Samaria

Location Samaria (green zone) in Palestine, during the Persian Empire.

Samaria (Hebrew: שומרון, Shomron listen)) is a mountainous region of ancient Palestine, located in the central part of the territories inhabited by the Tribes of Israel, of the unified monarchy of the Kingdom of Israel (1047 BC-930 BC) and the continuation Kingdom of Israel (928 BC-720 BC). This name was given to it by the ancient city of Samaria, capital of that kingdom that was located on a mountain northwest of Shechem. Currently, in the international arena, this territory and that of ancient Judea, both inhabited predominantly by Palestinians, are known by the neologism "West Bank" (the territory on this side of the Jordan River), created after the Jordanian annexation of this territory (after Israel's war of independence in 1948), while in the Israeli administrative system it is called the area of Judea and Samaria.

During the Six Day War in 1967, the West Bank was completely conquered by Israel. In November 1988, Jordan ceded its claim to that territory to the PLO and, in 1995, control of the so-called 'A' and 'B' areas was transferred to the PLO. National Palestine, which does not recognize the term "Samaria" in their domains.

Etymology

The site of Dotan, where, according to the book of Genesis, Joseph was sold by his brothers.

According to biblical tradition, the name of Samaria comes from the proper, or tribal name, Semer, of whom it is said that King Omri, for two talents of silver, acquired the site where he would erect the eponymous city (1Kings 16:24) as the new capital of Israel. But, the fact that the mountain was called Samaria when Omrí bought it, could indicate that perhaps the true etymological meaning of the name of the place was "viso".

In the first cuneiform inscriptions in which Samaria is mentioned, it is designated under the name of “Bet Ḥumri” (The house of Omri); but from the reign of Tiglathpileser III onwards, he is called by his Aramaic name: "Samirin&# 34;.

Thus, from ancient times, Samaria was the only name given in the West to this region until the Jordanian occupation of the mid-20th century, at which time the Jordanians renamed it the West Bank.

Even in the early 20th century, Samaria was one of the six administrative districts of the British Mandate of Palestine; However, after Israel took control of the entire West Bank in 1967, the Israeli government began to resume the Biblical names of the regions of that territory, citing religious and nationalist arguments.

Geography

Samaria.

Samaria is bordered to the north by the Jezreel Valley, to the east by the Jordan Valley, to the northwest by the Carmel Mountains, to the west by the Plain of Sharon, and to the south by the Judean Mountains. In Biblical times, Samaria "extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan Valley", including Mount Carmel and the Valley of Sharon.

Samaria's topographical features are not very pronounced, its mountains rarely reaching 800 meters in height, and the region's southern mountain ranges connect with those of Judea without a clear physical division between the two. The climate of Samaria is benign in contrast to the inhospitable one of Judea, in the south.

The main cities in the region are the Palestinian towns of Jenin, Nablus (Shechem), Calquelia and Tulcaren, as well as the Israeli settlement of Ariel.

Ethnography

The Samaritans are an ethno-religious group related to the Jews, which emerged as such between the 6th and IV centuries BC. C. At some point before our era, they accepted the Pentateuch as a sacred book, but with modifications that highlighted certain doctrinal points; the main one was to consider that the Temple of Yahveh should be on Mount Gerizin, instead of Jerusalem.

For centuries they were a distinctive community in Palestine, respected or tolerated by the rulers. They also suffered persecution by the army of Alexander the Great, the Seleucid kings, the Jewish sovereigns and the Roman emperors of the Christian religion.

In Byzantine times, when the Samaritan community lived its golden age, with almost a million members before the Muslim conquest, in addition to the core in Palestine there were scattered Samaritan communities in the Near East, from Egypt to Iran. The most important of these, however, settled in Damascus. The quelling of the Samaritan revolts in Justinian's time hit the community hard.

After the conquest, they were respected as "people of the Book" although they had to pay the jizya, like their Christian and Jewish neighbors. This status of Dimmis was maintained under the Umayyads, but it was not always respected by the Abbasids, in particular by the Caliph al-Mutawakkil. Subject to the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, they enjoyed the respect of the Crusaders, perhaps because of the way in which they gospels referred to them.

