Samaritanism (; ) is an Abrahamic

monotheistic Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...

ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Samaritan people, who originate from the

Hebrews The Hebrews (; ) were an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era, which pre ...

and

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

and began to emerge as a relatively distinct group after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

during the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

. Central to the faith is the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ), is the Religious text, sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existe ...

, which Samaritans believe is the original and unchanged version of the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

. Although it developed alongside and is closely related to

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

, Samaritanism asserts itself as the truly preserved form of the monotheistic faith that the Israelites adopted under

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

. Samaritan belief also holds that the Israelites' original holy site was Mount Gerizim, near

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

, and that

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

only attained importance under Israelite dissenters who had followed Eli to the city of Shiloh; the Israelites who remained at Mount Gerizim would become the Samaritans in the Kingdom of Israel, whereas the Israelites who left would become the

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

in the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

. Mount Gerizim is likewise revered by Samaritans as the location where the Binding of Isaac took place, in contrast to the Jewish belief that it occurred at Jerusalem's

Temple Mount The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...

. Today there are only about 800 to 900 followers, which makes Samaritanism one of the smallest religions globally. According to one source, there were millions of followers in ancient times.

History

Traditional accounts

Samaritanism holds that the summit of Mount Gerizim is the true location of God's Holy Place. Samaritans trace their history as a separate entity to a period soon after the Israelites' entry into the

Promised Land In the Abrahamic religions, the "Promised Land" ( ) refers to a swath of territory in the Levant that was bestowed upon Abraham and his descendants by God in Abrahamic religions, God. In the context of the Bible, these descendants are originally ...

. Samaritan historiography traces the schism to High Priest Eli leaving Mount Gerizim, where stood the first Israelite altar in

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

, and building a competing altar in nearby Shiloh. The dissenting group of Israelites who had followed Eli to Shiloh would be the ones who in later years would head south to settle

(the Jews), whereas the Israelites who stayed on Mount Gerizim, in Samaria, would become known as the Samaritans. Abu l-Fath, who wrote a major work of Samaritan history in the 14th century, comments on Samaritan origins as follows:

A terrible civil war broke out between Eli son of Yafni, of the line of Ithamar, and the sons of Pincus ( Phinehas), because Eli son of Yafni resolved to usurp the High Priesthood from the descendants of Pincus. He used to offer sacrifices on an altar of stones. He was 50 years old, endowed with wealth and in charge of the treasury of the Children of Israel. ... He offered a sacrifice on the altar, but without salt, as if he were inattentive. When the Great High Priest Ozzi learned of this, and found the sacrifice was not accepted, he thoroughly disowned him; and it is (even) said that he rebuked him. Thereupon he and the group that sympathized with him, rose in revolt and at once he and his followers and his beasts set off for Shiloh. Thus Israel split in factions. He sent to their leaders saying to them, ''Anyone who would like to see wonderful things, let him come to me.'' Then he assembled a large group around him in Shiloh, and built a Temple for himself there; he constructed a place like the Temple Mount Gerizim">n Mount Gerizim He built an altar, omitting no detail—it all corresponded to the original, piece by piece. At this time the Children of Israel split into three factions. A loyal faction on Mount Gerizim; a heretical faction that followed false gods; and the faction that followed Eli son of Yafni in Shiloh.

Further, the ''Samaritan New Chronicle'' or ''Adler'', named after its editor Elkan Nathan Adler (1861-1946), which is believed to have been composed in the 18th century using earlier chronicles as sources, states:

Scholarly perspective

Modern genetic studies (2004) suggest that Samaritans' lineages trace back to a common ancestor with Jews in the paternally-inherited Jewish high priesthood ( Cohanim) temporally proximate to the period of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel, and are probably descendants of the historical Israelite population. The religion of the proto-Samaritans at this time was probably no different than that of their southern counterparts in

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

. This likely remained the case for several centuries after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, as Judean cultic reforms instituted by the kings Hezekiah and Josiah experience little opposition extending to the Samaritan people in the north, according to the biblical text. Though Samaritans certainly were culturally unique, they were closely intertwined with the Jews to the south. As such, Samaritanism likely did not emerge as a distinct tradition until the Hasmonean and Roman era, by which point Yahwism had coalesced into

Second Temple Judaism Second Temple Judaism is the Judaism, Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), destruction of Jerusalem in ...

