Today's Samaritans and How They Differ From Judaism of Today

Nadene Goldfoot        Abraham and Sarah's son was Isaac and Isaac's son was Jacob.                                       

Jacob giving his son, Joseph, a coat of many colors,
which was different from the plain ones he had given his
other 11 sons.  Joseph's mother was Rachel, Jacob's true love.
Joseph was her 1st son.  It may have been the world's
first case of showing favoritism to a child over the others,
and the harm that it caused.
  

Samaritans are the descendants of the tribe of Ephraim and Manassah, 2 of the 12 tribes of Israel, from the 12 sons of Jacob.

Ephraim had been the younger son of Joseph from who the tribe of Ephraim came to be. Joseph was the favorite of his father, Jacob, who had made him a special coat of many colors, and this caused a lot of jealousy among the other brothers.   Joseph was the young son of Jacob who was kidnapped and taken to Egypt and had become a very important person to the pharaoh of that period.  The tribe of Ephraim was very important politically to the 10 northern tribes of Israel, their main leader.  Ephraim and his brother, Manassah had been given the same rights to receiving land in Canaan from Moses and then Joshua as the other tribes being Joseph remained in Egypt with too important a position to leave.  His 2 sons were his heirs to the land.
                                                                           

Ephraim included the hill-country in central Eretz Yisrael and was noted for its fertility.  In the period of the Judges that came before choosing Saul as their first king, Ephraim claimed priority among the Israeite tribes, partly because their religious center was situated at Shiloh in its territory.

Manassah was the 1st born son of Joseph and Asenath.  In blessing Joseph's 2 sons, Jacob conferred on them an equal portion with his own sons in the division of the land of Canaan amongst them.  The tribe of Manasseh would be divided into 7 families;  one called Machir and the other 6 claiming kinship with Gilead. ( Gilead was a region of Transjordania, settled by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh.  Gilead was part of the northern kingdom and, in 732, was captured by Assyria, its inhabitants being sent into exile.  Its boundaries were not stable, and the area has not been precisely determined.  There was an ancient city in the region of the same name. ) Half the tribe together with those of Reuben and Gad requested territory in Transjordania, which was granted by Moses on condition that they go with the remaining tribes in the conquest of the land as scouts preceding the main body.  This half tribe received Gilead, Bashan (Bashan was a region of Transjordania.  It contained Hauran, the Argob region, Golan as far as Mt. Hermon, and NE Gilead as far as the Yarmuk.  In ancient times, it was on the trade route from Damascus to Arabia and the Red Sea ports.  Its original inhabitants, according to the Bible, were the Rephaim (ancient people living in Transjordan in the time of Abraham) who were succeeded by the Amorites).   After the conquest of Canaan, the other half received territory in the west of the country around the Valley of Jezreel.  Both these areas were highly fertile land.
                 

Tiglath-Pileser III
King of Assyria 745-726 BCE

King of Assyria 721-712 BCE

Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, both Assyrian enemies, exiled much of the population from both sections but part remained.  A Jewish population partly descended from the tribe of Simeon still existed in the West Manasseh region in the earlier 2nd Temple period that was then the Jews taken away to Babylon had returned about 50 years later in 538 BCE.

The secession of the 10 northern tribes after King  Solomon's death centered on the tribe of Ephraim, to which Jeroboam, the 1st king of the northern kingdom of Israel, belonged.

The prophets later spoke about the HOUSE OF JUDAH and the HOUSE OF EPHRAIM as representing the 2 branches of the Hebrew people.
                                                                                   

Samaritans celebrating Succot on Mt. Gerizim which is in Judah (West Bank).  

