Samaritan Israelites and Jews under the Shadow of Rome: Reading John 4:4–45 in Ephesus

Abstract

Genealogies, knowledge, and purity all can provide separate identities with the means for competing self-definition. This article assumes a social location near Ephesus with Samaritan Israelites and Judeans in a Jesus-believing network. Rather than providing an analysis in which divisions are transcended, this reading suggests that a negotiation in John 4:4–45 of these three characteristics navigates divisions to create a complex, merged superordinate identity.