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.

A.D. that we must place the few Gospel texts that speak of Jesus’ relation to the Samaritans. Before we begin, though, one point should be emphasized. From all we have seen, we can already exclude one popular presentation of the Samaritan religion in the 1st century A.D.: namely, that it was a type of syncretistic polytheism combined with Jewish elements. Far from being polytheists in practice or belief, the Samaritans tended to represent a rather conservative expression of Israelite religion, more rigorous than many Jews in their observance of the Sabbath and more wary of religious innovations — a characteristic that may partly explain their restriction of the canon of sacred books to the Pentateuch. As for syncretism, to the cold eye of the historian of religions, the Samaritans would probably have appeared no more syncretistic than their Jewish or later Christian neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean world.

III. Samaritans: The Problems of the Gospel Texts

        The canonical Gospels offer relatively little material on Jesus and the Samaritans. What they do offer stands in basic agreement with what we know from sources outside the NT. At the same time, though, the passages dealing with Samaritans in the Gospels add nothing essentially new to our knowledge of the Samaritans. Moreover, as many exegetical studies indicate, the Gospel references to Samaritans may tell us more about the situation of the early church as it pursued its mission in Palestine than they do about the historical Jesus ³⁴. The easiest way to gain an overview of what, if anything, these references may tell us about Jesus’ relation to the Samaritans is to undertake a rapid survey of each Gospel or Gospel source in turn³⁵:

        1. ‘Samaria’ and ‘Samaritans’ do not occur at all in either Mark or Q, our two earliest written sources of Gospel material. This in itself may serve as an initial indicator that Jesus’ interaction with Samaritans was probably not all that extensive. This point is confirmed indirectly by Matthew.

        2. In Matthew, ‘Samaritans’ occurs only in the negative command Jesus gives the Twelve at the beginning of the missionary discourse