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.

theological composition, foreshadowing as it does the Christian mission to the Samaritans, lies a particular event from the life of the historical Jesus. Yet, whether such an event lies there or not, what is striking about John 4 is that it is the most explicit and well-informed passage about Samaritans in the NT. For instance, there is indeed a well at the foot of Mt. Gerizim. The evangelist is probably quite correct in informing us that Samaritans and Jews do not use the same utensils (v. 9, with an indirect reference to purity rules)⁵⁴. The narrative also correctly implies that it would be most unusual for a Jewish man to speak with a Samaritan woman (with a possible reference to suspicions about the ritually impure state of Samaritan women and their loose morals)⁵⁵. More significantly, for the only time in the NT, explicit mention is made of the competition between Samaritan worship on Mt. Gerizim (though the name itself is not spoken) and Jewish veneration of Jerusalem and its temple (v. 20)⁵⁶. For all the supposed anti-Judaism of John’s Gospel, it is in this story that Jesus is most directly identified as ‘a Jew’ — as distinct from another monotheistic religious group of Semites in Palestine — and that he clearly vindicates the