Samaritan: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Like the Jews, the Samaritans are both a religious and an ethnic group. Ethnically, they are the inhabitants who lived in Samaria from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the beginning of the Christian era. 2 Kings 17 and Josephus (Antiquites 9.277–91) claim that the Samaritans are descendants of deportees brought into the region of Samaria by the Assyrians from other lands they had conquered, including Cuthah. Some modern scholars agree with the Samaritans that they are Israelites of the Northern Kingdom who remained behind during the Babylonian Captivity, and thus introduced none of the religious changes brought about among the Jews during this time. Religiously, they are the adherents of Samaritanism which resembles Temple or pre-rabbinical Judaism. The exact historical origins of the Samaritans are disputed to this day. The Samaritans either speak Hebrew or Palestinian Arabic as their mother language. For liturgical purposes, Samaritan Hebrew and Samaritan Aramaic are used.

In the past, the Samaritans are believed to have numbered several hundred thousand, but persecution and assimilation reduced their numbers drastically. In 1919, an illustrated National Geographic report on the community stated that their numbers were less than 150. Since that time, their numbers have risen to just under 650, divided about equally between their modern homes on their sacred Mount Gerizim, above the Palestinian town of Nablus (all that is left of the community in Nablus itself is an abandoned synagogue), and the Israeli town of Holon, just outside of Tel Aviv. Samaritans living in Israel have Israeli citizenship but like other groups they do not enjoy the same legal status as Jews. They are a recognized minority in Palestine and send one representative to the Palestinian parliament.

Inevitably, as a small community divided between two hostile neighbors, the Samaritans are generally unwilling to take sides in the conflict, fearing that whatever side they take could lead to repercussions from the other side.

One of the biggest problems facing the community today is the issue of continuity. With such a small population, divided into only four families (a fifth family died out in the last century) and a refusal to accept converts, there has been a history of genetic disease within the group. To counter this, Samaritans have recently agreed that men from the community may marry non-Samaritan women, provided that they agree to follow Samaritan religious practices. This often poses a problem for women, who are less than eager to adopt the strict interpretation of biblical laws regarding menstruation, by which they must live in a separate shack during their periods and after childbirth. Nevertheless, there are a few instances of intermarriage. Apart from that, all weddings within the Samaritan community are first approved by a geneticist at Israel's Tel HaShomer Hospital.

Samaritans date their split with Jews to the time of Nehemiah, Ezra, and the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. Returning exiles considered the Samaritans to be non-Jews and, thus, not fit for this religious work. Later, ca. 129 BCE, the Jewish Hasmonean king Yohanan Girhan (John Hyrcanus) destroyed the Samaritan temple and devastated the land.

Samaritans fared badly under Roman rule when Samaria was part of the Roman province of Judea in the early part of the Common Era. Later, under Byzantine Emperor Zeno in the late fifth century, Samaritans and Jews were massacred. A Samaritan war to create their own independent state took place in 529; thousands of Samaritans died. The Samaritan faith was virtually outlawed by the Christian Byzantine Empire.

A large number of Samaritans fled the country in 634 CE, following the Muslim victory at the Battle of Yarmuk. During the mid 800s Muslim fanatics destroyed Samaritan and Jewish synagogues. During the 10th century relations between Muslims, Jews and Samaritans improved greatly. In the 1300s the Mamluks came to power; they plundered all Samaritan religious sites, and turned their shrines into mosques. Many Samaritans converted out of fear. After the Ottoman conquest, Muslim persecution of Samaritans increased again. Massacres were frequent. In 1624 the last Samaritan high priest of the line of Eleazar son of Aaron died without issue, but descendants of Aaron's other son Itamar remained among them and took over the office.

By the 1830s only a small group of Samaritans in Shechem remained extant. The local Arab population believed that Samaritans were "atheists" and "against Islam", and they threatened to murder the entire Samaritan community. The Samaritans turned to the Jewish community for help, as Jews and Arabs had good relations at this time, and Jewish entreaties to treat the Samaritans with respect were eventually heeded.

Modern relations with the Samaritans have been mixed. In 1954, Israeli President Izhak Ben-Zvi created a Samaritan enclave in Holon but Israeli Samaritans today complain of being treated as "pagans and strangers" by orthodox Jews. The Palestinian Samaritans have been granted passports by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority; they abandoned central Nablus in 1980s as a result of the first Intifada but the conflict followed them. In 2001, the Israeli army set up an artillery battery on the Samaritan's holy Mount Gerizim to fire upon Palestinians in Nablus below.

In 2004 the Samaritan high priest, Shalom b. Amram, passed away and was replaced by Elazar b. Tsedaka. The Samaritan high priest is selected by age from the priestly family. The high priest resides on Mount Gerazim.

The Samaritan religion is based on some of the same books used as the basis of rabbinic Judaism, but these religions are not identical. Samaritan scriptures include the Samaritan version of the Torah, the Memar Markah, the Samaritan liturgy, and Samaritan law codes and biblical commentaries. Samaritans appear to have texts of the Torah as old as the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint; scholars have various theories concerning the actual relationships between these three texts.

Religious beliefs:

• There is one God, the same God recognized by the Hebrew prophets;
• Their view of God is the same as the Jewish biblical view of God;
• The Torah was dictated by God to Moses;
• Mt. Gerizim is the one true sanctuary chosen by Israel's God;
• Many Samaritans believe that at the end of days, the dead will be resurrected by a "taheb", a restorer (possibly a prophet, some say Moses);
• They possess a belief in Paradise (heaven);
• The priests are the interpreters of the law and the keepers of tradition; unlike Judaism, there is no distinction between the priesthood and the scholars;
• The authority of classical Jewish rabbinical works, the Mishnah, and the Talmud of the Land of Israel are rejected;
• Samaritans reject Jewish codes of law;
• They have a significantly different version of the Ten Commandments (for example, their 10th commandment is about the sanctity of Mt. Gerizim).

Samaritan law is not the same as halakha (Rabbinical Jewish law); Samaritan law is based on a strict adherence to the letter of the Torah, without any of the information from the oral law which characterizes Judaism. For example Samaritanism has retained the Ancient Hebrew script, animal sacrifices, the actual eating of lambs at passover, and the celebration of Rosh Hashanah in spring, at the beginning of Nisan, instead of the Babylonian-influenced fall date of Judaism. Their main Torah text differs from Judaism, as well. Some differences are doctrinal, for example their Torah explicitly mentions that "the place that God will chose" is Mount Gerizim. Other differences seem more or less accidental.