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Who Were the Samaritans_ And Why Were They So Hated by the Jews(MP3_70K) · truthunedited

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Who were the Samaritans and why were they so hated
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: by the Jews? They were Israelites. They worshipped the same God,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: followed the same law, and claimed the same ancestors. Yet
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Jews refused to eat with them, drink from their cups,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: or even walk through their land. In this episode, we
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: explore how shared identity became lasting hostility and why the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: New Testament treats that hatred as assumed knowledge. The year
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: is approximately 930 B.C. King Solomon has died. His son
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Rehoboam ascends to the throne, and the tribal leaders of
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the north come to him with a request. They ask
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: him to lighten the heavy labor and taxation his father imposed.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Rehoboam consults his advisors. The elders counsel patience and compromise.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: The younger men urge him to assert dominance. Rehoboam chooses
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the latter. He tells the northern tribes that if they
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: thought his father's rule was harsh, they have seen nothing yet.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: The northern tribes revolt. Ten of the twelve tribes break
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  Speaker 1: away and form their own kingdom under Jeroboam. The United
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Kingdom of Israel, forged by David and expanded by Solomon,
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  Speaker 1: splits in two. The northern kingdom retains the name Israel
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  Speaker 1: and makes Samaria its capital. The southern kingdom becomes Judah,
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  Speaker 1: with Jerusalem as its center. Two kingdoms, two kings, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a wound that would never close. But
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the political division was only the surface. The theological fracture
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: ran far deeper. Jerusalem was not just the political capital
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the southern kingdom. It was the site of the temple,
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  Speaker 1: the dwelling place of God, the center of Israelite worship.
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  Speaker 1: Every faithful Jew was expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to offer sacrifices at the temple, to participate in the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: festivals ordained by the law of Moses. But now the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: northern tribes were in rebellion. If they continued to travel
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  Speaker 1: to Jerusalem for worship, their loyalty would inevitably drift back
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  Speaker 1: to the Davidic king in the south. Jeroboam understood this danger,
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  Speaker 1: so he made a decision that would define the religious
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  Speaker 1: identity of the northern kingdom for centuries. He set up
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  Speaker 1: two golden calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan,
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  Speaker 1: and declared these to be the gods who brought Israel
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  Speaker 1: out of Egypt. He established rival worship sites. He appointed
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  Speaker 1: priests who were not Levites. He created alternative festivals. In
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  Speaker 1: doing so, he didn't just challenge the political authority of Jerusalem,
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  Speaker 1: he challenged its religious monopolies. This was the original sin
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  Speaker 1: in the eyes of the south. The northern kingdom had
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  Speaker 1: not merely rebelled politically. It had committed apostasy. It had
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  Speaker 1: set up false worship, abandoned the temple, and corrupted the priesthood.
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  Speaker 1: From the perspective of Judah, the north was no longer
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  Speaker 1: truly Israel. It was a deviant, illegitimate shadow of what
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  Speaker 1: God's people were meant to be. For two centuries, the
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  Speaker 1: northern and southern kingdoms coexisted in uneasy tension, sometimes allied,
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  Speaker 1: often at war. And then, in 722 BC, the Assyrian
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  Speaker 1: Empire swept down from the north and destroyed the kingdom
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  Speaker 1: of Israel. The capital city of Samaria fell after a
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  Speaker 1: brutal siege. The Assyrian king, Sargon II, deported tens of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of Israelites and resettled foreign populations in their place.
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  Speaker 1: This was standard Assyrian policy, designed to break the identity
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  Speaker 1: and resistance of conquered peoples. The Book of Second Kings
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  Speaker 1: describes what happened next. The new settlers brought their own
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  Speaker 1: gods and their own religious practices, but they also experienced
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  Speaker 1: plagues and attacks by lions, which they interpreted as the
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  Speaker 1: anger of the god of the land. so they asked
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  Speaker 1: the Assyrian king to send back one of the deported
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  Speaker 1: Israelite priests to teach them how to worship the Lord.
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  Speaker 1: The result was a hybrid religion, a blending of Israelite
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  Speaker 1: tradition with foreign elements. This is the moment when the
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  Speaker 1: Samaritan identity begins to take shape in the historical record,
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  Speaker 1: but it is also the moment when the accusation is born.
