Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria.]<\/i><\/p>\n
Most people know little about today\u2019s Samaritans. Many believe that the name refers to an ancient, biblical race of which no vestige survives. They are often surprised to learn that the Samaritans, who accept only the Pentateuch as Holy Writ, are a vital, intelligent group with a rich history and a distinctive language and literature, practising their own form of worship and following age-old traditions and customs. In outward appearance, they tend to be tall and goodlooking, often light-complexioned, and indistinguishable from the folk among whom they live.<\/p>\n
Claiming direct descent from Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, who entered the Promised Land with Joshua and settled in the Samaria region, while their priests stem from the tribe of Levi, the Samaritans rather resent the name by which they are known. They prefer to call themselves \u2018Shamerim\u2019 \u2014 in Hebrew, guardians \u2014 for they contend that they have guarded the original Law of Moses, keeping it pure and unadulterated down the centuries.<\/p>\n
Their numbers are not large, and today less than five hundred are left of a great nation that is said to have been counted in hundreds of thousands \u2014 there were estimated to be over three-quarters of a milllion <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1977) p. 78<\/p>\n
in the early part of the Christian era. About half of the remnant live on their ancestral site, close to Mount Gerizim, and the other half in Holon, near Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
Their creed is simple: \u2018the unity of God, with Moses as His prophet; the holiness of the Sabbath and the set feasts; the sanctity of Mount Gerizim, and a belief in Resurrection and in the Day of Judgement\u2019 \u2014 the last tenets obviously adopted at a later stage. Mount Gerizim, in the district of Samaria, draws Samaritans on three annual pilgrimages \u2014 Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. The yearly Paschal sacrifice, which all Samaritans are required to attend, is of the utmost importance.<\/p>\n
General opinion, until recently, was that, when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 721 BC and its population carried off into exile, \u2018the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel.\u2019 2 Kings 17:24. These foreign elements, who eventually took the religion of the Land, are held to be the forefathers of the Samaritans.<\/p>\n
A top the sacred Mount Gerizim, with the town of Nablus below<\/i><\/b>.<\/b><\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1977) p. 79<\/p>\n
The Samaritans themselves vehemently deny this. They declare that the number banished was inconsiderable, for the records of Sargon II affirm, \u2018I besieged and conquered Samaria, led away as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it.\u2019 Obviously, that figure represents only a small proportion of the settlers, and the likelihood is that the overwhelming majority stayed to till the soil and carry on their everyday tasks. This being so, the Samaritans argue that their ancestors are the true children of Israel, who never left the Land. This is one of the cardinal dogmas of their faith.<\/p>\n
Friction quickly developed between the Samaritans and the Jews returning from Babylon in the fifth century BC. The homecoming exiles, led by Ezra and Nehemiah, began to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, arousing the wrath of Sanballat, Governor of Samaria, who \u2018spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, \u201cWhat do these feeble Jews?\u201d\u2018 Nehemiah 4:2. Jewish sources have it that the Jews were victorious; Samaritan sources that Sanballat succeeded in breaking down what had been built, and preventing completion of the work.<\/p>\n
Feelings were further embittered by the unproven Samaritan claim that Ezra the Scribe had altered the script and the text of the Pentateuch. According to the Samaritans, their version is the original one, although basically it is the same as the Pentateuch of the Old Testament. Most variations are minute and insignificant. The principal divergence is the telescoping of the first two Commandments, and the replacement of the tenth by one stressing the sanctity of Mount Gerizim as the site of the House of God, the place of creation of Adam and Eve and of the readying of Isaac for sacrifice.<\/p>\n
An accidental find made in 1962 shed new light on Samaritan history at the beginning of Greek rule in this area. Beneath a pile of some two hundred skeletons discovered in a cave in Wadi Daliah near Jericho were items of jewellery, seals, and papyri \u2014 including marriage contracts and property deeds \u2014 written in Aramaic and employing the palaeo-Hebrew script that is typical of old Samaria. Among the hundred and fifty seals was one of \u2018Hananiah ben Sanballat, Governor of Samaria,\u2019 thought to be the great-grandson of Sanballat of the Bible.<\/p>\n
Archaeological interpretation infers that, after Alexander the Great conquered Samaria from the Persians around 333 BC, he set up a military government under Andromachus. Alexander himself <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1977) p. 80<\/p>\n
favoured the Samaritans, even permitting them to build a temple on Mount Gerizim, but Andromachus was a callous and cruel man whose behaviour sparked off a rebellion in which he was captured and burnt alive. Alexander despatched troops against the insurgents who had hidden in this cave with their families, and they were hunted down and massacred. Even more interesting is the interpretation of the papyri, which, according to the American archaeologist, Frank Cross, Jr, proves not only that the Samaritans of those days were wealthy and cultured, but that they were practising Jews and that marriage with Jewish partners was common.<\/p>\n