In the early 17th century, under the Ottoman Empire, most of the Samaritan population in Damascus was massacred or converted, causing the rest of the Damascene community to return to their ancestral lands in Nablus. This return allowed the Samaritan community in Palestine to grow again. However, by the end of the Ottoman period, the Samaritan community dwindled to its lowest level, just over a hundred people in the 19th century. The situation improved significantly during the British Mandate for Palestine, as they entered the civil service and there was a demographic uptick with nearly two hundred Samaritans in the 1930s, most residing in Nablus.

After the creation of the State of Israel, some of the Samaritans living in Jaffa immigrated to Samaria, and in the late 1950s, about a hundred Samaritans left the West Bank (under an agreement with the Jordanian authorities) and They settled, in 1954, in Holon, Israel, considered a Samaritan enclave.

Until the 1990s, most Samaritans resided in the city of Nablus, but they moved to Qiryat Luza in the vicinity of the Israeli settlement of Har Brakha as a result of violence during the First Intifada (1987-1990). Consequently, all that remains of the Samaritan community in Nablus itself is an abandoned synagogue.

The current population, 818 according to 2020 data, live in Qiryat Luza on Mount Gerizin and in the city of Holon, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, the majority are bilingual in Arabic and Hebrew; Old Samaritan and Aramaic are used in worship services, written in paleo-Hebrew characters.

Samaritans have an independent religious status in Israel, although there are occasional conversions from Judaism to Samaritanism and vice versa due to intermarriage. Israeli rabbinic authorities consider Samaritanism to be a branch of Judaism, but the Chief Rabbinate of Israel requires Samaritans to officially go through a formal conversion to Judaism to be recognized as halakhic Jews. Samaritans with Israeli citizenship are required to perform compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces, while those with dual Israeli-Palestinian citizenship (i.e., those who belong to the Nablus community and live in Qiryat Luza) are exempt.

Ethnicity

Conflicting versions

According to Samaritan tradition, Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of the Israelites from the time Joshua, leading the twelve tribes of Israel, conquered Canaan. In the time of Eli the priest, before the monarchy was established, the first schism took place, when the most loyal remained faithful to the priests of Mount Gerizim and others withdrew to follow Eli's sons in Shiloh and then in Jerusalem. Samaria was once the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, and the Samaritans claim descent from the Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who survived the Kingdom's destruction by the Assyrians in 722 BC.. C.

Jewish tradition affirms, for its part, that the Israelite settlers of the Kingdom of Israel were deported to Assyria and replaced by peoples from Mesopotamia, especially people from Cutha, from which the derogatory term cuteo to refer to the Samaritans. These newcomers did not worship Yahweh and were attacked by lions, for which reason a priest from the tribe of Levi was sent to teach them the worship of the country's god. The final result was the syncretism between Yahveh and the Mesopotamian gods. This version, collected by the Second Book of Kings, in the Bible, was widely accepted. However, a closer reading of the texts indicates that in the times of kings Hezekiah and Josiah, there were Israelite inhabitants in Samaria, whom which were considered descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, many of whom settled in Jerusalem (which experienced a demographic boom in those years) and others remained, as the Book of Jeremiah says, in Shechem and Samaria. The Book of Chronicles, for its part, does not mention an Assyrian resettlement. The authors of the Bible, except when controversial, refer to the Samaritans as Israelites.

Historians emphasize that the differences between the peoples of the north and the south go back to the origins of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The united monarchy, if it existed (something that is doubted by the majority), was a brief episode in the history of these peoples. The ecological, cultural, political, and religious differences between Judah to the south and Israel, or Samaria, to the north run through the entire history of that region from the Iron Age, or earlier, to the Persian and Macedonian conquests. Regarding the deportation, attested by the Assyrian stelae, they consider that it was limited to the elite of the Northern Kingdom and that a large part of the Israelite inhabitants of the country remained in it. The settlement of Assyrians, also historical, seems to have been unsuccessful and these "cuteos" they were integrated into the majority Israelite population.

Demographic and genetic studies.

