John P. Meier, «The Historical Jesus and the Historical Samaritans: What can be Said?», Vol. 81 (2000) 202-232

Careful analysis of the Gospels shows that there is not very much hard data about the historical Jesus’ interaction with or views about the Samaritans. There is multiple attestation, found in the Lucan and Johannine traditions, that Jesus, different from typical views of his time, held a benign view of Samaritans and had positive, though passing, encounters with some Samaritans. However, there is gospel agreement, from silence or statement, that Jesus had no programmatic mission to the Samaritans. Besides the above important conclusions, this essay also makes clear the useful distinction between Samaritans and Samarians.

blessings, while Mt. Ebal opposite it is connected with the ritual of pronouncing curses. Clearly, the supposed ‘schism’ between Samaritans and worshipers of Yahweh in the kingdom of Judah had not yet taken place (if it ever did). Likewise telling is the consistent attitude of the southern prophets before, during, and after the Babylonian exile (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, and Zechariah). In the writings attributed to them, hope is expressed for the restoration and union of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. This hope contravenes any idea that the northern tribes had been permanently and irrevocably contaminated by some polytheistic or syncretistic pagan religion. Neither do we find in these prophetic writings any idea of the ‘ten lost tribes’ of northern Israel, exiled from their land by the Assyrians (contrast the presence of this idea in 4 Ezra 13,40, written at the end of the 1st century A.D.).

        After the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the leaders of the southern kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians (587/586 B.C.), and after some Judeans (i.e., ‘Jews’) were allowed to return to Jerusalem under subsequent Persian rule (Cyrus began his rule in Babylon in 539/538 B.C.), we hear of the efforts of Nehemiah and Ezra to rebuild the walls and temple of Jerusalem as well as to dissolve mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews¹⁴. In this endeavor, they meet opposition from various adversaries, including the political officials ruling in Samaria. The narrative in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah is muddled, and the chronological problems it raises are intractable. Suffice it to say that there is no clear evidence that the opposition Nehemiah and Ezra faced at various times in the 5th and the 4th centuries B.C. came mainly from a distinct religious group centered around Mt. Gerizim and known as the Samaritans¹⁵. To be sure, that Samaritans were the main source of opposition is how Jews and Christians of a later date came to read and