THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY
OF THE SAMARITANS
WAYNE A.
BRINDLE
The
development of Samaritanism and its alienation from Juda-
ism
was a process that began with the division of the kingdom of
antagonism,
including the importation of foreign colonists into Sa-
maria
by
the
Jews, the building of a rival temple on
and
religious opportunism of the Samaritans, and the destruction of
both
the Samaritan temple and their capital of Shechem by
John
Hyrcanus
during the second century B:C. The Samaritan religion at
the
time of Jesus had become Mosaic and quasi-Sadducean,
but
strongly
anti-Jewish. Jesus recognized their heathen origins and the
falsity
of their religious claims.
*
* *
INTRODUCTION
RELATIONS
between the Jews and the Samaritans were always
strained.
Jesus ben Sirach (ca. 180
B.C.) referred to the Samari-
!ans as "the foolish people that dwell in Shechem" (Sir 50:26). There
is a
tradition that 300 priests and 300 rabbis once gathered in the
temple
court in
in
the Law of Moses. When the Jews wanted to curse Jesus Christ,
they
called him demon-possessed and a Samaritan in one breath
(John
8:48).
The Samaritans are important to biblical
studies for several
reasons:1
(1) They claim to be the remnant of the
specifically
of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, with priests of the
line
of Aaron/Levi. (2) They possess an ancient recension
of the
Pentateuch
which. is non-Masoretic and shows close relationship
to a
text
type underlying both the LXX and some Hebrew manuscripts
1 Cf. Theodore H. Gaster,
"Samaritans," IDB, 4.190; and James D. Purvis, The
Samaritan
Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (
University,
1968) 2-3.
48 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
among
the Dead Sea Scrolls, and are therefore important both for
textual
criticism of the OT as well as the study of the history of
Hebrew.
(3) They appear several times in the NT, especially in Luke,
John,
and Acts, and may provide the background for controversies
related
in Ezra, Nehemiah, and other post-exilic writings. (4) They
provide
much insight into the cosmopolitan nature of Palestinian
religion
and politics before and at the time of Christ. (5) At one time
the
community was large enough to exercise considerable influence in
enough
to be a subject of controversy in Josephus and Rabbinic
literature
(notable among which are many references in the Mishnah
and
an extra tractate in the Talmud).
The principal questions addressed in
this study are: (1) When
did
the Samaritan sect come into existence as a distinct ethnic and
religious
group, with its own traditions and teachings? and (2) What
was
the development and history of the enmity between Samaritans
and
Jews?
The sources for a history of the
Samaritans are predominantly
anti-Samaritan:
2 Kings 17; Ezra and Nehemiah; Sir 50:25-26; 2 Macc
6:2;
the Assyrian Annals of Sargon; the Elephantine Papyri; the
Mishnah;
the Babylonian Talmud (Masseket Kutim);
the New Testa-
ment
(Matthew, Luke, John, Acts); and Josephus (especially Ant 9,
11,
12, 13, 18, 20).2 Samaritan
literature is largely late; the Samaritan
Pentateuch,
however, though copied in the 14th century, dates back
in recensional form at least to the Hasmonean
period (ca. 100-
150
B.C.). Many of its peculiarities reflect Samaritan religious ten-
dencies,
and it is thus an early witness to their beliefs and claims.
The problem of sources is compounded by
the fact that the name
"Samaritan"
occurs only once in the OT (2 Kgs
the
NASB as "the people of
"Samaritans"
as they appear in the Talmud, Josephus, and the NT,
but
rather to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel before its
captivity
by
a
religious people must therefore depend on much more than a simple
identification
based on names and geography.
I. THEORIES OF SAMARITAN ORIGINS
The traditional theories of Samaritan
origins are reduced by
Purvis
to four basic positions:3 (1) the view of the Samaritans them-
I
selves, that their movement is a perpetuation of the ancient Israelite
2 A. Ge1ston, "Samaritans," New Bible Dictionary (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962) 1132.
3 James D. Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 4-5.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 49
faith
as it was practised in the pre-monarchical period at Shechem
(ca.
1400-1100 B.C.); (2) the counterclaim of Judaism, that Samari-
tanism
is a heresy derived from a corrupt worship of Yahweh which
developed
in northern
area
about 722 B.C.; (3) an interpretation based on Ezra, Nehemiah,
and
Josephus, that the Samaritans broke away from the Jews in the
Persian
period; and (4) the assertion that a Samaritan schism occurred
in
the early Greek period.
All views demonstrate that there was a
definite schism,4 followed
by a
long period of independent development of the two groups. The
Samaritans
place the schism in the twelfth century B.C., at the time of
Eli.
The Jews date it in the eighth century B.C.
Modern critics have tended to date the
schism much later, but
most
have retained the schism concept. Some scholars, however, have
begun
to question this notion. As Coggins points out:
Two points in particular have remained characteristic of many descrip-
tions: the view of Samaritanism
as a debased form of religion, contain-
ing many syncretistic elements; and the
notion of a schism-with its
twofold connotation, of a definite break that took place at a
specific
moment in history, and of that break as implying the departure of
the
schismatic from the accepted norm. ...It is hoped that it will
become
clear that neither of these features should be taken for granted
as truly
characteristic of the situation.5
Purvis
stresses that "the so-called Samaritan schism, or withdrawal
from
the mainstream of Judaism, was not so much an event as a
process--a
process extending over several centuries and involving a
series
of events which eventually brought about estrangement between
the
two communities."6 Historians have tended to select one event
and
to declare that it was this that caused the emergence of the
Samaritan
sect. They have also disagreed as to which element of
Samaritanism represents its crucial distinction from Judaism. The
as
Samaritans, for example, say that worship at Gerizim
rather than
elsewhere
has always been the determining factor. The Jews regard
the
intermarriage of Assyrian colonists and northern Israelites and
the
development of a syncretistic religion as the origin of the heresy.
Others
refer to the erection of a temple on
tion
of the post-Pentateuchal scriptures, as the crucial
event.
The thesis of this article is that the
origin of Samaritanism was
indeed
a process--a process which began at least with the division of
the
kingdom (by ca. 931 B.C.) and continued through each successive
4 R. J. Coggins, Samaritans and Jews
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1975) 7.
5 Ibid., 4.
6 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 5.
50 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
incident,
including the importation of foreign colonists and the build-
ing
of the Gerizim temple, right up to their final
excommunication by
the
Jews about A.D. 300. Thus even in NT times the process of
estrangement
was still going on, although the sect could surely be
considered
distinct once it had its own temple and worship on
Gerizim.
Most modern critics tend to minimize the
OT's witness to the
origin
of the Samaritan people and religion, assuming that such
"Jewish"
accounts are too prejudiced to be reliable. This attitude
must
be avoided, however, since the statements of Jesus Christ show
that
he also recognized the dubiousness of their origins and the false-
hood
of their religious claims.
II. THE SAMARITAN ACCOUNT
The Samaritans claim to be the true children
of
remained
faithful to the Law of Moses.7 The Torah in their hands is
"the
true, original and faultless Torah in all its sentences, pronuncia-
tions,
and its style."8
The Samaritans claim to be descendants
of the tribe of Joseph,
and
thus descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh. Their priests are
from
the house of Levi, descendants of Aaron. When
Shechem,
in the valley between
The
high priest at the time was Eleazar, son of Aaron,
who also lived
in Shechem. Six years after the entrance into the land, Joshua
built
the
Tabernacle on Gerizim, where all worship of the
Israelites was
centered.
After Joshua's death there was a
succession of kings (called
M<yFpw, "judges," by the Jews), the
last of whom was Samson. Eleazar
was
succeeded at Gerizim by Phinehas,
Abishua, Shesha, Bacha, and
Uzzi.
When Uzzi
became high priest at the age of 23, Eli (a descendant
of Ithamar rather than of Eleazar10), then 60 years
old, was director
of
revenues and tithes and director of the sacrifices on the stone altar
outside
the Tabernacle.11 Eli became
rich through revenues and jealous
of Uzzi, and he decided to take the high-priesthood away from Uzzi.
7 Jacob, Son of Aaron, "The History and Religion of the
Samaritans," BSac 63
(1906)
393.
8 Ibid.
9 John MacDonald, The Theology of the Samaritans (
1964)
16.
10 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 88, n. 1.
11 Jacob, "History," 395.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 51
About the time of Eli, foreigners began
to enter
teach
the people sorcery and magic. Even a large number of priests
learned
it and left the ways of God. Eli was one of these, and he
gathered
a group of supporters. One day Uzzi the high priest
rebuked
Eli
for some fault in his sacrificial work, and Eli with his followers
immediately
apostatlzed.12 Some of Israel followed Uzzi
(especially
the
tribes of Joseph), and some followed Eli (especially
Benjamin).
Eli moved to
he
made a counterfeit ark and tabernacle and set up a rival sanctuary.
He
claimed that God had commanded the tabernacle to be moved to
follow
Eli because of his sorcery, and a deep dissension began to
grow
between the two groups. Thus, for a time there were two sanc-
tuaries
and two priesthoods (one descended from Phinehas, the
other
from
Ithamar), and the first division on religious grounds
in
was
created.13 The Samaritans thereafter rejected the claims of the
Ithamar
branch of priests in favor of the sons of Phinehas.
As a result
of
Eli's defection,
of Uzzi, the genuine high priest; (2) the followers of Eli;
and (3) many
of
various tribes who lapsed into paganism.
This is the only schism that the
Samaritans know.14 Eli's act
ended
the era of divine favor (htAUkra, "Rahuta
") and initiated the age
of
divine wrath (htAUnPA, "Panuta
").
One day God told Uzzi
to put all of the vessels and furniture of
the
tabernacle into a nearby cave, after which the cave miraculously
closed
up, engulfing the entire sanctuary. The next day, the cave and
its
contents completely disappeared (not to be found again until the
Taheb
or Messiah comes).15
About this time, Samuel, a descendant of
Korah, came to live
with
Eli at
and
witchcraft. When Eli died, the people made Samuel their ruler.
The
Philistines took advantage of the corruption and division to
attack
Saul.
Saul determined to punish the tribes of
Joseph because they did
not
follow Samuel's cult in
destroyed
the remaining altar on Gerizim, killed the high
priest Shisha
(son
of Uzzi), and destroyed many of the tribe.16
They began to
12 Ibid.,397.
13 MacDonald, Theology, 17.
14 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 88, n. I.
15 MacDonald, Theology, 17.
16 Jacob, "History," 406-7.
52 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
worship
in their homes, and many moved to
of
After
Saul died, David came to Shechem and became king of
all
When
David decided to build a temple in
at Gerizim, Yaire, told him that he
would have to build it on
"
friend
of this high priest (cf. 1 Sam 21:1-7) and had always offered
his
tithes at Gerizim, refrained from building the temple
and left,it for
his
son to do. Solomon built the temple in
people
astray from God. Jeroboam later rebelled and led
further
astray. He made his capital in Sabastaba17 (Sebaste,
later
called
There were now three groups of
Israelites: (1) the Samaritans,
who
kept themselves distinct from the rest and called themselves
MyriM;wo, keepers of the Law; (2) the Israelites
of the north, who fol-
lowed
Jeroboam; and (3) the tribe of
other
tribes, who followed the line of David.18
Assyria finally captured the
people.
An Assynan named
Israelite
(of the tribe of Joseph) bought the city and it became known
as
Some
of the followers of Uzzi were also taken into
captivity by
the
Assyrians. Later, Nebuchadnezzar deported people from all tribes
(including
the tribe of Joseph) to
beasts.
So Cyrus sent the "Samaritan" high priest Abdullah (or
Abdel20),
along with a host of descendants of Joseph, back to the
Land.
Abdullah wanted to build a sanctuary on Gerizim, but Zerub-
babel
the Jew wanted to rebuild in
the
Torah, whereas the Jews appealed to David and Solomon. Cyrus
sided
with the Samaritans, honored Sanballat their
governor, and
allowed
many from the tribe of Joseph to return and to build a
temple
on Gerizim.
Enmity between the tribes of Joseph and
Judah continued to
grow.
Zerubbabel bribed the King of Persia to allow the
Jews to
build
a temple in
sion
to destroy what they had built. This caused yet greater division.
17 Ibid., 414; actually, it was Herod the
Great who gave it the name Sebaste, which
is
Greek for Augustus.
18 MacDonald, Theology, 18.
19 Jacob, "History ," 415.
20 Ay. L., "Samaritans," Encyclopaedia Judaica, 14.728.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 53
Ezra
(the "accursed Ezra,,21) finally obtained a second decree
(through
Esther and by means of witchcraft) from King Ashoresh
(Ahasuerus) to rebuild the temple and the city of
exercise
authority over all the Land. Since the Jews had lost the
Torah
and all their books, Ezra began to collect legends and narra-
tives
and invented many things which never occurred. He falsely
claimed
(in 2 Kings 17) that the Samaritans were Gentiles with false
gods
(cf. Ezra 4). He also invented the idea, popular among later
rabbis,
that the Samaritans call Ashina (or Ashima) their god, whereas
in
reality they simply substitute the word "Shimeh"
(from Mwe,
"name")
for
YHWH, in the same way that the Jews use the substitution word,
ynAdoxE, "Adonai,,).22
Ezra wrote in the "Assyrian" language (Aramaic),
whereas
the Samaritans retained Hebrew. Ezra was wicked and cor-
rupted
the Jews even more, and by persecutions and lies caused much
of
the hatred between the Jews and Samaritans. These persecutions
kept
the Samaritan nation small, but Samaritans still claim to carry
out
the ancient customs according to the Mosaic Law.23
Thus, Judaism is an extension of Eli's
heresy through Samuel,
Saul,
David, the Judean monarchy, and Ezra, with the rival cult
shifting
from Shiloh to
tradition
on which to base it. The true Samaritan claims were dis-
missed
with slander and persecution.
Several things may be said concerning
this account by the
Samaritans
of their own history. Purvis declares that "to accept the
Samaritan
claim at face value would be extraordinarily naive."24 Most
of
their sources are extremely late, although their later chronicles do
make
use of earlier ones.25
In their favor, however, is the fact
that at regular intervals before
the
divided monarchy, all twelve tribes gathered at Shechem
to wor-
ship
their common God.26 It was to Shechem that
Rehoboam went to
be
anointed king of all
as
his first capital (1 Kgs
mountain
in Deuteronomy (
Jeroboam also corrupted the priesthood
by making priests of
non-Levites
(1 Kgs
any
of the legitimate priests decided to separate from Jeroboam's
21 Gaster,
"Samaritans,"191.
22 Jacob, "History," 424.
23 Ibid.,426.
24 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 92.
25 Ibid.,90.
26 Salo W. Baron, A
Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed. (
54 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
apostate
system in order to preserve the true worship of Yahweh.
(Such
priests may have simply gone south to
is
not known whether the priesthood in northern
Assyrian
conquest.27 But it does seem certain that "only a very small
percentage
of the Samaritan, or northern Israelite, people were exiled,
to
judge from Sargon's own account, and he makes no mention of
any
religious groups."28
All of these factors may be explained
by the assumption that
when
the Samaritan sect finally developed its own identity and organi-
zation
(during the last centuries B.C.), it was forced to reinterpret
Israelite
history in order to validate its claims to be the true remnant
of
to
be rather transparent alterations) also support this hypothesis. The
progress
of divine revelation in both testaments also supports this
view,
for, as Jesus himself said, "Salvation is from the Jews"
(John
4:22).
III. THE ORIGIN OF THE SAMARITAN PEOPLE
The
Name "Samaritan"
About 875 B.C., Omri
founded the city of
about
seven miles northwest of Shechem.29 He bought the hill from a
man
named Shemer for two talents of silver, built a
fortified city, and
called
it
(1 Kgs 16:24). Shemer was apparently
a widespread clan name in
Israel.30
mained
the capital until its destruction by Alexander the Great
(ca.