We still have a special group of people today in Israel who are the very descendants of Ephraim and Manassah and also have as ancestors, the Babylonian colonists that were brought in by Sargon II to settle the land they had depleted of part of the original population.  This is what rulers did in those days, mix up the populations by getting rid of people they didn't want and replanting them in another section of land, their idea of sending people to the moon to get rid of them that we'd like to do at times.  These special descendants are called THE SAMARITANS.  Their name in the Talmud is the Kutim.  They originally called themselves the Bene Yisrael and also the Shomerim (the keepers of the Law).
                                                                               

5th century BCE Prophet Ezra among the returnees from Babylon, teaching the Torah
to everyone in Jerusalem; descendants of those that remained and those that returned.  

They had some political envy of the returnees from Babylon.  In this Persian period, Nehemiah foiled the Samaritan Sanballat's attempt to get political and religious influence over Judah, so there was a struggle for power between those remaining in Judah and the returnees led by Nehemiah who was named the governor by King Ahasueros of Persia who still claimed the land.  When his son-in-law was driven out from Jerusalem, Sanballat built a rival Temple on Mt. Gerizim, which was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in about 128 BCE.

The land between Judea and Galilee was still in Samaritan hands.  The Samaritans didn't participate in the Jewish revolt of 66 to 70 CE from the Romans, but rose independently from time to time against the Romans.

 Zeno in 486 destroyed the 2nd Samaritan Temple on Gerizim, building a Christian church over the spot in their claim to the land.   In 529, Justinian issued a decree against the Samaritans and thereafter, their autonomous existence practically ended.

Samaritans were not considered to be THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK and suffered from Islam and their numbers dwindled rapidly. Mohammad had died in 632, when his followers were riding through the lands, converting people quickly.

By 1990, there were 530 Samaritans in Nablus and Holon.  Their synagogue, housing the ancient Torah, is at Mt. Gerizim near Nablus and there they hold their annual Passover sacrifice.  In addition to the main group living in Israel today, a Samaritan Diaspora existed in Egypt from the time of the Ptolemies and lasted until the 18th century.  A Samaritan synagogue in Rome was destroyed in about 500 CE.  There were Samaritans in Babylonia in the Talmudic Period  and in Syria in the 17th century.
                                                

Holding up the Torah

The Samaritan religion is a form of primitive Judaism, but their whole bible is the Pentateuch (Torah), which is the same as the Jewish version but represents a pre-Masoretic text with Samaritan variants, claiming for instance, in the 10 Commandments, that the place chosen by G-d for His sanctuary is Mt. Gerizim.  They changed it, and this is forbidden to do.  Jewish scribes cannot change or alter one Hebrew letter of the Torah, proud that what we have today is just exactly like the original written.

Of course the Samaritans maintain that their text is the original and that the Jewish one was altered by Ezra.  This argument sounds like the Cohen trial during the Senator hearings on TV this week.
                                                                       

                                                                         

Evidently neighbors around come to the Passover feast held outside in Judea (West Bank)
and are welcome during  the slaughter of the sheep.  

The Samaritan religious year has 7 feasts:  Pesah, Matzot, Shavuot, Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Moed Shemini.  Pesah (Passover) can only be celebrated on Mt. Gerizim where the lambs are sacrificed, roasted, and  hastily eaten.  On the 7th day of Matzot (Unleavened Bread) they make a Hag (pilgrimage) to the Mountain, reciting sections of the Pentateuch.  Hag Shavuot (Pentecost) always falls on a Sunday (the morrow of the 7th Sabbath after Pesah.  Yom Teruah (The Day of Trumpet-Call) is not called Rosh Ha-Shanah.  At Hag Sukkot (Tabernacles) the lulav and etrog are unknown, but play an important part of the holiday for the Orthodox Jews.  Twice a year at the semi-festivals of Tzimmat Pesach (Shevat 15) and Tzimmut Sukot (Av 15) the Sumeritan priests supply calendars for the ensuing 6 months.
                                                                   

The priests and levites never allowd a class of lay religious scholars to develop as in Judaism.  There is practically no halakhic development of the 613 precepts or laws of Moses, which are followed literally, but a rigid haggadah compensated for lack of halakhic activity.
                     
