The Sects of Second Temple Judaism · Featured Study
The Samaritans
Two peoples read the same land two different ways. 2 Kings 17 tells how Assyria resettled the northern kingdom with foreign peoples who mixed worship of the LORD with their own gods. The Samaritans themselves have always told a different story: the true remnant of Israel, keeping the true Torah, at Israel's true mountain. Both accounts are given here, honestly, alongside the schism's history, the Samaritan Pentateuch as a real textual witness, and the gospel encounters at full strength.
Summary
The Samaritans trace back to the fall of Israel's northern kingdom in 722 BC, and their origin is told two ways: 2 Kings 17 as resettlement and mixed worship, the Samaritans' own account as the true Israelite remnant at Israel's true mountain, Gerizim. The gospels meet them at full strength, from the woman at the well to Philip's mission in Acts 8, and a small community still keeps the Torah on Gerizim today.
- 2 Kings 17 records Assyria resettling the land with foreign peoples who mixed worship of the LORD with their own gods after Israel's fall in 722 BC.
- Samaritans hold themselves the remnant of Ephraim and Manasseh who never left the land, keeping the Torah's original form at Gerizim, Israel's true sanctuary on their own account.
- The Samaritan Pentateuch is a real ancient textual witness, some of its readings agreeing with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint against the Masoretic Text.
- Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, tells the parable of the good Samaritan, and is thanked by only one of ten cleansed lepers, a Samaritan.
- Philip preaches in Samaria in Acts 8, and Jerusalem sends Peter and John to confirm it; a small community still keeps Passover on Mount Gerizim today.
The Two Accounts
2 Kings 17, and the Samaritans' own self-understanding
2 Kings 17:24
“And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.” 2 Kings 17:24
Assyria resettles the land with foreign peoples after Israel's fall.
2 Kings 17:29
“Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.” 2 Kings 17:29
Every nation makes its own gods and sets them beside the LORD's own worship.
2 Kings 17:33-41
“They feared Jehovah, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. Unto this day they do after the former manner: they fear not Jehovah, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law or after the commandment which Jehovah commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel; with whom Jehovah had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: but Jehovah, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, him shall ye fear, and unto him shall ye bow yourselves, and to him shall ye sacrifice: and the statutes and the ordinances, and the law and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods: and the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither shall ye fear other gods: but Jehovah your God shall ye fear; and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. Howbeit they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner. So these nations feared Jehovah, and served their graven images; their children likewise, and their children’s children, as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.” 2 Kings 17:33-41
A worship mixed from the start, the text says, and carried by their children's children.
The biblical text is plain about what it records: Israel's northern kingdom fell to Assyria in 722 BC for its idolatry, and Assyria brought in foreign peoples from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim to resettle the land. Those peoples, the chapter says, feared the LORD and served their own gods at the same time, a mixed worship carried down through their descendants. Later Jewish tradition, recorded by Josephus in Antiquities 9.14.3 and 11.8.6, reads the Samaritans as descended from these foreign settlers and treats their claim to Israelite ancestry as false.
Samaritans have always told a different story about themselves. On their own account they are the remnant of the northern tribes, chiefly Ephraim and Manasseh, who never left the land at all, and who have kept the Torah in its original, uncorrupted form ever since. Where 2 Kings 17 names Jerusalem as the place the LORD chose, Samaritans hold that place to be Mount Gerizim, the site of Abraham's altar and Deuteronomy 27's blessing, and they read Jerusalem's claim as the later innovation, not their own.
The Schism's History
Ezra-Nehemiah, the Gerizim temple, and its destruction by Hyrcanus
The break between the two peoples hardens across several centuries rather than opening all at once. When the Jewish exiles return from Babylon to rebuild the Temple, Ezra and Nehemiah refuse help from the peoples already in the land, and the conflict over mixed worship and mixed marriage that runs through Ezra 4 and Nehemiah 4 and 13 marks the practical point where Samaritan and Jewish worship part ways for good.
Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim sometime in the Persian or early Hellenistic period, giving their worship a rival sanctuary to Jerusalem's. That temple stood for centuries until the Hasmonean high priest John Hyrcanus destroyed it around 111 to 107 BC, an act of open conquest against the Samaritan community. Both Samaritan tradition and most historians read this destruction as the deepest wound in the whole split, the moment division became something closer to enmity.
- 722 BCthe northern kingdom falls to Assyria
- 5th c. BCEzra and Nehemiah's rebuilding, and the break
- 111-107 BCHyrcanus destroys the Gerizim temple
- c. AD 30Jesus at Jacob's well in Samaria (John 4)
The Samaritan Pentateuch
a real ancient textual witness
Samaritans kept their own copy of the first five books of the Torah, written in their own form of the ancient Hebrew script. Scholars count roughly six thousand differences from the Masoretic Text most Jewish and Christian Bibles are based on, but most of these are minor: spelling, grammar, small harmonizations between parallel passages. The most significant and deliberate difference names Mount Gerizim, not a site near Jerusalem, as the place God chose for his sanctuary.
Why the Samaritan Pentateuch matters to textual scholarsAgreement with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint
Some Samaritan Pentateuch readings agree with the Dead Sea Scrolls and with the ancient Greek Septuagint translation against the Masoretic Text, showing this text tradition preserves a genuinely old textual line rather than a late Samaritan invention. This does not settle the Gerizim question itself, which is a deliberate theological difference rather than a copying variant, but it does mean the Samaritan Pentateuch is treated as real evidence in the study of the Torah's textual history, not dismissed as a forgery.
The Woman at the Well
John 4: the gospel meets the divide directly
John 4:4-6
“And he must needs pass through Samaria. So he cometh to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph: and Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.” John 4:4-6
Jesus must pass through Samaria, the direct road from Judea to Galilee.