332 B.C.). The capital soon gave its name to the entire nation (cf.
1 Kgs 13:32; Hos 8:5; Amos 3:9; Isa
9:9-12). Subsequently, the nation
gave
its name to its inhabitants, the Samarians.
27 Ay. L., "Samaritans," 727.
28 John Bright, A History of
G.
Ernest Wright, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957)
152; JamesL.
Kelso,
"
date
is not certain; cf. Eugene H. Merrill, An Historical Survey of the Old
Testament
(Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1966) 251; Gaalyah Cornfeld
and David N. Freedman, Archae-
ology of the Bible: Book by Book (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1976) 119;
Edwin
R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, rev. ed. (Grand
Rapids:
Zondervan, 1983) 36, 88, who, among others, would
date the founding of
29 James L. Kelso, "
Bible, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1975) 5.232.
30 James A. Montgomery, The Samaritans
(New York: Ktav, 1968) 317.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 55
Yet the name MyniOrm;Ow ("Samaritans") occurs only once
in the
entire
OT (2 Kgs 17:29), and there it refers not to the
so-called "mixed
race"
who appear in the NT, but rather to the former inhabitants of
It is customary to refer "Samaritans" in this passage to
the colonists
brought by the king of
the text seems rather to mean that these colonists put their gods
into
the houses of the high places which the "Samaritans,"
i.e., the former
inhabitants of
Indeed, Coggins
claims that "there are no unambiguous references
to
the Samaritans in the Hebrew Old Testament."32 The LXX has
Samaeitai, again only at 2 Kgs
17:29. This word also occurs in
Josephus
and the NT, and from it the English form is derived.
The
more usual name found in Josephus and the Talmud is
Kutim
or Cutheans, which refers to one of the groups of
foreign
colonists
mentioned in 2 Kgs 17:24, 30. This name, of course, empha-
sizes
the supposed heathen origins and syncretistic practice of the
Samaritans.
Another name used several times by Josephus is "She-
chemites"
(Sikimitai),33 a name which refers to
their principal city.
Josephus
also says that the Samaritans of the Hellenistic period
called
themselves "Sidonians in Shechem"
when they wanted to dis-
sociate
themselves from the Jews and win the support of Antiochus
Epiphanes.34
On the other hand, the Samaritans
themselves do not use these
designations
at all. Usually they call themselves "
also
frequently use the term Myrim;wA36
or Nyiram;wA,37 which they contend
means
"keepers" or "observers" of the truth, the Law of God,
derived
from
the verb rmawA
(to guard or observe). The use of this term is
admitted
early, since it was known by Epiphanus (A.D. 375) and
Origen
(ca. A.D. 240).38
31 Merrill F. Unger, Unger's Bible
Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1966) 958.
32 Coggins, Samaritans, 9.
33 Josephus,
34 Josephus,
35 Coggins, Samaritans,
10.
36 Ay. L., "Samaritans," 728.
37 Shemaryahu Talmon, "The Samaritans," Scientific American
(January, 1977)
104.
38 Epiphanius, Panarion 9.1; Origen, Homily on Ezekiel
9.1-5; Commentary on
.John 20.35; cf. G. W. H. Lampe, ed., A
Patristic Greek Lexicon (
1961)
1222; N. R. M. de Lange, Origen and the Jews (
sity,
1976) 36; Coggins, Samaritans, 11.
56 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
have
fit even the city of
had
a commanding view of the Plain of Sharon.39
The suggestion has also been made that
there is an allusion to
the
Samaritan self-designation in 2 Chr 13:11, where King
Abijah of
keepers
[Myrim;Ow] of the charge of the Lord our God, but you have
forsaken
Him."40 This speech comes shortly after the division of the
kingdom
in Chronicles and perhaps may be seen as Abijah's declara-
tion
of the "Jewish monopoly of salvation."41 Abijah also emphasizes
the
true priesthood at
priesthood
of
of
some critics is that the author of Chronicles inserted or used this
allusion
as a polemic against the Samaritan system of his own day.42
The
use of the term here is striking, but in the complete absence
of
other evidence, it is doubtful that the technical use of the term was
current
at such an early date. It is more likely that the connection
with
"keeping" the law was a reaction against the pejorative use of the
name
"Samaritan" by the Jews in Rabbinic or later times.
The
Samaritan People
When Jeroboam declared himself king of
included
the entire northern two-thirds of the earlier kingdom of
Solomon,
from
ity
stretching probably to the
dominion
was quickly lost,44 however, and during the Assyrian inva-
sions
of the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.,
more
territory.45 Finally in 722/21 B.C., the city of
after
a three year siege.46
The fall of
northern kingdom. The leading citizens were deported by Sargon,
while
exiles from other parts of the Assyrian Empire were imported by
Sargon, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal.47
39 W. Ewing, "
40 Coggins, Samaritans,
II.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Yohanan Aharoni and
Michael Avi-Yonah, The MacMillan Bible Atlas
(New
44 Ibid., 76.
45 Ibid., 86-97.
46
47 A. Gelston,
"Samaritans," The New Bible Dictionary (
1962)
1131.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 57
Sargon carried off 27,290 people, as he
recounted in his annals,48
probably
mostly influential people from the city of
Yamauchi
estimates that 500,000 to 700,000 people lived in
this
time.49 Thus Sargon neither desolated nor depopulated the land;
he
merely took away its independence and its leading citizens. In
720
B.C.
in a
revolt against
scale
deportations were carried out by Sargon as a result of this and
similar
revolts.51
According to 2 Kgs
17:24, "the king of
Sephar-vaim,
and settled them in the cities of
sons
of
of
NT
times remained a Jewish region.52
The conquests of several of these
nations were referred to later,
in
701 B.C., by Rabshakeh when he taunted the people of
with
these words:
Has anyone of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the
hand
of the king of
Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they de-
livered
Additional
colonists were imported by Esarhaddon about 680 B.C.
and
by Ashurbanipal about 669-630 B.C.53 Many of these peoples
kept
their separate identities for several generations, as is shown by
their
statement to Zerubbabel (ca. 535 B.C.) that "we
have been sacri-
ficing
to Him [Yahweh God] since the days of Esarhaddon king of
It is indeed important to recognize
that the question of the
national
heritage of the Samaritans is to some extent distinct from
the
question of their religion (which will be considered below). How-
ever,
modern critics have tended to adopt the misguided view that
48 ANET, 284-85; cf. Wright, Archaeology,
162; Bright, History, 274.
49 Edwin Yamauchi, "The Archaeological
Background of Ezra," BSac 137 (1980)
195.
Coggins (Samaritans, 17) estimates a
deportation of between 3% and 4% of the population.
50 Bright, History, 274; Unger, Dictionary,
958.
51 Coggins, Samaritans,
17.
52 Unger, Dictionary, 958; cf. Ezra
4:10.
53 Ibid.; Herbert Donner, "The Separate
States of
and Judaean History, eds. John H. Hayes and J. Maxwell Miller (OTL;
Times, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1975) 251; Thiele, Numbers, 178.
58 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
2
Kings 17 says nothing about the origin of the Samaritans.54 It will
be
shown below that the rejection of these people by Zerubbabel,
Ezra,
and Nehemiah because of their heathen ancestry and the begin-
ning
of the worship on Gerizim because of the same kind of
rejection
by
the Jews are but two milestones in the process of the development
of
the Samaritan sect.
That the Samaritan people did have their
origin with these im-
portations
of foreigners by Assyria into the region of
shown
conclusively by three statements made by Jesus: (1) Matt
10:5-6:
"Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any
city
of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of
Abraham,
to the whole house of
the
Samaritans (perhaps the "cities of the Samaritans" were not
synonymous
with the
which
were predominantly Samaritan--cf. Luke 9:52) to be part of
the "house
of
despite
the fact that they then worshiped the God of Moses and kept
the
pure Law even more stringently than the Jews. This fits well with
taking
2 Kings 17 as the description of their origin.
(2) Luke 17: 18: Jesus calls the
Samaritan who returned to thank
him
for healing him a "foreigner" (a]llogenh>j). In view of Jesus'
comments
elsewhere concerning the Samaritans, it is doubtful that he
would
use such a designation simply to accommodate popular Jewish
opinion.