. The temple on Mount Gerizim, the central place of worship in Samaritanism, was built in the 5th century BCE, as one of many Yahwistic temples in Samaria. However, the temple precinct experienced a centuries-long period of large-scale construction beginning around the 4th century BCE, which indicates that its status as the pre-eminent place of worship among Samaritans had only just been established. Likewise, theological debates between Jews and Samaritans are attested as early as the 2nd century BCE, indicating that the

had already taken shape, in some form. The Hasmonean king

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ; ) was a Hasmonean (Maccabee, Maccabean) leader and Jewish High Priest of Israel of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until he died in 104 BCE). In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as ''Yoḥana ...

destroyed the Mount Gerizim temple and brought Samaria under his control around 120 BCE, which led to a longlasting sense of mutual hostility between the Jews and Samaritans. From this point, the Samaritans likely sought to consciously distance themselves from their Judean brethren, and both peoples came to see the Samaritan faith as a religion distinct from Judaism. The relationship between Jews and Samaritans only further deteriorated with time. By the time of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, Samaritans and Jews deeply disparaged one another, as evinced by Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Beliefs

The principal beliefs of Samaritanism are as follows: Shma yisrael

* There is one

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

, the same God recognized by the Jewish prophets. Faith is in the unity of the Creator which is absolute unity. It is the cause of the causes, and it fills the entire world. His nature can not be understood by human beings, but according to his actions and according to his revelation to his people and the kindness he showed them. * The

is the only true holy book and was given by God to

. The Torah was created before the creation of the world and whoever believes in it is assured a part in the world to come. The status of the Torah in Samaritanism as the only holy book causes Samaritans to reject the Oral Torah,

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, and all prophets and scriptures except for a version of the Book of Joshua which they don't hold as Scripture, whose book in the Samaritan community is significantly different from the Book of Joshua in the Jewish Bible. Essentially, the authority of all post-Torah sections of the Jewish Bible and classical Jewish Rabbinical works (the Talmud, comprising the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

and the

Gemara The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) is an essential component of the Talmud, comprising a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aram ...

) is rejected. Moses is considered to be the last of the line of prophets. * Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the one true sanctuary chosen by God. The Samaritans do not recognize the sanctity of Jerusalem and do not recognize the

, claiming instead that Mount Gerizim was the place where the binding of Isaac took place. * The apocalypse, called "the day of vengeance", will be the end of days, when a figure called the Taheb (essentially the Samaritan equivalent of the Jewish Messiah) from the tribe of Joseph will come, be a prophet like Moses for 40 years and bring about the return of all the Israelites, following which the dead will be resurrected. The Taheb will then discover the tent of Moses'

Tabernacle According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle (), also known as the Tent of the Congregation (, also Tent of Meeting), was the portable earthly dwelling of God used by the Israelites from the Exodus until the conquest of Canaan. Moses was instru ...

on Mount Gerizim, and will be buried next to Joseph when he dies.

Festivals and observances

The Samaritans have conserved the institution of a high priesthood and the practice of slaughtering and eating lambs on Passover eve. They celebrate

Pesach Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday and one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Biblical Egypt, Egypt. According to the Book of Exodus, God in ...

, Shavuot, and

Sukkot Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, is a Torah-commanded Jewish holiday celebrated for seven days, beginning on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which Israelite ...

, but use a different mode from that employed in Judaism in order to determine the dates annually. Yom Teru'ah (the Biblical name for "

Rosh Hashanah Rosh Hashanah (, , ) is the New Year in Judaism. The Hebrew Bible, biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (, , ). It is the first of the High Holy Days (, , 'Days of Awe"), as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25, that occur in the late summe ...