John 4:9
“The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)” John 4:9
The woman names the divide herself: Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Two things this woman wonders at, 1. That he should ask this kindness; for it was the pride of the Jews that they would endure any hardship rather than be beholden to a Samaritan. It was part of Christ's humiliation that he was born of the Jewish nation, which was now not only in an ill state, subject to the Romans, but in an ill name among the nations.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
John 4:9
John 4:20-23
“Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers.” John 4:20-23
Neither this mountain nor Jerusalem: worship no longer tied to one place.
John 4:25-26
“The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (he that is called Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.” John 4:25-26
I that speak unto thee am he: the plainest self-disclosure Jesus makes to anyone in the Gospels.
This was the place where the Samaritans used to worship in opposition to Jerusalem. And it was so near Sychar, that a man's voice might be heard from the one to the other. Our fathers worshipped - This plainly refers to Abraham and Jacob (from whom the Samaritans pretended to deduce their genealogy) who erected altars in this place: Gen. xii, 6, 7, and Gen. xxxiii, 18, 20.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
John 4:22
But the most glorious thing here is the reason assigned, for salvation is of the Jews--intimating to her that Salvation was not a thing left to be reached by any one who might vaguely desire it of a God of mercy, but something that had been revealed, prepared, deposited with a particular people, and must be sought in connection with, and as issuing from them; and that people, "the Jews."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
John 4:22
John 4:39-42
“And from that city many of the Samaritans believed on him because of the word of the woman, who testified, He told me all things that ever I did. So when the Samaritans came unto him, they besought him to abide with them: and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his word; and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.” John 4:39-42
Many Samaritans believed, first on her word, then on his own: the Saviour of the world.
The chapter holds both of the passage's hardest lines without softening either. “Salvation is of the Jews” states plainly that God's revealed plan runs through a particular people, not a vague general mercy. In the same conversation, worship itself is freed from both Gerizim and Jerusalem, “in spirit and in truth,” and the chapter ends with Samaritans themselves believing, first on the woman's word and then on Jesus' own, and naming him “the Saviour of the world.”
The Good Samaritan and the Grateful Leper
Luke 10 and Luke 17: a Samaritan as the story's hero, twice
Luke 10:30-33
“Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion,” Luke 10:30-33
A priest and a Levite pass by; a Samaritan stops.
Luke 17:15-19
“And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, with a loud voice glorifying God; and he fell upon his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were not the ten cleansed? but where are the nine? Were there none found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger? And he said unto him, Arise, and go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.” Luke 17:15-19
Ten are cleansed. One returns to give thanks. He is a Samaritan.
Jesus tells both stories to a Jewish audience that shared the antipathy John 4 records, and in both a Samaritan is the one who gets it right: mercy shown where the priest and the Levite pass by, gratitude shown where nine healed Jews say nothing. The parable of the good Samaritan is expounded in full, verse by verse, on its own page.
Acts 8 in Samaria
Philip preaches, and Jerusalem sends Peter and John
Acts 8:5-8
“And Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed unto them the Christ. And the multitudes gave heed with one accord unto the things that were spoken by Philip, when they heard, and saw the signs which he did. For from many of those that had unclean spirits, they came out, crying with a loud voice: and many that were palsied, and that were lame, were healed. And there was much joy in that city.” Acts 8:5-8
Philip preaches Christ in Samaria; the city receives him with much joy.
Acts 8:14
“Now when the apostles that were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John:” Acts 8:14
Jerusalem hears Samaria has received the word, and sends Peter and John.
Acts 8:25
“They therefore, when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.” Acts 8:25
Peter and John preach the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans on their way back.
Persecution scatters the Jerusalem church, and Philip carries the gospel to the very people John 4 named as outside normal Jewish dealings. Samaria receives it, and the apostles at Jerusalem do not dismiss the report; they send Peter and John to see it for themselves, and the two return preaching in Samaritan villages along the way. Acts 1:8 had already named Samaria as a stage on the gospel's own road: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
The Living Remnant Today
a small community, still on Gerizim
A small Samaritan community, numbering several hundred, still keeps the Torah and the Samaritan Pentateuch today. Most live at Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim itself, near Nablus in the West Bank, with a smaller group in Holon, Israel. Each spring they still gather on the mountain to keep Passover with an actual lamb sacrifice, the way ancient Israel once did, a practice discontinued everywhere else in Judaism after the Second Temple's destruction. It is the oldest continuously practiced form of Israelite worship still kept on its original ground.
The Word Underneath
the New Testament's own name for them
The Voices
with the work named
Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710) · public domain
Names the Jewish pride behind the request for water in John 4:9, and Christ's own humiliation in coming from a nation held in ill repute among the nations.
Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755) · public domain
Locates Gerizim precisely, and records the Samaritan claim to descend from Abraham and Jacob through the patriarchs' own altars there.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) · public domain
Reads “salvation is of the Jews” as revelation deposited with a particular people, not a vague mercy open to anyone's own idea of God.
Marcus Brown's own commentary leads above all; within a tier, all voices are equal. Josephus is cited for the Jewish account of Samaritan origins; the Samaritans' own self-understanding is presented on its own terms per the site's handling rule for a tradition outside the Christian and Jewish mainstream alike.
Where to Go Next
The other groups
- The Sects of Second Temple Judaism the survey this page belongs to.
- The Essenes the third school, and the group the New Testament never names.
The gospel encounters, in full
- The Good Samaritan the parable itself, verse by verse.
- Read Acts 8 Philip's mission to Samaria, in full.
Word studies
The Hebrew and Greek under this study, each word in its own room.
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