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  Speaker 1: From the perspective of the southern kingdom of Judah, the
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  Speaker 1: people who remained in Samaria were no longer pure Israelites.
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  Speaker 1: They were mixed, both ethnically and religiously. They had intermarried
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  Speaker 1: with foreigners. They had corrupted the worship of the true God.
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  Speaker 1: They were, in essence, apostates and half-breeds. For over a century,
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  Speaker 1: this accusation festers. The northern kingdom is destroyed. The southern
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  Speaker 1: kingdom survives. And Judah convinces itself that survival proves righteousness.
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  Speaker 1: But then, their own world collapses. The Babylonian exile changes
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  Speaker 1: everything for the southern kingdom of Judah. In 586 B.C.,
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  Speaker 1: Jerusalem falls. The temple is destroyed. The leading families are
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  Speaker 1: deported to Babylon. For nearly 50 years, the people of
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  Speaker 1: Judah live in exile, their identity forged in the fires
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  Speaker 1: of displacement and loss. And when the Persian king Cyrus
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  Speaker 1: allows them to return in 538 BC, they come back
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  Speaker 1: with a sharpened sense of who they are and what
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  Speaker 1: it means to be the true people of God. Ezra
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  Speaker 1: and Nehemiah lead the reconstruction. They are not just rebuilding
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: walls and structures. They are rebuilding identity. And central to
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  Speaker 1: that identity is purity, ethnic purity, religious purity, genealogical legitimacy.
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  Speaker 1: The post-exilic community becomes obsessed with drawing clear boundaries between
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  Speaker 1: themselves and everyone else. Intermarriage with foreigners is forbidden. Foreign
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  Speaker 1: wives are divorced. The people trace their lineage meticulously to
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  Speaker 1: prove their descent from the pre-exilic community. And then the
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  Speaker 1: Samaritans approach. They come to Zerubbabel and the other leaders
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  Speaker 1: with an offer. They want to help rebuild the temple.
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  Speaker 1: They claim to worship the same God. They say they
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  Speaker 1: have been sacrificing to the Lord since the days of
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  Speaker 1: the Assyrian resettlement. But the offer was rejected. Bluntly. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: You have no part with us in building a temple
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  Speaker 1: to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord,
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  Speaker 1: the God of Israel. This rejection is not merely political.
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  Speaker 1: It is theological and ethnic. The returning exiles do not
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  Speaker 1: recognize the Samaritans as legitimate Israelites. They see them as
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  Speaker 1: the descendants of those who were left behind, who intermarried
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  Speaker 1: with foreigners, who compromised the purity of worship. The Samaritans,
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  Speaker 1: in the eyes of the Judeans, are outsiders who have
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  Speaker 1: forfeited their claim to the covenant. The Samaritans respond with opposition.
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  Speaker 1: They write letters to the Persian authorities, accusing the Jews
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  Speaker 1: of rebuilding Jerusalem as an act of rebellion. They harass
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  Speaker 1: the workers. They attempt to sabotage the reconstruction. The enmity deepens.
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  Speaker 1: What began as a theological dispute becomes an entrenched rivalry.
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  Speaker 1: And then, around 400 BC, the Samaritans take a decisive step.
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  Speaker 1: They build their own temple, not in Jerusalem, but on
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  Speaker 1: Mount Gerizim, near the ancient city of Shechem. This is
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: not a compromise or a secondary worship site. This is
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a direct challenge to Jerusalem's claim of exclusive legitimacy. The
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Samaritans are asserting that Mount Gerizim, not Mount Zion, is
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  Speaker 1: the true place where God chose to establish his name.
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  Speaker 1: They have their own priesthood, claiming descent from Aaron through
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: his son, Eleazar. They have their own version of the
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  Speaker 1: Torah with slight but significant variations. Most importantly, they have
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  Speaker 1: their own narrative of sacred history. In the Samaritan telling,
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  Speaker 1: it was at Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, that Abraham nearly
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  Speaker 1: sacrificed Isaac. It was at Gerizim that Jacob had his vision.
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  Speaker 1: It was Gerizim that Moses designated as the place of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: blessing in the law. Two temples, two priesthoods, two competing
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  Speaker 1: claims to be the authentic continuation of ancient Israel. The
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: schism is now complete, and it will define Jewish-Samaritan relations
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  Speaker 1: for the next five centuries. Two temples meant the conflict
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  Speaker 1: could not stay theological. It became territorial, political, and violent.