"), at the beginning of Tishrei, is not considered a New Year as it is in

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

. The sabbath is observed weekly by the Samaritan community every Friday to Saturday beginning and ending at sundown. For 24 hours, the families gather together to celebrate the rest day: all electricity with the exception of minimal lighting (kept on the entire day) in the house is disconnected, no work is done, and neither cooking nor driving is allowed. The time is devoted to worship which consists of seven prayer services (divided into two for sabbath eve, two in the morning, two in afternoon and one at eve of conclusion), reading the weekly Torah portion (according to the Samaritan yearly Torah cycle), spending quality time with family, taking meals, rest and sleep, and visiting other members of the community. Passover is particularly important in the Samaritan community, climaxing with the sacrifice of up to 40 sheep. The Counting of the Omer remains largely unchanged; however, the week before Shavuot is a unique festival celebrating the continued commitment Samaritanism has maintained since the time of Moses. Shavuot is characterized by nearly day-long services of continuous prayer, especially over the stones on Gerizim traditionally attributed to Joshua. During Sukkot, the sukkah is built inside houses, as opposed to outdoor settings that are traditional among Jews. Samaritan historian Benyamim Tsedaka traces the indoor-sukkah tradition to persecution of Samaritans during the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. The roof of the Samaritan sukkah is decorated with

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. ''Citrus'' is nativ ...

fruits and the branches of palm, myrtle, and

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

trees, according to the Samaritan interpretation of the four species designated in the Torah for the holiday. File:Samaritans.jpg, Samaritans, from a photo c. 1900 by the

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

. File:Mezuzah IMG 2124.JPG, Samaritan '' mezuzah'' in the city of

, 2013 File:Bitknest2.jpg, A modern Samaritan synagogue in the city of Holon, Israel

Religious texts

Samaritan law differs from

Halakha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Torah, Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is ...

(Rabbinic Jewish law) and other Jewish movements. The Samaritans have several groups of religious texts, which correspond to Jewish Halakha. A few examples of such texts are: *

: There are some 6,000 differences between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic Jewish Pentateuch text; and, according to one estimate, 1,900 points of agreement between it and the Greek LXX version. Several passages in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

would also appear to echo a Torah textual tradition not dissimilar to that conserved in the Samaritan text. There are several theories regarding the similarities. The variations, some corroborated by readings in the Old Latin, Syriac and Ethiopian translations, attest to the antiquity of the Samaritan text, although the exact date of composition is still largely unclear. Granted special attention is the so-called " Abisha Scroll", a manuscript of the Pentateuch tradition attributed to Abishua, grandson of

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

, traditionally compiled during the Bronze Age. * Historical writings ** '' Samaritan Chronicle, The Tolidah'' (Creation to the time of Abishah) ** ''Samaritan Chronicle'', The Chronicle of Joshua (Israel during the time of divine favor) (4th century, in Arabic and Aramaic) ** ''Samaritan Chronicle, Adler'' (Israel from the time of divine disfavor until the exile) ** ''Samaritan Chronicle,'' The Kitab al-Tarikh of Abu ’l-Fath (Historical chronology from Adam to Mohammad) * Halakhic texts ** ''Samaritan Halakhic Text'', The Hillukh (Code of Halakha, marriage, circumcision, etc.) ** ''Samaritan Halakhic Text'', the Kitab at-Tabbah (Halakha and interpretation of some verses and chapters from the Torah, written by Abu Al Hassan 12th century CE) ** ''Samaritan Halakhic Text'', the Kitab al-Kafi (Book of Halakha, written by Yosef Al Ascar 14th century CE) * Haggadic Midrash texts ** ''Al-Asatir''—legendary Aramaic texts from the 11th and 12th centuries, containing: *** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Abu'l Hasan al-Suri *** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Memar Markah—3rd or 4th century theological treatises attributed to ''Hakkam'' Markha *** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Pinkhas on the Taheb *** ''Haggadic Midrash'', Molad Maseh (On the birth of Moses) * Liturgical texts ** ''Defter'', prayer book of psalms and hymns. ** ''Samaritan Haggadah''

Notes

References

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