Samaritan-Jewish enmity was heightened throughout the third century BC, and flared into open conflict under the Maccabees. The climax came in 128 BC, when the Hasmonaean king, John Hyrcanus, razed the temple on Mount Gerizim, and so fanned the general unrest in the then large and powerful Samaritan nation. In an intriguing discovery on Mount Gerizim, made in 1968 by Dr Robert Bull, four strata of ruins were uncovered on the western peak: two upper strata of churches from Byzantine times, and a third of the temple of Zeus of the second century AD, which incorporated in its northern wall part of the lowest stratum \u2014 a strong, 10-meter high stone rampart from the fourth-century BC Samaritan temple destroyed by John Hyrcanus.1 <\/p>\n
At the turn of the Christian era, the Samaritans formed an important section of Palestine\u2019s inhabitants. The parable of Jesus, quoted in chapter 10 of the Gospel of Luke, of \u2018(a) certain man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves,\u2019 and was helped by the Good Samaritan, has become a household tale. The site of the Inn of the Good Samaritan, where a monastery stood in Byzantine days, can still be seen midway along the road that winds down from Jerusalem to Jericho.<\/p>\n
Further to the north, in the village of Askar, biblical Sychar near Shechem, is Jacob\u2019s Well, dug, so tradition says, by the Patriarch over three thousand five hundred years ago. Now within the crypt of a church built over the spot, this is where, according to tradition, Jesus was resting when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. The tension between Samaritans and Jews is vividly brought out by the story of how Jesus asked her for water, and she replied, \u2018How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me which am a woman of <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1977) p. 81<\/p>\n
Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. .. . .\u2019 John 4:9. Under Roman rule, Samaritans and Jews alike were persecuted, and Emperor Hadrian, who reigned from AD 117 to 138, even forbade circumcision and other Judaic religious rites. He began the systematic destruction of Samaritan manuscripts \u2014 an erosion which continued for centuries, and it was he who built the temple to Zeus on the ruins of the Samaritan sanctuary on Mount Gerizim.<\/p>\n
Some two hundred years after Hadrian\u2019s death, a Samaritan sage and scholar, Baba the Great \u2014 Baba Rabba \u2014 seems to have revived the hopes and aspirations of his people. He has become a heroic, semi-legendary figure, and is still revered. His encouragement was needed then, for, as Christianity gained ground in Palestine, the Samaritans suffered at least as much as the Jews.<\/p>\n
Under Byzantine domination, Samaritan revolt after revolt was suppressed with the utmost cruelty. But, despite heavy losses, at the Moslem invasion of Palestine in AD 634 the Samaritans were still about three hundred thousand strong, and for a while conditions improved. Communities were founded in Cairo and Damascus, and not only were the fields of Samaria and the coastal plain from Gaza to Caesarea tilled by Samaritan farmers, but also those of Ramla, Lydda and Yavne.<\/p>\n
This was a brief interlude. Thereafter, for centuries, hardship and assimilation gradually weakened the community, and, although some of those living away from their spiritual centre at Nablus returned, its numbers continued to decline. During Crusader times, the population dropped to fifty thousand, further dwindling under Mamluks and Turks. When Captains Kitchener and Conder travelled through the country in 1880\u2019s they found only a hundred and thirty-six Samaritans in the Nablus region. This appears to have been a turning-point, for the British Survey reports that within ten years the figure had grown to a hundred and sixty, men still outnumbering women by nearly two to one \u2014 often the sign of a vanishing society.<\/p>\n
After the British Mandate came into effect in Palestine in 1920, following World War I, there was a change for the better. Israel\u2019s 1948 War of Independence stands as a decisive landmark in Samaritan life. Until then, there had been a tendency to record the Samaritans as a non-Jewish entity, but in 1949, due to largely to the good offices of President Itzhak Ben-Zvi, they were recognized as citizens of Israel under the Law of Return. His encouragement and the example of Japhet Tsadaka, head of the Samaritans outside Nablus, <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1977) p. 82<\/p>\n
prompted some brethren from Nablus to join their families in Jaffa and then move to Holon, where a housing project was set up and a synagogue was consecrated.<\/p>\n
Another important step, probably influenced by the incidence of the Law of Return, was the acceptance of Jewish marriage partners, conditional on their conversion to the Samaritan faith. So far, seven men of the Holon community have married Jewish wives \u2014 a reminder and a rediscovery of the essential affinity between the customs and credos of the two peoples. Both believe in the Pentateuch; both keep the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week; both use Hebrew as the language of prayer; both practise circumcision on the eighth day after the birth of a son; both have similar marriage and funeral customs. The only major schism turns on the question, which is the Holy Mount? \u2014 Gerizim or Zion, barely eighty kilometres apart. For the Samaritans the biblical injunction in Deuteronomy is incontestable: \u2018When the Lord thy God hath brought thee in unto the Land. .. . thou shalt put a blessing upon Mount Gerizim.\u2019<\/p>\n
To be concluded in the next issue.<\/p>\n
(Reprinted by permission from Christian News From Israel,<\/i> Vol. XXVI, No. 1, 1976. Christian News From Israel<\/i> is a publication of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Jerusalem, Israel.)<\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1977) p. 83<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sylvia Mann [Mrs Mann is a freelance journalist and writer specializing in archaeological and historical subjects. Her books include Atarei Yerushalayim, Tour Jerusalem, and Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria.] Most people know little about today\u2019s Samaritans. Many believe that the name refers to an ancient, biblical race of which no vestige survives. They are often surprised to … Continue reading “THE
\nSAMARITANS \u2014 A LIVING LINK WITH THE PAST
\nPART I”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}