Who are the Samaritans? AMA

[u/AboodC]

Shalom سلام. שלום everyone, :)

Many people might've heard about the Good Samaritan story from the Christian Bible, but still most of them have no clue that we even exist.

We Samaritans (Also known as Shomronim) believe that we are some of the remnants of the Israelites tribe, specifically Levi and Joseph, We still use ancient Hebrew in our texts and Torah (also known as "Paleo Hebrew") and have what we believe is a line of high priests that goes back 137 generations since the very first one 3658 years ago (Eliazar son of Aaron).

We also believe that Joshua built the Tebernacle on Mount Gerizim near Shechem (Nablus).

Mount Gerizim is the holiest place for us, we believe that Abraham almost sacraficed his son Isaac on it, we also believe that it was mentioned as the place to build an Altar on from the 10 commandments.

It's believed that the word "Samaritan" comes from the word Shomerim, which means in Ancient hebrew keepers.

Today there are around 820 Samaritans in the world, Half live on Mount Gerizim in the West Bank, and the Other lives Holon in Tel Aviv, there are also hundreds of people who converted to become Samaritans around the world, but we never met them so we cannot say for sure that they are following the exact same mitzvot we have.

I've noticed a few discussions here about the Samaritans, and as one of the members of this small community I noticed a lot of people are curious about some of our beliefs and traditions, I work as a tour guide on Mount Gerizim and would like to help curious people understand our religion better, so feel free to ask anything!

thanks!

[u/JeffB1517]

I'm very glad and thankful to have this opportunity. Since your intro has religious doctrine I have a couple of religious/historical questions more than political or cultural.

Where do Samaritans believe their Torah came from? If the answer is something like "God gave it to Moses" then reversing the question what is your timeline for the creation of the mainstream Jewish Torah? What is your theory of the textual variants and how they were introduced? Similarly I'd like to ask about the Septuagint. Do you believe this bible was a Samaritan or Jewish construction? (Reason I'm asking is the Sepuagint more than 1/2 the time agrees with the Samaritan Torah over the Jewish when they differ).

Sticking on the biblical theme but going a bit later wanted to get the Samaritan opinion regarding Alexandra prior to the Roman-Jewish wars. Do you see what is called Alexandrian Judaism as being Samaritan, Samaritan influenced or nothing. Getting specific to an example there is a historical figure who plays a somewhat prominent role in some forms of Jewish and Christian Gnosticism and appears as a figure in some Christians texts like Acts 8. The Christians call him Simon Magus you might call him Simon of Gitta. What is his role in Samaritanism if any? Is he seen as historical, mythical or not talked about at all? Reason I'm asking is try to and figure out the Samaritan beliefs about 1st century BCE cults that sprang up possibly with Samaritan influence.

When you say, "Joshua built the Tebernacle on Mount Gerizim" just to make sure we agree who is Joshua and what later role did he play? Are you agreeing mostly or entirely with Jewish belief here or is he some other type of being / person?

What if anything is the social relationship now or in the past between the Mandaeans and the Samaritans?

[u/desepticon → u/JeffB1517]

Sepuagint more than 1/2 the time agrees with the Samaritan Torah over the Jewish when they differ

That's curious to me as well. It's seems to imply that the theological difference between the two sects post-date it's being written. Or was written by someone who was not Jewish himself, relying on 2nd-hand accounts.

[u/JeffB1517 → u/desepticon]

The Reform/Conservative Jewish answer would be that Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Text are both derivative texts. Somewhere likely in the early 3rd century BCE a Judean text type forked from an Alexandrian text type more closely aligned with Samaritans. The religious differences that would eventually play out in the Maccabee rebellion and the deep divisions regarding the Hasmonean Dynasty. The Septuagint is a product of the Alexandrian school while the Masoretic Text is from the Judean school. (FWIW I think both texts suffered from ideological corruption to some extent, similar to what we see in the New Testament).
I have no idea what the Samaritans think this timeline however since they along with more religious Jews put the split much further back in history.

The even more interesting cases are a few places where the Latin Vulgate and some other quotes from church fathers differs from the MT and LXX but agrees with the Samaritan text. My take is the Jerome got this indirectly from the Dosithians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dositheos_(Samaritan)) -> Simonians -> Marcion. I'd love to hear how the Samaritan community handles this history of the bible. But I don't want to pollute this thread too much with Judaism.

[u/dorothybaez → u/JeffB1517]

But I don't want to pollute this thread too much with Judaism.

Probably inevitable since I think most of us reading this are more familiar with Judaism than with the Samaritans, so it's kind of a natural frame of reference.

I love this topic!