This video is brought to you by NordVPN. Check the link in the description below for details about a special deal for the Religion for Breakfast audience. According to Jewish and Christian traditions spelled out in the Hebrew Bible, it's taken for granted that Jerusalem is God's holiest city.
The temple that Solomon built there was central to the worship of God. And the Hebrew Bible itself consists of the Torah, the prophets, and other writings. But imagine a religious group that claims Jerusalem status was a mistake.
The temple of God was built in the wrong place and the version of the Hebrew Bible used by Jews and Christians is wrong. And another equally ancient version is the correct version. All these claims might seem surprising, but they would not be surprising to members of one ethnoreigious group, the Samaritans.
The Samaritans, or as they prefer to call themselves, Samaritan Israelites, trace their ethnic and religious identity to ancient Israel. The history of the group is as old as the history of the Jewish people. Samaritan history, like Jewish history, intersects with major figures like Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, Jesus, the rabbis, and Muhammad all the way to the present.
2 and a half thousand years of history is a lot to cover, but there are three things it's most important to know about the Samaritan Israelites. First, Samaritan Israelites accept the Pentatuk written in Hebrew as scripture. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
The Samaritans only accept these books and not the rest of the Bible. After all, Deuteronomy 34:10 reads, "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. " And for Samaritan tradition, that statement is taken literally.
Now, the Samaritans did write a bunch of other texts, including liturgy, biblical interpretation, historical chronicles, and practical religious prescriptions for daily life. But according to them, since only the Pentatuk is believed to be written by Moses, only the Pentatuk is holy. The Samaritan Pentetuk does look different though from the Jewish text.
Since Samaritans use a version of an older script called PaleoHebrew. It also has some differences in content. If you research Samaritan Pentituke differences, you won't look far before you find a reference to a 19th century scholar named Wilhelm Genius who counted 6,000 differences between the Samaritan and Jewish Pentitukes.
Scholars following Genanius used to sort these differences in the Samaritan text into minor variants and sectarian variants. The term minor variance refers to different spellings, a different preposition here and there, or segments that are recopied from somewhere else. But the term sectarian variance covers things which set the Samaritan community apart, set them apart as a different sect.
Older scholarship often assumed that the Jewish Bible was written first and that Samaritan scribes changed it, hence sectarian variance. But after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the middle of the 20th century, scholars now think it doesn't really make sense to talk in terms of sectarianism when it comes to biblical texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls have proven just how fluid biblical texts were.
with biblical books in the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrating many differences with the later Maseretic tradition that most modern Bible translations rely on. Because of evidence like this, it's not really clear that there was a single established capital Bible from which a Samaritan text would have deviated. Instead, we should understand the Samaritan version of the Pentatuk and the Jewish version of the Pentatuk as simultaneous or parallel ancient efforts to process, package, and transmit Israelite traditions to the next generation.
The second most important thing to know about the Samaritan Israelites is that they've set aside one specific place for the worship of the God of Israel, Mount Gerisim. It's located near ancient Sheckchum, about 30 mi north of Jerusalem in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Archaeological excavations have uncovered an ancient sanctuary at the site, and evidence suggests that there were two phases of development.
The first phase was a large fortified enclosure built during the time of Persian rule in the fifth century B. C. E.
The second phase, builders expanded the enclosure and built up a small town around it, probably in the 3rd century B. C. E.
based on animal remains discovered at the site, mostly goats, sheep, and pigeons. We know cultic sacrifices were conducted here during the Persian period based on a set of around 400 inscriptions. We also know that the Hellenistic period sanctuary was a focal point for devotion to God.
This sanctuary was destroyed in 111 or 110 B. CE. As we'll discuss in a bit, some of the differences in the Samaritan Pentetuk aimed to justify this focus on Gerazim instead of Jerusalem.
Let me give you an example. At the end of the ten commandments in the book of Exodus, the Samaritan Pentetuk contains two unique sets of instructions not found in the Jewish version of the text. First, the Israelites should set up large stones on Mount Gerizim coated with lime and inscribed with the words of the Torah.
Second, they should build an altar for sacrifices on the same mountain. In line with this tenth commandment, the Samaritan Pentetuk also reads differently in other places. Wherever the Jewish text uses the plural places for God's blessing, the Samaritan text refers to the place in the singular.