Moses is the one prophet in Samaritan eyes.  The minor talmudic tractate Kutim treats of the Samaritan and closes:  WHEN WILL WE ACCEPT THEM?  WHEN THEY DENY BELIEF IN MOUNT GERIZIM AND CONFESS JERUSALEM AND THE RESSURRECTION OF THE DEAD. So, according to this, they are not just an arm of Judaism like we have Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.  It's a little more off base.  The reasoning?  No doubt the change in the Torah about the mountain.  That was a no no.

Christianity has an opposing positional story about the Samaritans from Jewish literature.  As we see,  "In the postexilic books of Ezra and Nehemiah, for example, the Samaritans are portrayed as obstructing the returning Jews’ attempts to rebuild the temple and the wall around Jerusalem (Ezra 4.7-11; Neh 4.1-5). "  

This is not exactly what I read in the writings of Ezera-Nehemia.  The fact is that the descendants that remained, who were called the enemies of Judah and Benjamin,  offered to help build the temple with the returnees  but were turned down by the returnees  who wished to do it themselves.  Those "enemies" had said, "Let us build with you, for, like you, we will seek your G-d;  it is to Him that we have been sacrificing since the days of Esar- haddon, king of Assyria who brought us up here." Right there they missed the opportunity to take those people, convert them properly, make them feel like a part of the group by restoring the Temple with them, and they'd have no problems.  They missed it.  However, RASHI and other commentators felt they said this as they were afraid they would sabotage the work.  The work, when finished was not the splendor of the 1st Temple of Solomon.  One of the turnoffs that the returnees saw, however, was this:  These Babylonian tribes installed into Samaria by Sennacherib had adopted a distorted version of the Jewish religion, sacrificing to the G-d of Israel as well as to their own idols.  Evidently those Jews who were able to remain did not stop them of this habit.  

"The New Testament evidence suggests that the early Christian community may have looked upon the Samaritans as being more like the Gentiles than like the Jews, as post-biblical Judaism also came to do. "  

There is a story in the New Testament called THE GOOD SAMARITAN.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.   It is about a traveller who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest (Cohen) and then a Levite (both are descendants of the tribe of Levi-one of the 12 tribes of Jacob)  comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Samaritans and Jews despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man."  It's a story that makes Jews look very bad, and remains that, just a story.  It is a weird story to tell about a people (Jews) who put life above all else, whose toast is to what?  To Life, L'chaim).  Who produces a lot of doctors, pray tell?  Jews do.  No, I'd put my money on the Levite, who would have no qualms about blood and helping, who was the teacher of his people, being a Levite.  Teachers, nurses, we all help people, and have been in the forefront of these professions.  These early Christians just happened to select the enemy-they thought-a Samaritan, of course, to be the good guy to balance the bad guy act in this story about the bad Jews.  Well, here they are today, being able to live with Jews.  
                                                            

This is Yousef Sadaka HaCohen who lives in Judah (West Bank).
He's of the lineage of the priests, a cohen.  He should have J1 haplogroup in a DNA test, I'd bet.  Yousef would be Joseph in English.  

With 802 Samaritans in the world as of 2017, "Today’s Samaritans live in two groups, separated not only by geography but culture. About 350 live under Palestinian rule on Mount Gerizim, the biblical mountain where, they say, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. The other group took root near Tel Aviv decades ago, after war prevented Samaritans working in Israel from returning to their West Bank homes.  They are not Jews and they are not Muslims.  They feel that they are a bridge between them.  


He had a nice Succot.  "Among those guests were several Israeli and Palestinian officials, who, on the rare occasions they get together these days, usually meet to coordinate security or air grievances.

“During our holidays, officials from the Palestinian Authority and Israeli commanders accept our invitation. They eat together, even laugh together. You would never know they are enemies,” HaCohen said with a sparkle in his eyes."  

Tanakh; The Stone Edition:  (Old Testament)
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.timesofisrael.com/west-bank-neighbors-flock-to-mt-gerizim-for-samaritan-passover-sheep-slaughter/
http://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/samaritans-then-and-now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan