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.

(Matt 10,5b-6): ‘Do not go to the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of Samaritans (ei)j po/lin Samaritw=n mh_ ei)se/lqhte); go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (poreu/esqe de_ ma=llon pro_j ta_ pro/bata ta_ a)polwlo/ta oi!kou 'Israh/l)’. While one cannot prove absolutely that this saying is a product of the early church — possibly created by stringently conservative Christian Jews who opposed a wider mission to Samaritans and Gentiles — any claim that these words come from the historical Jesus faces a number of difficulties.

        (a) As it stands, Matthew’s missionary discourse (10,5-42) is a creation of Matthew himself, who has conflated the missionary discourses found in Mark and Q. (This a commonplace in NT exegesis that can be demonstrated easily enough by comparing the missionary discourses in Mark 6,7-11; Matt 10,5-42; Luke 9,3-5; and Luke 10,2-12 ³⁶). Yet the prohibition of a mission to Gentiles or Samaritans