The first demographic investigations of the Samaritan community were conducted in the 1960s; according to the records of the last thirteen generations, the Samaritans comprise four lineages, defined by themselves as:

• The Cohen priestly lineage of the tribe of Levi,
• The Tsedakah lineage of the tribe of Manasseh
• The Joshua-Marhiv lineage of the tribe of Ephraim
• The Danafi lineage, of the tribe of Ephraim

In the first decade of the XXI century, several genetic studies were performed on the Samaritan population using haplogroup comparisons, as well as as extended genome studies. These four Samaritan families were included in them. The Joshua-Marhiv family belongs to the J-M267 haplogroup present in Jewish populations, especially in those who claim priestly ancestry by their surnames; likewise, the Danafi and Tsedakah families belong to the J-M172 haplogroup, also typical of the Jews of the Mediterranean Levant.. As for the largest and most important Samaritan family, the Cohen family belongs to haplogroup E, linked to African peoples.

A 2004 paper on the genetic ancestry of Samaritans concluded that there is common ancestry between Samaritans and Jews, but that mitochondrial lineages are closer to Iraqi Jews and Israeli Arabs.

Religion

Samaritans praying during the Easter celebration at Mount Guerizín.

Religiously, Samaritans profess Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism based on the Samaritan Torah. His cult is centered on Mount Gerizin, unlike Judaism, which has Mount Zion in Jerusalem as its holy mountain.

Precisely in Guerizín there was once a Samaritan temple that was built in the middle of the 5th century B.C. C., but which was later destroyed by Juan Hircano in the year 128 B.C. C.; Despite this, the Samaritans continue to this day to worship among the ruins of that place.

Beliefs

 There is a God, YHWH, the same God recognized by the Hebrew prophets.

 God gave the Torah to Moses.

 Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the only true sanctuary chosen by the God of Israel.

At the end of the days, the dead will be resurrected by the Taheb, a restorer (possibly a prophet, some say Moses).

 Resurrection and Paradise.

 The priests are the interpreters of the Law and the guardians of tradition; the scholars are secondary to the priesthood.

 The authority of the Tanach sections after the Torah and classical Jewish Rabbinic works (the Talmud, which includes the Mishnah and the Gemara) is rejected.

 They have a significantly different version of the Ten Commandments (for example, the tenth commandment is on the holiness of Mount Gerizim).

The Samaritans have retained the use of Paleo-Hebrew, the High Priesthood, the slaughter and consumption of lambs on Passover eve, and the celebration of the beginning of the first month around spring as the New Year. Yom Teruʻah (the Biblical name for "Rosh Hashanah"), at the beginning of Tishrei, is not considered a New Year as it is in Rabbinic Judaism.

Samaritans refer to themselves as Benai Yisrael ("Sons of Israel"), which is a term used by all Jewish denominations as a name for the Jewish people as a whole. However, they do not refer to themselves as Yehudim (Jews), the standard Hebrew name for Jews.

Relationship with Judaism

The Talmudic attitude expressed in the treatise Kutim is that Samaritans should be treated as Jews in matters where their practice coincides with Rabbinic Judaism, but as non-Jews where their practice differs.. Since the 19th century, Rabbinic Judaism has considered the Samaritans to be a Jewish sect and the term "Samaritan Jews" has been used for them.

Relation to Christianity

Samaria and the Samaritans are mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, as well as in the Book of Acts. The best known reference to the Samaritans is the Parable of the Good Samaritan, found in the Gospel of Luke. The other reference, which features Jesus, who asks a Samaritan woman from Sychar for water from Jacob's well, and later instructs her in the gospel along with several Samaritans who become disciples. In another episode, Jesus heals to ten lepers, of whom only the Samaritan returns to praise God. In the Gospel of John, the authorities in Jerusalem are said to accuse Jesus of being a Samaritan and possessed by a demon, Jesus denies the latter accusation, but not the former.

In The Acts, when the apostles are persecuted by the Jews, Philip preaches the gospel in a city of Samaria, and the apostles in Jerusalem find out, so they send Peter and John to lay their hands on them, who They receive the Holy Spirit. In this context a "false prophet" named Simon, the Magician, considered by the exegetes as a Samaritan, who intends to buy the power to make the Holy Spirit descend.