He obviously considered Samaritans to some extent non-
Israelites,
not simply sectarians or heretics.
(3) John 4:22: "salvation is from
the Jews." This statement was
intended
to show the accuracy of genuine Jewish faith as against the
Samaritan
system. But it also shows that Jesus distinguished between
the
national origins of Jews and Samaritans, for he would never have
made
such a distinction with Galileans.
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAMARITAN
RELIGION
The roots of the enmity between Jews and
Samaritans go back to
the
antagonism between the north and the south.55 But this was only
one
of the tensions within Judaism (in a Palestinian sense) from
which
Samaritanism sprang.
Foreign
Settlers and Foreign Gods
When the foreign settlers from
colonize
54 Cf. Coggins,
Samaritans, IS.
55 Reinhard Pummer,
"The Present State of
cf. Coggins, Samaritans, 81; Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 9,
n. 13.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 59
And it came about at the beginning of their living there, that
they did
not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them which
killed some of them. So they spoke to the king of
nations whom you have carried away into exile in the cities of
do not know the custom of the god of the land; so he has sent
lions
among them, and behold, they kill them because they do not know
the
custom of the god of the land."
Then the king of
the priests whom you carried away into exile, and let him go and
live
there; and let him teach them the custom of the god of the
land." So
one of the priests whom they had carried away into exile from
came and lived at
Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in
the
houses of the high places which the people of
nation in their cities in which they lived. And the men of
Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath
made Ashima, and the A vvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the
Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and
Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim.
They also feared the Lord and
appointed from among themselves priests of the high places, who
acted
for them in the houses of the high places. They feared the Lord
and
served their own gods according to the custom of the nations from
among whom they had been carried away into exile.
Thus, as
early
Samaritan religion was syncretistic, that is, a mixture of different
elements,
having arisen from the amalgamation of the ancient religion
of
had
brought with them to their new home."56 At first the new
peoples
still
worshiped their own gods, but in the course of time they inter-
mingled
with one another and with the native Israelites of Samaria.57
They
learned from the Israelite priest and soon adopted the worship
of
Yahweh along with their old gods.
Tadmor relates
that "the Assyrians regarded it as a primary state
function
to unify the heterogeneous ethnic elements in the main cities
of
the kingdom and the provinces and to turn them into cohesive
local
units within an Assyrianized society."58
Thus, as time went on,
and
at least by the third century B.C., there came into being a new
ethnic
and religious entity (apart from the Hellenists introduced by
Alexander
and the Seleucids), the "kernel of what later became known
as
the Samaritans."59
56 James A.
Sunday
School Times 48 (1906) 383.
57 H. Tadmor,
"The Period of the
Restoration,"
in A History of the Jewish People, edited by H. H. Ben-Sasson
(
bridge,
MA: Harvard, 1976) 137.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
It is here that a serious problem'
arises. On the one hand
2
Kings 17 definitely implies the development of a syncretistic religion
(cf.
v 33: "they feared the Lord and served their own gods"). But on
the
other hand, as Kelso expresses it, "Samaritan theology shows no
sign
of the influence of paganism among the colonists sent by the
Assyrians."60
What is the solution to this paradox? Gaster refuses to harmo-
nize
the two:
The most plausible conclusion is, then, that after the fall of
722, the local population consisted of two distinct elements
living side
by side-viz., (a) the remnant of the native Israelites; and (b)
the
foreign colonists. For tendentious reasons, however, the Jewish
version
ignores the former; the Samaritan version, the latter.61
It is the opinion of this writer that
the religious situation in,
era:
(1) At first the Israelites and the foreigners co-existed side by
side;
(2) when the teaching priest arrived (2 Kgs 17:28),
the religion
of
the colonists almost immediately became syncretistic with Yahwism;
(3)
during the religious campaigns of Hezekiah and Josiah and there-
after,
the bulk of the population of
Yahwistic
in the Jewish sense, although much of the foreign element
failed
to give up its gods (2 Kgs 17:41); (4) when the
Samaritan temple
on
began
to teach the Samaritan people a strict Yahwism based
on the
Torah
and to develop a more sectarian, but conservative and quasi-
Sadducean,
religious system, with an active temple worship; (5) after
the
destruction of the Samaritan temple about 128 B.C., the Samari-
tans
put even more emphasis upon the Law, and their particular
brand
of theology began to solidify in conjunction with the Samaritan
Pentateuch
and their anti-Jewish attitudes and conduct.
Though some of the foregoing is
conjecture, the scheme fits the
facts
of Scripture and the nature and history of the sect. It hinges on
references
in the Bible and elsewhere to an ongoing teaching ministry
among
the Samaritans.
The
teaching priest
Some have thought that any priest from
the
would
be syncretistic or pagan in outlook, since the religious system
60 James L. Kelso, "Samaritans," Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible,
5.245;
Gaster, "Samaritans," 192.
61Gaster, "Samaritans," 192.
62 Josephus,
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 61
founded
by Jeroboam introduced idol-worship. It is not certain,
however,
that Jeroboam intended to substitute idolatry for the wor-
ship
of Yahweh. Wood contends that "the intent was still to worship
Yahweh,
but in a new way."63 As Unger points out, the schism was
more
political than religious, and Jeroboam's purpose was not to
separate
succession.64
Many scholars note that this was not
necessarily a change of
religion.
De Vaux, for example, thinks that "the God Jeroboam asked
his
subjects to adore was Yahweh who had brought
The
novelty lies in the cultic symbol, the 'golden calves.'...They were
wooden statues covered with gold plate. It seems certain that
these
statues were not thought of, originally, as representations of
Yahweh.
In the primitive religions of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and
sacred animal is not the god and is not confused with the god; it
merely
embodies his attributes, is an ornament of his throne or a support
for
it, or a footstool for his use. There are several examples extant
of gods
riding on the animal which is their symbol. The
had the
Jeroboam needed something similar for the sanctuaries he founded,
and he made the 'golden calves' as the throne for the invisible
godhead.66
Archaeologists are in general agreement.
Albright was an early
supporter
of the idea that "Jeroboam represented Yahweh as an
invisible
figure standing on a young bull of gold."67 He points to
cylinder
seals of the second millennium B.C. on which the storm-god
of
upright
on the back of a bull.68
Wright agrees that for Jeroboam the
golden calves (or bulls)
"may
have been the pedestal on which the invisible Lord was thought
63
cf.
C. F. Keil, The Books of the Kings, trans.
James Martin (Biblical Commentary on
the
Old Testament, reprint;
64 Unger, Dictionary, 958.
65 R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, vol. 2
(New York: McGraw-Hili, 1961) 333.
66 Ibid., 333-34; cf. Donner, "Separate
States," 387-88; note I Sam 4:4 and 2 Sam
6:2,
where Yahweh is said to be "enthroned above the cherubim."
67 William F. Albright, From the Stone
Age to Christianity, 2nd ed. (
Johns
Hopkins, 1957) 299; cf. Merrill (Survey, 248), who states that "these
calves
certainly
were not images of Yahweh, but only representations of the throne upon
which
Yahweh stood."
68 Albright, Stone Age, 300; cf.
Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of
don:
98; Archaeology
and the Religion of
62 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
to
stand."69
As an example he refers to a carving from northern
(8th
century B.C.) picturing the storm-god Hadad (Baal)
standing on
the
back of a bull.
Whatever the origin and intention of the
golden calves, it is clear
that
they were a serious offense to God70 and represented a grave
danger
to the continued worship of Yahweh in
the
animal which symbolized Baal, and the mass of people would
confuse
the "bull of Yahweh" and the "bull of Baal."72
The door was
thus
opened to syncretism and idolatry. According to Wood, "Jero-
boam's
innovation made the later introduction of Baal worship into
the
land under Ahab and Jezebel (I Kgs 16:30-33) much
easier."73
The prophet Ahijah
condemned these "molten images" (I Kgs
14:9).