The Samaritan text presupposes a single central site for worship and that site is Garazim. The third thing to know about Samaritan Israelites is that they narrate and evaluate the history of Israel very differently from Jews and Christians for that matter. Well, in the broadstrokes, their history is similar.
The Samaritan version of the history of Israel references the same characters and political circumstances. They share the same basic narrative in the Pentetuk with Jews. God creates the world.
He destroys it in a flood. Noah and his sons repopulate it. God makes a covenant with Abraham and his descendants.
Jacob and his sons are the beginning of the 12 tribes and the people called Israel. The Israelites are enslaved in Egypt. They escape led by Moses and they receive the law and enter the promised land all the same.
But at that point, the Samaritan Israelite story diverges. The main difference being, as I already mentioned, the emphasis on Garazim instead of Jerusalem. Right up to the time of a priest called Eli, Israel enjoys a period of divine favor.
But then things start to go wrong. Eli and his sons establish a shrine at Shilo. This disregard for Garazim brings the people of Israel into a period of divine disfavor.
Later Israelites continue to make mistakes. King David, for example, badly misunderstands things and commits a capital at Jerusalem. His son Solomon mistakenly builds a temple there.
The true Israelites, according to their narrative, are the Samaritan Israelites. And the cult centered in Jerusalem is a mistake. So, Samaritan Israelites don't so much tell a different history as much as they tell a counter history, a story with all the same elements, but arranged in a way that contests the narrative in the rest of the Hebrew Bible.
True enough, they were not the only people to do so, even in antiquity. The community of the Dead Sea Scrolls also saw the Jerusalem temple hierarchy as corrupt and the lunar calendar used by the Jerusalem priests as incorrect. But the Samaritan Israelites, unlike the scrolls community, survived the revolt against Rome in the first century and developed their own narrative, especially in their medieval Arabic chronicles.
As you can imagine, this alternative claim to be the true Israel led to some significant tensions between Jews and Samaritans. Sometimes that meant violence. In the late 2nd century B.
C. E. , the Jewish ruler John Herkinus sacked Sheckchham and destroyed the sanctuary on Garazim.
Greek and Roman sources from the next two centuries also report clashes between Jews and Samaritan Israelites, especially when travelers from Galilee passed through the region on their way to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. More often though, it meant disagreement, tension, or sometimes ambivalence. Classical rabbitic literature dated between the 2nd and 7th century CE is ambivalent on the claims of Samaritans to be counted as Israelite.
Sometimes these texts classify them as Israel. For example, one tradition in the rabbitic text called the Mishna states that a Samaritan can fully participate in any meal with a Jew, even praying the blessing after the meal, but it instructs the Jew to wait until they finish speaking before saying amen, just in case the Samaritan adds a blessing to Garazim. This story includes Samaritans in table fellowship as Israel.
Sometimes though, rabbitic literature categorizes Samaritans among the Gentiles, especially in later texts. In one place in the Babylonian Talmud, which is traditionally compiled around the year 600 CE, a rabbitic authority declares Samaritans as absolute Gentiles due to their lack of acceptable Torah observance. Okay, since we've already started to talk about ancient history, what do we know about their origins?
The answer to that question is tied up with their name. People typically call Samaritan Israelites Samaritans, but the name Samaritan is actually a hostile exonym. By exonym I mean a name given to the group from outsiders and by less than friendly outsiders.
This particular name is based in a story from the Bible in 2 Kings chapter 17. Now if you know your biblical history there are two Hebrew kingdoms. The southern kingdom of Judah with its capital in Jerusalem and the northern kingdom of Israel with its capital in the city of Samaria.
Archaeological evidence demonstrates that the northern kingdom was more populated, wealthier, and militarily more powerful than Judah. But despite these advantages, it was the first kingdom to fall during an invasion from the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century. Second Kings 17 relays one version of what happened to the northern kingdom.
As this version tells it, the Assyrians depopulated the land of Israelites. They were replaced by people who the Assyrian Empire forcibly resettled in the region. The text says that the migrants did worship the God of Israel, but only because it was the only way to stop themselves from being attacked by lions that God sent against them.
In later Jewish commentary on the passage, this population known as Shomron are identified with the Samaritan Israelites of their own time. For example, the first century Jewish historian Josephus calls the group cuoi, tying them to the kua mentioned in second kings and therefore tying them to Persian origins rather than Israelite origins. Samaritan Israelites themselves tell a different story as we've already seen for them.
They have always been Israelites. The Israelites who did Israel right were the ones who focused on Gerisim. Scholars have also moved away from the pmical origin story of 2 Kings 17, but for different reasons.
When you look closely at the biblical text, you see that Josephus's origin story, you know, tying them to Persia, leaves more questions than answers. To start with, it's clear that Shamron in the biblical passage simply applies to the Israelite inhabitants of the land prior to the Assyrian conquest. In other words, to northern Israelites.
Moreover, Josephus himself merges three different origin stories of the Samaritans, and he's clearly using them as opponents against which to define his own people, the Judeans. Scholars now do not take Josephus's own PMIC at face value. Moreover, our evidence of what happened to the northern kingdom during the time of the Assyrian conquest points to a more complicated situation than what's laid out in the Bible.
Some refugees headed south and incorporated into the Kingdom of Judah. Assyrian royal evidence also boasts of the depopulation and replacement of the capital Samaria, but just the capital. Archaeological site surveys suggest that many towns in the region retained their previous Israelite population.
The idea of a total replacement of the population with foreigners, as Josephus, or as Second Kings suggests, does not hold up to archaeological scrutiny. The loose scholarly consensus on Samaritan origins therefore differs from both the insider position and the hostile outsider position laid out in the Bible. Beginning in the Persian period, two subgroups of Israelites, one devoted to God on Girazim and one devoted to God in Jerusalem, began to identify themselves as the true Israel.
Certain events may have served as a catalyst to further sharpen this exclusive identity. For example, when the Judeian king John Herkinus destroyed the sanctuary on Gerazim, that might have prompted Samaritans to write down and use a distinctive Samaritan pentetuk. But no single event was decisive on its own.
Samaritans and Jews continued to tangle with one another, and they continued to do so throughout history. Rabbitic Jewish arguments that Samaritans were Gentiles and not Israelites were obviously never accepted by Samaritans. Samaritan Israelites likewise understand Jews as Israelites who made wrong choices in the past.
Given their entanglement, Samaritan Israelites today practice much of what Jews do as well. They meet in synagogues. They observe Shabbat.
They maintain practices involving ritual purity. They practice festivals prescribed in the Pentetuk like Passover, Sukkot, and Shàuote. But they do not recognize the festivals specifically associated with later Jewish history like Hanukkah and Purum.
As you might expect, the pilgrimage festivals like Shaboot or Passover involve pilgrimage to Garazim and not Jerusalem. Despite these similarities, they do have distinctive customs, too. Unlike Jews, they still sacrifice animals at Passover.
Usually around 50 sheep are slaughtered, cooked, and eaten. I attended their Passover sacrifice back in 2018, and was kind of like a festive barbecue. The Samaritan shelters for Sukkot are also different, often including elaborate displays of fruit.
They have a high priest who stands in a lineage of high priests and they recite the Torah with a special vocalization tradition specific to Samaritan priestly reciters. Okay, so we've talked ancient history and we've talked Samaritan belief in practice, but what about right now? Where are the Samaritan Israelites today?
The best way to grasp this is by telling a basic history and then zooming in on a couple of more complicated issues. The basic narrative of the last 2,000 years goes something like this. There were plenty of Samaritans in antiquity, both in the Levant and in diaspora around the Mediterranean world.
In fact, we have evidence from as far west as Sicily. A marble pillar was discovered there with a section from the Samaritan Pentatuk. Scholars think it was from a Samaritan synagogue or a large private house.
In the fifth and sixth century CE, large-scale Samaritan revolts against the late Roman Empire meant that the fortunes of the community took a turn for the worse. One account claims 20,000 Samaritans were enslaved. After the expansion of Muslim power in the Middle East and North Africa, Samaritans occupied an ambiguous legal position.
According to Muslim law, they counted as a people of the book, receiving protected legal status in exchange for extra taxes. But their uneasy relationship to Judaism and the fact that Jews were much more visible to the state and in the writings of Muslim theologians made the legal protections of that classification somewhat fragile. Over time, demographic decline and occasional violence resulted in the community shrinking, both in terms of numbers and geography.
