Samaritans in Early Jewish Literature

Samaritans trace their lineage to the northern Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh and claim to have remained in northern Israel after the Assyrian invasion and deportations of 722 BCE. However, Josephus and the rabbis trace the origins of the inhabitants of ancient Samaria (near Shechem) to Cutha and related areas of Iraq, hence the use of the term Cutheans as a derogatory name in some texts. To this day, a small group of remaining Samaritans continues to practice circumcision, observe the Sabbath, and revere a version of the five books of Moses—the Samaritan Pentateuch—even as they reject the rest of the Jewish canon. Rather than Jerusalem, they identify Mount Gerizim as the place chosen by God for sacrificial worship, and they maintain a functioning cult and priesthood there. 

In the Persian period, when the Jewish people were permitted to return to the land of Israel, the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah report that the Samaritans clashed with the returning exiles, presenting them as adversaries of the Jewish community seeking to establish its roots in the land. Josephus also offers an account of this conflict and takes a negative view of Samaritans in general, portraying the establishment of their temple cult as a “consolation prize” for a disaffected Jerusalem priest and describing them as opportunists who either renounce or embrace kinship with the Jews based on political expediency. He also reports on further conflicts between Samaritans and the Jews who worshiped in Jerusalem.

The later attitude of rabbinic texts toward the Samaritans ranges from ambivalence to full censure, primarily as a response to their differing legal interpretation, practice of the Torah, and rejection of rabbinic tradition. In early rabbinic writings, Samaritans occupy a hybrid legal status: for example, their wine and priestly dough offerings are accepted as valid sacrifices, but caution is recommended in areas of practice that do not coincide with rabbinic halakhah, such as menstrual purity law. The Babylonian Talmud reflects a range of attitudes toward Samaritans: some texts cast aspersions on their origins and even classify them as idolators, but others are more welcoming. For the rabbis, Samaritans are not fully Jewish but are not considered gentiles, either. In general, midrashic writings adopt a hostile approach to the Samaritans.