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  Speaker 1: The border between Judea and Samaria became a frontier of
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  Speaker 1: mutual suspicion. Jewish pilgrims traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem had
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  Speaker 1: to pass through Samaria. The journey was dangerous. There are
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  Speaker 1: accounts of Samaritan villagers harassing pilgrims, blocking roads and attacking travelers.
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  Speaker 1: Some Jews avoided Samaria entirely, taking the longer route through
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  Speaker 1: the Transjordan. The violence was mutual. Samaritans accused Jews of
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: desecrating their sacred sites. The Jewish historian Josephus records an
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: incident during Passover in which Samaritans allegedly entered the temple
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  Speaker 1: courts in Jerusalem and scattered human bones, defiling the sacred space.
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  Speaker 1: Whether the account is fully accurate or embellished, it reflects
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  Speaker 1: the depth of animosity that existed. Each side saw itself
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  Speaker 1: as the victim. Each side was convinced of its own
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  Speaker 1: righteousness and the other's apostasy. The conflict fed on itself,
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  Speaker 1: generation after generation. And then, in 128 B.C., the violence
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  Speaker 1: escalates beyond repair. John Hyrcanus, the Jewish high priest and
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  Speaker 1: ruler of Judea, leads a military campaign into Samaria. His
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  Speaker 1: target is the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. Hyrcanus' forces
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  Speaker 1: storm the mountain, raise the temple, and leave it in ruins.
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  Speaker 1: This is not a skirmish. This is the calculated destruction
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  Speaker 1: of the holiest site in Samaritan religion. For the Samaritans,
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  Speaker 1: this is equivalent to the destruction of Jerusalem's temple. It
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  Speaker 1: is an act of religious annihilation. the temple on Mount
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  Speaker 1: Gerizim is never rebuilt. But the memory of its destruction
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  Speaker 1: becomes a defining trauma. The hatred between Jews and Samaritans,
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  Speaker 1: already deep, becomes permanent. By the time of Jesus, this
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  Speaker 1: history is not ancient. It is living memory, embedded in
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  Speaker 1: the very identity of both groups. But we must ask
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  Speaker 1: the question that is often overlooked. What did the Samaritans
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  Speaker 1: themselves believe? because history is rarely as simple as one
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  Speaker 1: side proclaims. The Samaritans did not see themselves as apostates
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  Speaker 1: or half-breeds. They saw themselves as the faithful remnant of
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  Speaker 1: ancient Israel, the true descendants of the northern tribes who
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: remained in the land while Judah was carried into exile.
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  Speaker 1: They claimed that it was the Judeans who had deviated
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  Speaker 1: from the original faith, who had elevated Jerusalem beyond what
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  Speaker 1: the law permitted, who had added books to Scripture, that
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  Speaker 1: were never divinely inspired. The Samaritan canon consisted only of
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  Speaker 1: the Torah, the first five books of Moses. They rejected
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  Speaker 1: the prophets, the writings, the entire later corpus of Hebrew scripture.
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  Speaker 1: In their view, these additions were human innovations, not divine revelation.
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  Speaker 1: The law of Moses was sufficient. Everything else was corruption.
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  Speaker 1: And central to their faith was the conviction that Mount Gerizim,
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  Speaker 1: not Jerusalem, was the place God had chosen. They pointed
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  Speaker 1: to Deuteronomy, where Moses commands the Israelites to set up
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  Speaker 1: stones on Mount Gerizim and pronounce blessings there. They pointed
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  Speaker 1: to Shechem, where Abraham first built an altar, where Jacob
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: purchased land, where Joshua gathered the tribes to renew the covenant.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Their version of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch, contains approximately 6,000
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  Speaker 1: textual variants compared to the Jewish Masoretic text. Most are minor,
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  Speaker 1: but some are significant. In the Samaritan version, the command
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  Speaker 1: to worship at the place God will choose consistently refers
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  Speaker 1: to Mount Gerizim. For centuries, scholars dismissed the Samaritan Pentateuch
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: as sectarian corruption, but the Dead Sea Scrolls complicated that assumption.
