Samaria/Samaritans

Abstract

Both in the Bible and in nonbiblical sources, the name “Samaria” occurs numerous times, either as the appellation of a city or as the designation of the region of which the city was the capital. Already at the end of the 19th century, the site of the city was associated with that of the Arab village of Sebastiya, located six miles northwest of Nablus and thirty-five miles north of Jerusalem. The city was built on a hill that rises 1,410 feet above sea level and was ideally situated to control the north–south and east–west routes, although it had no well of its own (only the Romans built an aqueduct to bring water from a source southeast of Samaria). The first excavations of the city were undertaken by Harvard University in 1908 and 1910; the latest were carried out from 1965 to 1967 and again in 1968. In the course of its history, the city was destroyed and rebuilt several times. In the Bible the district of Samaria is called Mount Ephraim. Geographically, it consists of the central region of the mountains of western Palestine, bordered in the east by the River Jordan, in the west by the Plain of Sharon, in the north by the Plain of Jezreel (Esdraelon), and in the south by the valley of Ayalon. Politically, the boundaries, particularly in the north and the south, varied at different times. The name “Samaria” was applied to the region when the city of Samaria became the capital of the northern Israelite kingdom under King Omri in the 9th century bce. In the biblical period, the majority of the population in the region were Yahweh worshipers (even after the Assyrian conquest in the late 8th century bce), just as the Judeans to the south of them. Those Yahweh worshipers of the region of Samaria who eventually rejected Jerusalem and its temple as sacred centers are the Samaritans. For them, Mount Gerizim in the vicinity of ancient Shechem (modern Tell Balatah, near Nablus) and the temple on it became the focus of religious life. They do not, however, consider their identity to be tied to that of the city or province of Samaria but see it based on the concept of guardians (Hebrew: shomrim); that is, they think of themselves as the guardians of the Torah.