Jeroboam is said to have sacrificed to the calves as though they
were
gods (I Kgs 12:32).74 His great sin,
shared by all his successor~
(d.
2 Kgs 10:29) and the people of
consisted
especially in setting up these images. More broadly, how-
ever,
Jeroboam violated God's law in four principal ways:75 (1) he
changed
the symbols of worship, introducing images associated with
pagan
worship clearly prohibited by God76 (Exod
34: 17); (2) he
changed
the center of worship (I Kgs 12:29-30), away from
God's
appointed
center; (3) he changed the priesthood, abandoning the
chosen
tribe of Levi (I Kgs 12:31; 13:33; 2 Chr 13:9); and (4) he
changed
the schedule of feasts (I Kgs 12:33).
69 Wright, Archaeology, 147; cf.
Bright, History, 234;
Old
Testament,
vol. I, trans. J. A. Baker (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961) 117.
70 Wood, History, 305.
71 Bright, History, 234; R. K.
Harrison (Old Testament Times [
Eerdmans,
1970] 210) contends that Jeroboam was essentially an apostate who created
a
thoroughly pagan system.
72 De Vaux, Ancient
ogy,
vol. 2 (1964) 22, n. I), who is among many who contend that the bull-image of
Jeroboam
had nothing to do with the Egyptian bull-cult of
73 Wood, History, 305; cr. Shalom M.
Paul and William G. Dever, eds., Biblical
Archaeology (Jerusalem: Keter,
1973) 270.
74 Jeroboam's declaration, "Behold your
gods, 0
the
statement
by the Israelites in Exod 32:4. There they
"worshiped" a golden calf and
"sacrificed"
to it, for which God desired to kill them (32:8-10). God called Aaron's calf
a
"god of gold" (32:31), and Paul later referred to this incident when
he related God's
judgment
of some Israelites as "idolaters" (I Cor
10:7). It is noteworthy, however, that
Jeroboam's
system is not specifically called "idolatry" in either Kings or
Chronicles,
and
whether Jeroboam intended to copy Aaron's sin is not clear.
75 Cf. John J. Davis and John C. Whitcomb, A
History of
Baker,
1980) 359.
76 James A.
Kings (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1951)
257, n. 4.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 63
The outcome of these changes was that
many of the priests and
Levites
of the North migrated to the South (2 Chr 11:14-16).
How-
ever,
even at the
were
still following the true God (I Kgs 19:18).
The point here is that Jeroboam's
religious system was not neces-
sarily
designed to turn the people away from Yahweh to idolatry and
paganism.
It is possible that the worship of Yahweh continued in
2
Kings 17 may have helped to introduce a Mosaic Yahwism
to the
foreign
settlers.77 Both the priest and the settlers recognized that the
"god
of the land" was Yahweh. At the very least, he taught them to
"fear
the LORD" (2 Kgs 17:28), and his teaching had
some effect (v 32).
The
Kings of
assistance
of Hezekiah.78 Gelston contends that the
Israelites who
were
left after the Assyrian deportation formed the core of the new
Samarian
community and, "despite the introduction of various cults,
guaranteed
the continuity of the worship of Yahweh."79 Closer rela-
tions,
he believes, were maintained with
fall
of
At any rate, about 715 B.C. Hezekiah
issued an invitation to all
of
the
Passover together (2 Chr 30: I, 5-6). Many people,
especially of
Ephraim
and Manasseh, mocked the messengers (v 10), but many
others
attended (from Asher, Manasseh, Zebulon, Ephraim, and
Issachar-vv
11, 18). A revival took place, and the people went out to
destroy
all the high places and altars throughout Ephraim and
Manasseh
(2 Chr 31:1). .
Josiah (ca. 622 B.C.) initiated another
revival, and 2 Chr 34:9
records
that contributions were received "from Manasseh and Eph-
raim,
and from all the remnant of
80
men from Shechem, Shiloh, and
"with
their beards shaved off and their clothes torn and their bodies
gashed,
having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to
the
house of the Lord" (Jer 41:4-5). Evidently the
reforms of Hezekiah
and
Josiah had made some lasting inroads into the north.80
77 Cf. Keil, Kings,
423-27.
78 Montgomery, Kings, 473.
79 Gelston,
"Samaritans," 1131.
80 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 9.
64 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel understood
God's plans as including
all
For
there shall be a day when watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall
call
out, 'Arise, and let us go up to
(Jer 31:5-6); "For I am a father to
born"
(Jer 31:9); "Say to them 'Thus says the Lord
God, "Behold, I
will
take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and
the
tribes of
the
stick of
My
hand"'" (Ezek 37:19). God's plans thus include the remnant and
exile
of
Manasseh
and the
It will be shown below that a crucial
factor in the "Judaizing"
of
the Samaritans was the erection of the Samaritan temple on
Manasseh,
Jewish son-in-law of Sanballat III. Modern critics
usually
recognize
that Samaritanism shows a strong dependence on and
indebtedness
to post-exilic Judaism.81 Cross indicates that
it is evident that the religion of
feasts and law, conservatism toward Torah and theological develop-
ment, show few survivals from the old
Israelite religion as distinct from
Judean religion, and no real evidence of religious syncretism.
Even the
late Jewish apocalyptic has left a firm imprint on Samaritanism.82
Such a perspective allows one to explain
not only Samaritanism's
conservative
(Pentateuchal) Jewishness,
but also its early striking
similarities
to the priestly Sadducees.
The
foreign gods
Before leaving the subject of the
foreign colonists, it will perhaps
be
instructive to note whence they came and what kind of religions
they
brought to
from
of Avva is unknown, but may be identical with the Ivvah of 2 Kgs
18:34,83
which is also unknown).
81 Ibid.
82 Frank M. Cross, "Aspects of
Samaritan and Jewish History in Late Persian and Hellenistic Times," HTR
59 (1966) 205-6.
83 Avva," ISBE,
1.340.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 65
Sennacherib
in 703, 700, and 695.84 Tadmor feels that
it was Sen-
nacherib,
being anti-Babylonian, who carried off people from
and Cuthah to Samaria.85
Cuthah was also
one of the most important cities of
situated
about twenty miles northeast of Babylon.86 It was destroyed
by
Sennacherib. Apparently these deportees were predominant among
the
colonists, for the Samaritans were long called Cutheans
by the
Jews.
Hamath was a
city of
on
the
was
probably a Syrian town captured by Shalmaneser also
called
Shabarain,88
located between Hamath and Damascus.89
Seven gods are listed among the
religious I cultural baggage of the
immigrants.
(1) Succoth-Benoth means. "tabernacles or booths
of
girls"
in Hebrew. It has been identified with Sarpanitu, the
consort of
Marduk,
god of Babylon.90 She also appears as the "seed-creating
one."
(2) Nergal was the god of pestilence, disease, and
various other
calamities.91
He was worshipped with his consort Ereshkigal at
Cuthah.
dedicated
to him. (3) Nothing is known of Ashima, though the
suggestion
has been made that it is a corruption of Asherah the
Canaanite
mother-goddess.92 (4) Nibhaz perhaps
refers to a "deified
altar."93
On the other hand, it may have been worshiped in the form
of
an ass.94
(5) Tartak is possibly a corruption of Atargatis, a goddess
worshiped
in Mesopotamia.95 (6) Adrammelech means
"Adar is
84 Donald J. Wiseman, "
Bright,
History, 285.
85 Tadmor,
"Period," 137.
86 R. Clyde Ridall,
"Cuthah," ZPEB, 1.1050; cr. John
Gray, I & II Kings, 2nd ed.
(Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1970) 651; Montgomery, Kings, 472.
87 Gray, Kings, 651; Steven Barabas, "Hamath,"
ZPEB, 3.22.
88 Montgomery, Kings, 472; Gray, Kings,
652; Andrew Bowling, "Sepharvaim,"
ZPEB, 5.342; cf. Albright, Yahweh, 241.