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  Speaker 1: Some texts found at Qumran align more closely with the
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  Speaker 1: Samaritan version than with the Masoretic text. This suggests far
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: more textual diversity existed in the centuries before the Common
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  Speaker 1: Era than later tradition acknowledged. Archaeological excavations on Mount Gerizim
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: have revealed extensive religious structures dating to the Persian and
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  Speaker 1: Hellenistic periods. The site was not insignificant. It was a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: thriving center of worship and pilgrimage. None of this proves
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the Samaritan claim definitively, but it demonstrates that their position
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  Speaker 1: was not baseless. They had textual, historical, and archaeological grounds
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  Speaker 1: for their beliefs. They were not merely a deviant sect.
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  Speaker 1: They were a community with a coherent understanding of sacred history.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where the tragedy deepens. Both Jews and
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  Speaker 1: Samaritans claim to be the true Israel, Both had scriptures, priesthoods,
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  Speaker 1: and sacred sites. Both believed they were faithful, while the
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  Speaker 1: other had abandoned the covenant. And neither could acknowledge the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: legitimacy of the other without undermining their own identity. This
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  Speaker 1: was the world into which Jesus was born. A world
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  Speaker 1: where the division between Jew and Samaritan was absolute, theological,
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  Speaker 1: and violent. A world where crossing that boundary was meant
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  Speaker 1: betraying everything your ancestors had fought to preserve. And Jesus
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: crosses it anyway. He does something that would have stunned
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  Speaker 1: his Jewish audience. He refuses to honor the boundary. The
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  Speaker 1: encounter at the well in Samaria is not accidental. Jesus
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: is traveling from Judea to Galilee, and the text says
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  Speaker 1: he had to pass through Samaria. Some scholars suggest this
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  Speaker 1: was a geographical necessity. Others argue it was a theological imperative.
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  Speaker 1: Either way, Jesus chooses the direct route, the one that
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  Speaker 1: most Jews avoided. He sits by Jacob's well, alone, at noon.
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  Speaker 1: A Samaritan woman approaches to draw water. At this moment,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus violates multiple social and religious norms. He speaks to
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  Speaker 1: a woman in public without a male relative present. He
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  Speaker 1: speaks to a Samaritan, crossing the ethnic and religious divide
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  Speaker 1: And he asks her for a favor, making himself ritually
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  Speaker 1: dependent on someone considered unclean. The woman is shocked. Her
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  Speaker 1: question is not rhetorical. How can you, a Jew, ask me,
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  Speaker 1: a Samaritan woman, for a drink? She knows the rules.
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  Speaker 1: She knows the hatred. And yet, here is a Jewish
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  Speaker 1: man treating her as if the boundary does not exist.
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  Speaker 1: The conversation that follows is one of the most profound
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  Speaker 1: in the gospel. Jesus speaks of living water, of worship
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  Speaker 1: in spirit and truth. And then he makes a remarkable statement.
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  Speaker 1: You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship
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  Speaker 1: what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
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  Speaker 1: He does not deny the Jewish claim to revelation, but
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: he also does not reject the woman. He offers her
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the same access to the kingdom of God that he
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  Speaker 1: offers to anyone. Later, Jesus tells the parable of the
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  Speaker 1: good Samaritan. A man is beaten and left for dead.
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  Speaker 1: A priest sees him and passes by. A Levite does
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  Speaker 1: the same. And then a Samaritan stops, binds the man's wounds,
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  Speaker 1: takes him to an inn, and pays for his care.
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  Speaker 1: The hero of the story is the one who should
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: have been the villain. The religious professionals, the guardians of
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  Speaker 1: purity and law, fail the test of compassion. The despised
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: outsider embodies the heart of the law. The parable is
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  Speaker 1: not subtle. Jesus is telling his Jewish audience that ethnic
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  Speaker 1: and religious identity are not guarantees of righteousness. That the
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  Speaker 1: kingdom of God is not defined by who you are,
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  Speaker 1: but by how you love. And he does so by
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  Speaker 1: making a Samaritan the moral exemplar. There is another story.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus heals ten lepers. All ten are cleansed, but only
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  Speaker 1: one returns to give thanks, and that one is a Samaritan.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus remarks on this. Was no one found to return
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  Speaker 1: and give praise to God except this foreigner? The outsider
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  Speaker 1: recognizes grace. The insiders take it for granted. After the resurrection,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the early Christian movement faces a critical question. To whom
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: should the gospel be preached? The book of Acts records
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  Speaker 1: that Philip, one of the seven deacons, goes to Samaria
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  Speaker 1: and proclaims Christ. The response is extraordinary. Multitudes believe. Signs
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  Speaker 1: and wonders accompany the message. The Samaritans receive the Holy Spirit,
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  Speaker 1: just as the Jews did at Pentecost. This is not
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  Speaker 1: a minor footnote. This is a seismic shift. The gospel
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  Speaker 1: crosses the most entrenched division in Jewish society. The barrier
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  Speaker 1: that had stood for seven centuries is broken. Jews and Samaritans,
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  Speaker 1: once sworn enemies, are now united in a common faith.