By the 19th century, only a small community in Ottoman Palestine survived. And that community was perhaps only preserved by the special status granted to Samaritans by the new state of Israel in the middle of the 20th century. Today, fewer than 1,000 Samaritan Israelites live in two places, the town of Hogon on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and near Girazim itself in the West Bank.
And it's this narrative of decline to an endangered religion that remains the dominant narrative to this day for anyone who studies Samaritanism. And while there is some truth to this narrative, scholars and students of religious studies should not take this narrative to its extreme and freeze minority religions in time. You'll find some people presenting Samaritan Israelites like some sort of fossil, the vestage of an older, more illustrious past.
Mark Twain himself, the famous novelist, calls the Samaritan Israelites mastadons when he runs into them on his cruise to Ottoman Palestine. There are a few traps in this narrative of decline and fossilization. First, and this is pretty obvious, I think, we're less likely to view a tradition as something that's living and changing if all we do is focus on decline and fossilization.
Samaritanism is not a static property boxed up in a museum. They continue to write their history today. We're seeing interesting developments within the Samaritan community responding to the increase of tourism around their sacrifices at Gerazim.
They've created a visitors center, guided tours, and they stage liturgies. We're also witnessing a rising movement of people in Brazil trying to convert to Samaritanism even though there's no formal process of conversion in the tradition. So we might be witnessing an attempt to make Samaritanism a transnational religion that's not necessarily based on ethnicity.
Freezing minority religions in time also focuses our attention on telling certain stories about them and not others. For example, when scholars write about Samaritans under the Ottomans, the whole story is about demographic decline. And sure, we know that Samaritan Israelites had a rough time.
We know this from the writings of Samaritans themselves, especially prominent families based in Damascus and Cairo who ended up relocating. And we know this from Ottoman legal texts that mention Samaritans. But some of the most interesting stories about them remain mostly untold by historians.
By placing all of the emphasis on things about Samaritans that make them a minority religion draws attention away from their fuller history and the fuller lives and experiences of their members. Another major point to bear in mind is that the story of Samaritan Israelites does not stop with their incorporation into the modern state of Israel with their formalization as a minority in the state. In 1970, the state changed one of its most significant laws, the law of return.
Issued in 1951, this law established automatic Israeli citizenship for those who qualified. But the 1970 amendment changed the qualifications to require recognizably Jewish identity. For a lot of Jews, this was a positive change.
For example, it included children of mixed marriages, but it made life much more difficult for Samaritan Israelites since rabbitic authorities did not recognize them as Jews. And to be clear, Samaritan Israelites have no desire to claim Jewish identity anyway. So, what happened?
Matters came to a head in the early 1980s and 1990s. The Supreme Rabbitical Court ruled in the mid 1980s that Samaritans were to be treated as Gentiles. In 1992, this became secular law.
Since Samaritan Israelites are not born to a Jewish mother, nor of Jewish religion, it was ruled that they do not have automatic citizenship rights under the 1970 amendment to the law of return. This made things pretty difficult for Samaritan Israelites. One community lives within the boundaries of the state of Israel and the other in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank.
What could they do? Well, the Samaritan Israelites brought a lawsuit against the Israeli Ministry of the Interior. Their case rested on this.
As the lawyer who represented them said, "They hold themselves to be the true keepers of the law and the genuine representatives of the ancient people of Israel, affirming their kinship to the tribes of Israel and distinct from those of Judah. " In response, some sort of compromise was reached. The secular court reversed its 1992 decision and Samaritans recovered the benefits from the law of return.
Those who lived in the West Bank were granted Israeli citizenship while still retaining their Palestinian identification cards. So to summarize, Samaritan Israelites are a remarkable group. They retain an ancient claim to Israel.
They hold the Pentetuk as scripture, but their pentetuk is distinctive. And their claim to Israel includes the implication that so much of what we associate with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, including the centrality of Jerusalem itself, is an error. But they don't only matter for how we understand antiquity.
The status of Samaritan Israelites and the history of the community continues to shift and evolve. And part of their significance to students of religious studies is how they call us to question the way we think about minority traditions and why we value certain types of narratives over others. Thanks again to NordVPN for supporting this episode.
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