89 T. G. Pinches, "Sepharvaim,"
ISBE, 4.2722.
90 Gray, Kings, 654; Montgomery, Kings,
473; Harvey E. Finley, "Succoth-Benoth,"
ZPEB, 5.529.
91 Albright, Yahweh, 139; Larry L.
Walker, "Nergal," ZPEB, 4.410; cf.
Gray, Kings,
654;
Herrmann, History, 251.
92
93 Gray, Kings, 654; Wilber B.
Wallis, "Nibhaz," ZPEB, 4.434;
Montgomery, Kings,
474.
94 Steven Barabas,
"Tartak," ZPEB, 5.603.
95 Ibid.
66 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
king",96
and may be related to the god Athtar-Venus Star (Atar
Milki).97
(7) Anammelech means "Anu
is king." Anu was the great
sky-god
of Babylonia.98 The latter two gods were Syrian or Canaanite
deities,99
and their worship included the offering of children as burn
offerings
(2 Kgs 17:31).
As was mentioned above, there is no sign
of the worship of these
deities
in later Samaritan ism. Though their influence continued among
many
of the foreign families even to the time of the
captivity
of
syncretism
among the Samaritans of NT times.
Zerubbabel,
Ezra, and Nehemiah
When the Jewish exiles had returned to
foundation
for the second temple (ca. 535 B.C.), the descendants of
the
foreign colonists came to
ing
that they were true worshipers of Yahweh. Ezra relates the inci-
dent
as follows:
Now when the enemies
of Judah and Benjamin heard that the
people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of
they approached Zerubbabel and the heads
of fathers' households, and
said to them, "Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek
your God;
and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon
king
of
the rest of the heads of father's households of
have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but
we ourselves will together build to the Lord God of
Cyrus, the king of
Thus began another round of conflict
between the people of
"enemies
of Judah and Benjamin" (v i). This does not
imply that they
were
considered enemies before their later attempt to stop the con-
struction
of the temple and the city. Unger notes that "in the refusal
no
charge of hypocrisy was made against them."tOO
It was only that
96
Willis J. Beecher, "Adrammelech," ISBE,
1.61.
97 Gray, Kings, 654; Andrew K. Helmbold, "Adrammelech,"
ZPEB, 1.64; but cf,)
Albright,
Yahweh, 241.
98 William W. Hallo and William K. Simpson, The
Ancient Near East: A History
(New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971) 170; Gray, Kings, 655; Steven
Barabas,
"Anammelech," ZPEB, 1.153. :':i
99 William Sanford LaSor,
"Anammelech," ISBE, 1979 ed., 1.120.
l00 Unger, Dictionary, 959; Bright,
however, regards their religion as "surely some-
what
synchretistic" (History, 383). Perhaps a
combination of nationalistic, racial, and
religious
motives was involved in the Jews' response (cf. William Barclay, et. al., The
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 67
the
right to build belonged to the Jews, and they could have no part
in
it.101
Unger asks, "Were the Jews
right?" He concludes that they
apparently
knew what they were doing, but that "their course in
regard
to aliens and children of mixed marriages, as shown in
Ezra
10:3, and indicated in Neh 13:1, 3..., though natural
and
probably
justifiable under the circumstances, was yet, so far as we
know,
somewhat in advance of what God had required."102 Even
aliens
were allowed to eat the Passover if they were circumcised (cf.
Exod
12:44, 48, 49).
When Ezra arrived in
at
the news that many of the people, including priests and Levites,
had
intermarried with "the peoples of the lands" (Ezra 9: 1-3). He
confessed
this sin to God, quoting Exod 34: 15-16 and Deut 7:3,
which
forbade
the Hebrews under Moses and Joshua to marry the people of
the
"abominations"
(Ezra 9:12, 14). He thus saw himself in the role of a
new
Moses, delivering and applying the Law of God to the returned
exiles
exactly as Moses had done to the new nation of
years
earlier. The "Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites,"
etc., of old became
the
Samaritans, etc., of the post-exilic period, in spite of their claim
to
be worshiping Yahweh and following his Law. Ezra led the people
to
put away their foreign wives (Ezra 10:2-5) and even made a list of
those
who had married outside Jewry (10:17-44).
Nehemiah arrived about 444 B.C. as a
special representative of
the
Persian king and was opposed by Sanballat, governor
of
(Neh 2:10). Apparently,
miah
was creating a new political entity centered in
that
this territory would be taken from his control.103 Sanballat was a
Bible
and History [
Nehemiah, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries [lnterVarsity, 1979] 49) suggests
that
the Jews left their real (religious) motives unspoken.
101
In the light of Ezra 4:2, Bishop (Eric F. F. Bishop, "Some Relationships
of
Samaritanism with Judaism, Islam and Christianity," The Moslem World
37 [1947]
129)
cannot be right when he says that "the Samaritans felt that the rebuilding
of the
acknowledge
the sanctuary on Gerizim rather than on Moriah," since they obviously
had
not yet (in 525 B.C.) developed the idea of a rival sanctuary for Yahweh on
Gerizim.
102 Unger, Dictionary, 959; cf. Deut 7:1-4; 23:3; Exod 34:15-16; Judg 3:5-6; Mal
2:11.
103. James L. Kelso, "Samaritans," ZPEB 5.245;
Barclay, et. al., Bible and History,
130;
cf. Herrmann, History, 308.
68 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
worshiper
of Yahweh,104 as were most of the people of the province.
This
conflict, therefore, was a political one, not a religious issue. As
Gaster
shows, the Samaritans had a two-fold fear: that (1) Nehemiah's
work
in
power,
and that (2) it might provoke repercussions from the Persian
Government
that would work against them also.105 Nehemiah pre-
vailed,
however, in spite of Sanballat's opposition (cf. Neh 2:19-20;
4:
1-2, 6-7; 6: I, 15-16), fortified the city, and increased its population.
Nehemiah's
separatism may have fueled the Samaritan-Jew alien-
ation.
He records in Neh 13:1-3 these words:
On that day they read aloud from the book
of Moses in the
hearing of the people; and there was found written in it that no
Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, because
they did not meet the sons of
Salaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the;
curse into a blessing. So it came about, that when they heard the
law,
they excluded all foreigners from
Note that the command to exclude
Ammonites and Moabite
from
the assembly was extended under Nehemiah to exclude "all
foreigners
from
practice.
The Samaritans were automatically included in this group.
Toward the end of his governorship,
Nehemiah discovered that
one
of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib
the high priest, had
married
a daughter of Sanballat. He was so furious that he
chased the
young
man out of
them
from everything foreign" (13:30).
Naturally, the reaction of the
Yahweh-worshiping Samaritan
was
resentment. They were faced with deciding what was the best way
to
worship the Lord apart from the
inevitably
to an even more crucial estrangement from Judaism about
a
century later.
The
According to Haacker,
"The most important single event in the
history
of the rise of the Samaritan community was probably the
construction
of the temple to Yahweh on
end
of the 4th cent. B.C."106 Josephus relates the episode
generally as
follows:107
Darius III of
104 Bright, History, 383; James L.
Kelso, "Samaritans," 5.245.
105 Gaster,
"Samaritans," 192.
106 Klaus Haacker,
"Samaritan," NIDNTT, 3.451.
107 Josephus,
108 George E. Wright, "The Samaritans at
Shechem," HTR 55 (1962) 361.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 69
Cuthean
named Sanballat to be governor. This Sanballat gave his
daughter
Nikaso to be the wife of Manasseh, a brother of the
high
priest
Jaddua, in order to develop good relations with the
Jews in
to a
foreigner, and ordered Manasseh to have the marriage annulled.
Sanballat,
confident of the good will of Darius, promised Manasseh
the
high priesthood of the Samaritans. So Manasseh stayed with
Sanballat,
thinking that Darius would give him the high priesthood.
Many
from
money,
land, and places to live.
