Church Splits & Petty Divisions: How Jesus’ Love for The Samaritans Confronts Us

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They are the “others” of the New Testament; the outcasts, the untouchables. They appear here and there in the Gospels and Acts as the people the Jews wanted nothing to do with. So naturally Jesus went out of his way to spend time with them. They are the Samaritans.

Some of the most famous, and most intriguing, episodes in the New Testament revolve around the Samaritans. There is the famous parable of the “Good Samaritan”; the Woman at the Well, James and John asking to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan town that refused them hospitality, and Simon Magnus trying to buy the Holy Spirit from Peter. In all of these stories, the Samaritans are characterized as being viewed as second-class citizens by all the Jews except Jesus, who clearly played by his own rules. But who were the Samaritans? Why did they and the Jews not get along?

Nestled between the Galilee and Judea, the region of Samaria was in the heartland of the former northern kingdom of Israel, gone for over 700 years by the time Jesus came on the scene. Indeed, Samaritans and Samaria get their names from the city of Samaria, the old capital of Israel founded by Omri, the father of Ahab and by whose name the Assyrian kings would refer to Israel (Bīt Ḫumria, House of Omri). It is from disposed northerners that the Samaritans descend.

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the break between the Samaritans and the Jews occurred. The northern tribes and Judah were always a bit out of sync; often in Joshua and Judges you will see the phrase “Israel and Judah” as if they aren’t quite one entity. Things came to a head during the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon’s successor, when he not only refused to lighten the tax load but threatened to make it heavier. The northern tribes rebelled, following Jeroboam and became Israel while Judah stayed with Rehoboam. The two sides never really gotten along after that. Indeed it was King Ahaz of Judah buying off Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria that led to Israel’s ultimate demise.

For the Samaritans, the schism took place even before there was ever a king. According to them, it began when the High Priest Eli, whom they do not like, going so far as to call him “the insidious one,” moved the Tabernacle from its rightful place on Mount Gerizim to Shiloh. For the Jews, the split happened on the other end of history’s spectrum. After the destruction of Samaria and the end of Israel 722/720 BC, the Assyrians initiated a massive and complex deportation program: a majority Israelites were mostly moved to Harhar and Kiššesim (western Iran), whose people were then moved to Assur (northern Ira            q/Kurdistan), whose people were moved to Hamath (Syria), whose people were moved to Samaria. Get all that? (In truth, none of that is really necessary; I just really wanted to write that so humor me).

The point is the people living in Samaria were a mixture of Israelites and foreigners and they began mixing, both racially and religiously. Thus the Jews viewed these people as half-breeds, which led to tensions after the Babylonian Exiles had returned (see Ezra and Nehemiah).

It should be noted, however, that none of these people are called or identify themselves as Samaritans. This simply provides the backdrop for the blood feud, showing that tensions between the north (Samaria) and the south (Judea) had existed for quite some time.

Religiously, the main (and virtually only) point of contention between the two was where the temple ought to be. The Samaritans believed it was supposed to be on Mount Gerizim, hearkening back to the Pentateuch’s command to read the Blessings and Curses from Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, sister hills that sandwich Shechem in between. Meanwhile the Jews held the temple ought to be in Jerusalem, pointing out their Davidic tradition (see Jesus discussion with the Woman at the Well in John 4). For several centuries after the return of the Exiles, the two lived in an uneasy peace with a temple on Gerizim (the remains of which can be seen today) and a temple at Jerusalem. However, in 110 BC during the Hasmonean period (started by the Maccabees), John Hyrcanus launched a campaign against the Samaritans which ended up destroying the Gerizim temple. Needless to say, the Samaritans never forgave the Jews for that and the Jews continued to look on the Samaritans as second-class, half-breeds.

One would think from reading the New Testament, the Samaritans and Jews were totally different. In reality, however, they were virtually identical. The Samaritan religion is, for all intents and purposes, a sect of Judaism although neither side will admit it. The Samaritans have their own Pentateuch which is remarkably similar to the Jewish version, with the differences mainly orienting the place of worship to Gerizim over Jerusalem. The Samaritans do not accept the Prophet and Writings, nor do they accept any rabbinic literature. They do have their own synagogues which are identical in layout to the Jewish version, except they orient towards Gerizim, instead of Jerusalem. Fundamentally, the only real difference between the two is over where one ought to worship, something Jesus pointed out as being rather silly since God’s believers worship him in spirit anyway.

It is odd how such simple differences can drive massive wedges between people so similar. Blood feuds are the nastiest and the Samaritans and Jews are no exception, disdaining each other to the point of refusing to interact if at all possible. Petty and pathetic; thank God Jesus doesn’t care about the petty stuff.

But are we so different today? Churches split over the silliest of things, like worship style, ordination, or carpet color. As one who has seen the fallout from these splits, it seems the pettier the reason, the greater the animosity between the two sides. Somehow we seem to forget the Spirit of Christ is to rise above such differences. After all, if Jesus doesn’t care, why should we?

The Samaritans still exist today, about 500 or so in number, centered around Nablus where the woman went to the well and Holon, which is a suburb of Tel Aviv. And so the blood feud lives on.

References

Pummer, Reinhard. 1997. Samaritans. Vol. IV, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Ancient Near East, edited by Eric M. Meyers, 469-472. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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