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.

rapprochements. But one must ask whether the very concept of ‘schism’ is appropriate here. ‘Schism’ presupposes some original unity or union. If we are speaking of Samaritans and Jews, we must ask in what sense these two groups were ever united. This question in turn brings us back to our initial problem of terminology and definitions. ‘Jews’ ('Ioudai=oi in Greek, y^ehûdîm in Hebrew, y^ehu=da4)| in Aramaic) take their name from the tribe of Judah and the territory referred to in Hellenistic and Roman times as Judea ('Ioudai/a in Greek, y^ehûdâ in Hebrew, y^ehûd in Aramaic)²⁸. After the Babylonian exile in the 6th century B.C., some of the ‘Jews’ who had been exiled from Judah to Babylonia returned to their native land in Palestine, many with the specific intention of rebuilding the Jerusalem temple on Mt. Zion. There they interacted with various natives of Judea who had not been forced into exile; the interaction was not always a happy one²⁹. If one understands the phrase ‘Palestinian Jews’ to designate the ethnic-geographical-religious community that resulted from these events and interaction, and if one understands the distinctive religious practices and beliefs of this community to constitute ‘Palestinian Judaism’, then Samaritans, descended in some sense from a number of the northern tribes of Israel (most likely Ephraim and Manasseh) and focused religiously on the sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim, never belonged to the group we label Palestinian Jews and never practiced the corresponding religion we call Judaism. In keeping with this historical situation as well as with their self-understanding, the Samaritans refer to themselves in their major religious works as ‘Israel’ but not as ‘Jews’³⁰.