When Alexander the Great began his
campaigns against Darius,
Sanballat
and Manasseh were certain that Darius would win. The
opposite
happened. So in 332 B.C. when Alexander was besieging
fight
for him, and accepted his rule. In return Alexander gave his
consent
for the Samaritans to build a temple on
Manasseh,
brother of the Jewish high priest, and many of the Jewish
people
had defected to
all
who were dissatisfied with the stringent reforms taking place in
have
the Jews split into two groups, instead of being united;110 he was
also
grateful for the military support.111 So the temple was built (very
quickly)
and Manasseh was appointed its high priest. Sanballat
died
after
Alexander had spent seven months on the siege of
,months
on the siege of
Given the remarkable similarity of this
story of the priest
Manasseh
to the account of the priestly son of Joiada by Nehemiah
(13:28),
many have doubted the historical accuracy of Josephus at
this
point. The Jewish Encyclopedia says, "It is most unlikely that
there
were two Sanballats whose daughters married sons (or
a son
and
a brother) of high priests, and that these sons were expelled from
Josephus
intentionally tried to discredit Samaritan claims by connect-
ing
the temple with Manasseh as a bribe for his apostasy.
Rowley declares that Josephus' account
is so "garbled" that there
is
"no means of knowing when the
Unger
assumes that it was Nehemiah who expelled Manasseh, and
places
the building of the temple about 409 B.C.114 Others say that
109 A.
110 Wright, "Samaritans," 361.
111 Haacker,
"Samaritan," 451.
112
113 Harold H. Rowley, "Sanballat and the
187.
114 Unger, Dictionary, 959.
70 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Josephus
has confused two separate incidents (the expulsion of
Manasseh
and the building of the temple), while some even move
Nehemiah
down into the fourth century.115
Until recently there was no evidence
outside of Josephus for two
Sanballats.
A Sanballat is mentioned in the Elephantine papyri,
but
he
is clearly the contemporary of Nehemiah.116
But in 1962-63, papyri of the fourth
century B.C. were discovered
in a
cave of the Wadi Daliyeh
north of Jericho.117 The name San-
ballat
appears twice, described as the father of Hananiah,
governor
ceeded
by his sons Delaiah and Shelemiah
in the last decade of the
fifth
century.118 So the father of Hananiah
would be Sanballat
(perhaps
ca. 380-360 B.C.). If so, then the objections to a Sanballat
as
governor in 332 B.C. disappear. High offices often were heredi-
tary.119
And the practice of papponymy. (naming a child for
its grand:'
father)
was much in vogue during this era.120
We can reconstruct with some plausibility,
therefore, the sequence
of governors of
Horonite is evidently the founder of the line, to
judge by the fact that
he bears a gentilic, not a patronymic.
He was a Yahwist, giving good
Yahwistic names to his sons Delaiah
and Shelemiah. Sanballat I
must
have been a mature man to gain the governorship, and in 445, when
Nehemiah arrived, no doubt was already in his middle years. His
son
Delaiah acted for his aged father as early as
410. The grandson of
Sanballat, Sanballat II,
evidently inherited the governorship early in
the fourth century, to be succeeded by an elder son (Yeshuac?), and
later by his son Hananiah. Hananiah was governor by 354 B.C., and his
son, or his brother's son, Sanballat
III, succeeded to the governorship
in the time of Darius III and Alexander the Great.121
Thus Wright concludes that Josephus'
story about the founding
of
the temple on
substantially
reliable.122 It was the founding of this rival temple which
did
more than anything else to aggravate the traditional bad relations
between
Samaritan and Jew.
115 Cross, ..Aspects," 203.
116 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 103.
117 Cross, "Aspects," 201.
118 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 104.
119 Cross, "Aspects," 203.
120 Ibid.; cf. the Tobiads
of Ammon and the Oniads of
121 Cross, "Aspects," 204.
122 Wright, "Samaritans," 364.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 71
Some have contended that "the mere
existence of a
They
point to other Jewish temples at Elephantine in
the
fifth century B.C., at Leontopolis in
century
B.C., and at cAraq el-Emir in Transjordan.123a
However, only the Gerizim
temple became a real challenge to the
tion
and was also a rival for the allegiance of Yahweh-worshipers of
the
north.124 The Jews understood the prophets and Deuteronomy to
point
to
The new temple on Gerizim
would have provided the base for a
distinct
and separate religious community. It also provided a "Jewish"
priest,
who probably brought with him a copy of the Pentateuch and
began
to teach the people the ways of God and worship along a line
which
became more and more Mosaic. The temple drove a wedge
between
the two communities, which in time was to split them into
two
hostile groups.
The Destruction of
When
Alexander the Great had finished with
installed
Andromachus as governor of
went
south to invade Egypt.125 In 331 B.C., the city of
and
burned the governor alive. Alexander immediately marched north
against
fled
with their families to the Wadi Daliyeh,
where they were found in
a
cave and suffocated to death by Alexander's soldiers.126 Alexander
then
resettled
colony.127
The Samaritans were then forced to
establish a new capital, and
the
logical place was old Shechem.128 It was a time-honored site,
hallowed
by the most ancient Hebrew traditions and adjacent to the
holy
With
the development of Shechem, the Samaritan religious
and cul-
tural
center was firmly established.129
123 Rowley, "
123a Haacker,
"Samaritan," 451.
124 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 12.
125 Wright, Shechem,
178.
126 Frank M. Cross, "The Historical
Importance of the
(1978)
25.
127 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 107.
128
Wright, "Samaritans," 365; cf. Cross, "Aspects," 25.
129 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 109.
72 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Waltke says
that Wright has conclusively shown that Shechem
was
captured
Samaria.130 This accounts for: (1) the archaeological
evi-
dence
for the reestablishment of Shechem in the late fourth
century
after
having been virtually uninhabited during the Persian period;
(2)
the elaborate attempts the Samaritans made to refortify Shechem--
to
maintain their claims against the Jews; (3) Josephus' implication
that
Shechem was the Samaritan capital in the period of
Alexander
and
thereafter (cf.
which
refers to "the foolish people who dwell in Shechem."131
Bickerman
notes that "it often happened that when a Greek
colony
was established, native villages under its control formed a
union
around an ancestral sanctuary."132 It was possibly after such
a
pattern that the Samaritans were organized at Shechem
and
remnant
of the Samaritans driven out of their newer capital at
Samaria.133
The
Destruction of the
With their establishment at Shechem and Gerizim, the
Samaritans
began
a long and painful process of self-identification.134 And the
enmity
toward
Josephus relates that when Alexander
granted the Jews freedom
from
tribute every seventh year, the Samaritans requested it also,
claiming
to be Jews.135 But whenever any Jew was accused by the
authorities
at
he
would flee to Shechem and say that he was unjustly
accused.
About
193 B.C., Antiochus III gave
Ptolemy
Epiphanes as his daughter Cleopatra's dowry. Josephus
says
that
during this time the Samaritans were flourishing and doing much
mischief
to the Jews by cutting off parts of their land and "carrying
off
slaves."136
When Antiochus Epiphanes
was harrassing
67
B.C.), the Samaritans at Shechem sent a letter to him
disclaim-
ing
any relationship to Jews or to their God and asked that their
130 Bruce K. Waltke,
"Review of The Samaritans, by James A. Montgomery," BSac
126
(1969) 84.
131Wright, "Samaritans," 359,
365-66.
132 Elias Bickerman,
From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees (
1947)
43-44.
133 Cross, ..Aspects," 207.
134 Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 109.
135 Josephus,
136 Ibid., 12.4.1.
BRINDLE: The SAMARITANS 73
temple
on Gerizim be named the
is
this opportunism which Haacker labels "decisive
for the ultimate
schism.”138
Thus, the Samaritans escaped persecution, while the Jews
resisted
with their lives. The success of the Maccabean revolt
led later
to
the expansion of Judaea at the expense of
10:38;
11 :24, 57).
Josephus relates an interesting story which
supposedly took place
in
meter.
