Samaritan Identity and Impetus: Testing the Hypothesis of the Woman at the Well (original) (raw)

For We, like You, Worship Your God: Three Biblical Portrayals of Samaritan Origins

Vetus Testamentum, 1988

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What do Samaritans and Jews have in Common? Recent Trends in Samaritan Studies

Currents in Biblical Research, 2004

Apart from the later period of the Hasmonaean kingdom, Samaritans and Jews were always separate peoples who had either Gerizim or Jerusalem as their main cult place. While Jewish perspectives on Samaritan origin and history still prevail in recent research, future research will have to broaden the perspective and take into consideration Samaritan claims for authenticity in respect to origin, belief and traditions. These claims have recently been substantiated by excavations on Mount Gerizim, which have unearthed structures of a major Persian Period cult place that may date as early as the sixth century BCE. These finds, as well as finds of about 400 inscriptions and 13,000 coins, have just begun to be published. The present article presents the most recent development in research on Samaritan history and literature, in order to offer a base for the necessary rewriting of both Samaritan and Jewish history.

The Construction of Samaritan Identity (2013)

The question of why the cooperation of Jews with the Persian and Ptolemaic empires achieved some success and why it failed with regard to the Seleucids and the Romans, even turning into military hostility against them, has not been sufficiently answered. The present volume intends to show, from the perspectives of Hebrew Bible, Judaic, and Ancient History Studies, that the contrasting Jewish attitudes towards foreign powers were not only dependent on specific political circumstances. They were also interrelated with the emergence of multiple early Jewish identities, which all found a basis in the Torah, the prophets, or the psalms. The wide range of theological and ethical concepts, which were already enshrined in the Torah and even enlarged by the prophets, helped different Jewish groups to construct their identities in a way that enabled them to conform to or put up resistance against the demands of foreign rule in a non-violent way. Their different interpretations, however, involved likewise the danger of violent internal and external quarrels, which became apparent under specific social and political conditions, especially when any public control of interpretation failed.

The Samaritans during the Hasmonean Period: The Affirmation of a Discrete Identity

Religions 10(11):62, 2019

The Hasmonean period is increasingly seen in current scholarship as formative for Samaritan identity and, in particular, as the moment when the Samaritans emerged as a self-contained group separate from the Jews. The first aim of this paper is to give an overview of the condition of the Samaritans during this period. In largely chronological order, the first part of the article discusses the situation of the Samaritans on the eve of the Hasmonean revolt, at the outbreak of the uprising, and under the rule of the first Hasmoneans. The second aim is to review the commonly held causes of the emergence, at this time, of the Samaritans as a discrete community, such as, for instance, the destruction of the Samaritan temple, the production of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the appearance of anti-Samaritan polemics in Jewish literature. The paper concludes that the Hasmoneans' attitude toward the Samaritans cannot simply be seen as one of hatred and rejection as is generally assumed. Besides; although some of the historical processes beginning in the Hasmonean period had far-reaching implications for the parting of the ways between Jews and Samaritans; their immediate effects should not be overstated.

Synagogues -Samaritan and Jewish: A New Look at their Differentiating Characteristics

Samaritan and Jewish synagogues of the Roman-Byzantine times exhibit many similarities that make it at times difficult to determine to which religion newly excavated building remains belong. Architecture, furnishings and decoration are very similar in both instances. Scholars use therefore a number of criteria to distinguish one from the other. However, as new evidence comes to light and existing data are re-evaluated, these criteria have to be reexamined. The most frequently enumerated characteristics differentiating Samaritan from Jewish synagogues are the following: the orientation of a building towards Mount Gerizim; the omission of the depiction of lulav and etrog from floor mosaics; the absence of human and animal representations from synagogue art;1 the location of a synagogue in an area that is known to have been inhabited by Samaritans; the position of a settlement's synagogue vis-à-vis its residential quarters; and the presence of inscriptions in the Samaritan script.2