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  Speaker 1: The early church is forced to grapple with what it
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  Speaker 1: means to be the people of God when ethnicity and
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  Speaker 1: temple and purity laws no longer define the community. Jesus
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  Speaker 1: did not ignore the Jewish-Samaritan conflict. He confronted it directly, repeatedly,
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  Speaker 1: and deliberately. He used the Samaritans to challenge his own
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  Speaker 1: people's assumptions about worthiness, about grace, about who belongs in
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  Speaker 1: the kingdom of God. And in doing so, he redefined
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: what it means to be Israel. The Samaritan community survived
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  Speaker 1: the destruction of their temple. They survived Roman conquest, Byzantine rule,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Islamic expansion, and centuries of marginalization. But they did not thrive. Persecution,
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  Speaker 1: forced conversions, and assimilation reduced their numbers steadily. Today, fewer
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: than 1,000 Samaritans remain. Most live in two communities— Nablus
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  Speaker 1: near ancient Shechem, and Holon near Tel Aviv. They still
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: read the Samaritan Pentateuch. They still observe the Sabbath and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: festivals according to ancient traditions. And every year, they gather
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  Speaker 1: on Mount Gerizim to celebrate Passover, sacrificing lambs in a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: ritual unchanged for more than 2,000 years. They are one
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of the oldest surviving religious communities in the world. A
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: living link to the biblical past. But their survival is fragile.
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  Speaker 1: The younger generation speaks Hebrew and Arabic. The ancient Samaritan
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: language is fading. The community's future is uncertain. And yet
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: they persist. Not through power or numbers, but through memory.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: A memory of who they were. A memory of a
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  Speaker 1: division that shaped the world of the Bibles. The hatred
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: between Jews and Samaritans was not irrational. It was rooted
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  Speaker 1: in competing claims to sacred legitimacy, in theological convictions that
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: could not be reconciled, in historical wounds that were never
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: allowed to heal. Both sides believed they were defending the truth.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Both believed the other had abandoned God. Jesus entered this
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: world and refused to choose sides in the way his
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: contemporaries expected. He transcended the divisions He treated Samaritans as
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  Speaker 1: fully human, fully worthy of grace, fully capable of faith.
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  Speaker 1: And he held them up as examples to challenge those
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: who thought ancestry and religious credentials made them superior. The
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: question the Samaritans pose is not just historical. What happens
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: when two groups both claim to be God's people? What
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: happens when sacred texts and sacred sites conflict? What happens
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: when the boundary between us and them is drawn in
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  Speaker 1: the name of faithfulness to God. The Samaritans remind us
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: that religious division is rarely simple, that the people we
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: call outsiders often see themselves as the faithful remnant. That
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: history is written by those who survive, and the stories
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: we tell shape the hatreds we carry forward. And perhaps
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: most importantly, the Samaritans force us to ask, what makes
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: someone worthy of compassion? Is it their theology, their ancestry,
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  Speaker 1: or is it simply the fact that they, like us,
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  Speaker 1: are human, made in the image of God and deserving
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  Speaker 1: of love regardless of how deeply we disagree? The divisions
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of the ancient world have not disappeared. They have merely
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: changed their names. We still draw boundaries between the pure
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and impure, the insider and outsider, the faithful and apostate.
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  Speaker 1: We still tell ourselves our side holds truth while the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: other has abandoned it. We still pass by on the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: other side when the wounded stranger belongs to a group
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: we have been taught to despise. The story of the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Samaritans is not just about ancient conflict. It is about
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the human capacity to turn theological conviction into hatred. And
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it is about the possibility, radical and unsettling, that God's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: grace might extend beyond the boundaries we have drawn. Subscribe
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: to this channel for more explorations of biblical history, ancient mysteries,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and the stories that shaped our world.