The Jews and Samaritans there were disputing about which
temple
was the true one. Ptolemy became the judge at a debate, and
the
Jewish side won, appealing to the Law and the succession of high
priests
and the age and prestige of the
appeal
to Moses and the priesthood shows that the basic Samaritan
doctrines
had already solidified in general form by this time.)
John Hyrcanus
(134-104 B.C.) decided-to put an end to the
Samaritan
rivalry. In 128 B.C. he destroyed the temple on
and
in 107 B.C. he destroyed both
sees
several motivating factors behind these acts.141
First, the Samari-
tan temple
was an irritating and divisive factor in
animosities
between Shechem and
creasing,
leading to actual harrassment by the Samaritans. And
third,
Hyrcanus
wanted to solidify the extent of Judaean authority
and hold
firmly
to the "inheritance of our fathers" (1 Macc
15:33-34).
The Samaritans must have breathed a sigh
of relief when Pompey
conquered
both
the Romans (until A.D. 52) and the house of Herod (which was
closely
tied to
pasian
rebuilt Shechem (about one-half mile west of the old
city) and
named
it Flavia Neapolis (
S
city of
The Samaritan
Pentateuch
The Samaritan recension
of the Pentateuch also played its part
in
the development of the sect. Purvis believes that "the Samaritan
ir
Pentateuch is the chief sectarian monument of the community, and it
137
Ibid., 12.5.5.
138
Haacker, “Samaritan,”
452
139
Josephus,
140
Wright, Shechem, 183-84; cr. Josephus,
141
Purvis, Samaritan Pentateuch, 113-15.
142
Haacker, "Samaritan," 452.
143
Bishop, "Relationships," 112.
74 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
is
hardly possible to conceive of Samaritanism as a sect
apart from
it."144
The most prized possession of modern Samaritanism is its scroll
of
the Pentateuch, known as the Abisha scroll.145 Abu’l Fath, in his
Chronicle
(written in A.D. 1355), says that the Abisha scroll
was "dis-
covered"
in A.D. 1355.146 Crown contends that the scroll is
"not to be
regarded
as a unitary work, but as a manuscript assemblage of frag-
ments
of various ages.”147 He believes that Abisha,
son of the high
priest
Pinhas (d. A.D. 1364), fabricated the scroll between
A.D. 1341
and
A.D. 1354.148 Whatever the case, similar scrolls are
also in exis-
tence,
and the text type is definitely pre-masoretic. The
date of this
recension
is helpful in determining the time of the Samaritan emer-
gence
from Judaism as a distinct sect.
Purvis, in his exhaustive study of the
Samaritan text, offers the
following
observations and conclusions:149
(1) The script of the Samaritan Pentateuch
is a sectarian script
which
developed from the paleo-Hebrew forms of the Hasmonean
period.
This script is not a descendant of the paleo-Hebrew
of the
earlier
Persian or Greek periods or of the later Roman period.
(2) The orthography of the Samaritan
Pentateuch is the standard
full
orthography of the Hasmonean period, which contrasts
with the
restricted
orthography seen in the Pentateuchal text of the
earlier
Greek
and the later Rabbinic periods.
(3) The textual tradition of the Samaritan
Pentateuch is one of
three
textual traditions which are now known to have been in use in
that
this textual tradition completed its development during this
period,
rather than at an earlier time.
(4) When the final break between the Shechemites and the Jews
was
consummated, the Samaritans took as the basis of their biblical
text
proto-Samaritan tradition, a Palestinian text type preserved in
the paleo-Hebrew script. The proto-Samaritan had been in
process of
development
from the Old Palestinian textual tradition from the fifth
to
the second centuries B.C., when it reached its fullest stage of devel-
opment
during the Hasmonean era. Hebrew orthography also
reached
its
fullest stage of development at this time, and the comparable
phenomena
of full text and full orthography may be due to more
144
Purvis. Samaritan Pentateuch. 13-14.
145
Alan D. Crown. "The Abisha Scroll of the
Samaritans," BJ RL 58 (1975).
36.
146
Ibid..39.
147
Ibid.. 37.
148
Ibid.. 64.
149
Purvis. Samaritan Pentateuch. 16-17.84-85. 118.
BRINDLE: THE SAMARITANS 75
than
coincidence. For their sectarian recension, the
Samaritans se-
lected
the full text of the proto-Samaritan tradition and the full
orthography
in vogue at that time.
(5) The complete and irreparable break
in relations between the
Samaritans
and the Jews occurred neither in the Persian nor the
Greek
periods. It occurred in the Hasmonean period as the
result of
the
destruction of Shechem and the ravaging of Gerizim by John
Hyrcanus.
Waltke declares
that "Professor Cross has now shown that the
Samaritan
recension proper branches off in the early Hasmonean
Period.”150
Cross concludes as follows:
We can now place the Samaritan Pentateuch in the history of the
Hebrew biblical text. It stems from an
old Palestinian tradition which
had begun to develop distinctive
traits as early as the time of the
Chronicler, and which can be traced in
Jewish works and in the manu-
scripts of
tradition was set aside in the course
of the 1 st century in
favor of a tradition of wholly
different origin (presumably from Baby-
lon), which
provided the base of the Massoretic Recension. ...The
Samaritan text-type thus is a late and
full exemplar of the common
Palestinian tradition, in use both in
CONCLUSION
The development of Samaritanism
and its alienation from Judaism
may
thus be seen as a process with important milestones which pro-
moted
the antagonism: (1) the division of the kingdom into north
and
south (ca. 931 B.C.); (2) the conquest of
resulting
importation of foreign colonists and religions (ca. 722-
630
B.C.); (3) the rejection of the new Samaritan community by
Zerubbabel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, and later leaders (ca. 535-332 B.C.);
(4)
the building of a rival temple on
reconstruction
of Shechem as the capital of the Samaritans, followed
by
growing harrassment of Jews (ca. 332-170 B.C.); (6)
political and
religious
opportunism shown by the Samaritans during the persecu-
tions
of Antiochus IV (ca. 168-67 B.C.); (7) the destruction by John
Hyrcanus
of both the Samaritan temple and Shechem (ca. 128,
107
B.C.); and (8) growing hostilities and harrassment on
both sides
during
the next several centuries.
150
Waltke, "Review." 84.
151
Cross. "Aspects." 208-9.
:
Grace
Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
|| Pope Shenouda || Father Matta || Bishop Mattaous || Fr. Tadros Malaty || Bishop Moussa || Bishop Alexander || Habib Gerguis || Bishop Angealos || Metropolitan Bishoy ||
|| The Orthodox Faith (Dogma) || Family and Youth || Sermons || Bible Study || Devotional || Spirituals || Fasts & Feasts || Coptics || Religious Education || Monasticism || Seasons || Missiology || Ethics || Ecumenical Relations || Church Music || Pentecost || Miscellaneous || Saints || Church History || Pope Shenouda || Patrology || Canon Law || Lent || Pastoral Theology || Father Matta || Bibles || Iconography || Liturgics || Orthodox Biblical topics || Orthodox articles || St Chrysostom ||
|| Bible Study || Biblical topics || Bibles || Orthodox Bible Study || Coptic Bible Study || King James Version || New King James Version || Scripture Nuggets || Index of the Parables and Metaphors of Jesus || Index of the Miracles of Jesus || Index of Doctrines || Index of Charts || Index of Maps || Index of Topical Essays || Index of Word Studies || Colored Maps || Index of Biblical names Notes || Old Testament activities for Sunday School kids || New Testament activities for Sunday School kids || Bible Illustrations || Bible short notes|| Pope Shenouda || Father Matta || Bishop Mattaous || Fr. Tadros Malaty || Bishop Moussa || Bishop Alexander || Habib Gerguis || Bishop Angealos || Metropolitan Bishoy ||
|| Prayer of the First Hour || Third Hour || Sixth Hour || Ninth Hour || Vespers (Eleventh Hour) || Compline (Twelfth Hour) || The First Watch of the midnight prayers || The Second Watch of the midnight prayers || The Third Watch of the midnight prayers || The Prayer of the Veil || Various Prayers from the Agbia || Synaxarium