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.

The text does not say explicitly that the Samaritans took the initiative in requesting this name for their temple. Not surprisingly, in Ant. 12.257-264, Josephus gives a more hostile version of events: the Samaritans disown all kinship with and similarity to the Jews and willingly petition Antiochus IV to have their unnamed temple named Zeus Helle4nios (the Greek Zeus). The historical fact may simply be that the Samaritans, feeling themselves in a perilous position, did not resist Antiochus’ Hellenizing policies with the same zeal as that shown by Judas Maccabeus and his followers. In any event, after the triumph of the Hasmonean leaders over the Seleucids, relations between Samaritans and Jews went from bad to worse. The ambitious Hasmonean rulers extended their territory to include Samaria; but, unlike some of the native populations elsewhere (e.g., Idumea), the Samaritans refused to be coopted by the Judaism of Jerusalem. A climax in the deterioration of relations was reached during the reign of the Hasmonean monarch and high priest John Hyrcanus, who destroyed the Samaritan sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim in 128 B.C. and the town of Shechem ca. 107 B.C.²⁷. From this time onward, relations between Samaritans and Jews were extremely strained, although the ups and downs of subsequent history brought them at times into more amicable dealings with each other.

        Looking back on this obscure and tangled history, we should at least learn to avoid certain facile statements found at times in both popular and scholarly presentations. For example, writers often argue over when the ‘schism’ between Samaritans and Judaism took place. The more cautious commentators rightly reject the idea of a single break at one moment in time. They prefer to speak of a gradual drifting apart or a series of breaks interwoven with occasional and temporary