History

Antiquity

Throughout time, the territory of Samaria has been dominated by various states, including the New Kingdom of Egypt, the Canaanite city states, the Kingdom of Israel, the Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Alexander Empires. Later it was part of the Lágida Kingdom, the Seleucid and the monarchy of the Hasmoneans and Herod. At the beginning of our era it was part of the province of Judea or Palestine Syria under the Roman and then Byzantine Empire.

Kingdom of Israel

Chronology of the Kingdom of Israel

According to the Biblical account, the tribes of Israel settled in Canaan from Egypt, forming a confederation. The first king of this union of tribes was Saul, who was succeeded by David and Solomon, who brought the United Kingdom of Israel to its greatest expansion. After Solomon's death (c. 931 BC), the northern tribes, Led by those of Ephraim and Manasseh, they separated from the southern tribes and established the Kingdom of Israel under King Jeroboam. The first capital of this kingdom was the city of Tirzah, until the IX century B.C. King Omri founded the city of Samaria in a non-urbanized area, but it was the center of a region of extensive wine and oil production. The name of this city comes from the name of the Samaritan people and the region, if although they themselves prefer to associate the name with the word Shamerim (שַמֶרִים‎) that is to say "Guardians (of the Torah)".

The near-universal consensus of historians and archaeologists is that this historical reconstruction is unlikely in the light of archeology and documents. As of the turn of the century XXI, the existence of the United Monarchy and even figures such as David or Solomon have been questioned. Jerusalem itself, in the X and IX, was a small mountain fortress and the territory of Judah was sparsely populated. In contrast, the northern lands had seen a renaissance since the 11th century, called "New Canaan" by Finkelstein, which culminated in the creation of a new culture, the Israelite, whose first state begins, from an archaeological point of view, with the building activity of King Omri, founder of Samaria.

The rise of the Kingdom of Israel takes place under Jeroboam II, when it reached its greatest extent as a mid-tier power in the southern Levant. The Kingdom of Judah, for its part, seems to have been a vassal kingdom of Israel.

Split Hebrew Monarchy. Map of the two Hebrew kingdoms towards 830 B.C.. The Kingdom of Israel is shown in blue on this map.

Assyrian conquest

The succession struggles and the Syro-Ephraimite wars weakened the Kingdom of Israel. The advance of the Assyrians could not be stopped and the states of the Levant gradually fell under the rule of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In 726-722 B.C. C., [[Assyria, Salmanesar V, invaded the Kingdom of Israel and besieged the city of Samaria; which fell after a three-year siege. The kingdom's elite were deported to Assyria (Sargon's annals give the number of 27,290 deportees from Samaria), while inhabitants of other provinces of the empire settled there and merged with the local population.

Few documents exist from the period between the fall of Samaria and the end of the Assyrian Empire. It is known that much of the Israelite population remained in the region, now called the province of Samaria (Sa-me ri- e-nna in Assyrian), but others migrated to Judah and Jerusalem, which saw their populations greatly increased by the refugees.

Persian Period

In the time of Nehemiah, the governor of Samaria, Sanballat the Horonite, decided to build a Hebrew temple on top of Mount Gerizin that would rival the one in Jerusalem.

Hellenistic period

In the year 128 a. C, the king and priest of Judea, Juan Hircano I, destroyed the Samaritan temple in Guerizín and, circa 108 a. C., the city of Samaria.

Roman period

The Roman province of Judea in the centuryI E. C.

In the year 6 AD. C., the region became part of the Roman province of Judea, after the death of King Herod the Great. But Samaria remained a hostile territory to Roman domination. In 35, Pontius Pilate ordered the massacre of a group of Samaritans during a religious festival on Mount Gerizin, in order to prevent subversive messianic acts. During the First Judeo-Roman War (66-70) the Romans once again crushed incipient Samaritan seditions and, in the second Jewish revolt (132-135), Hadrian had their texts burned.

Christian (New Testament) Bible References

In the New Testament reference is made to Samaria in Luke chapter 17:11-19, in the miraculous healing of the ten lepers, which takes place on the border between Samaria and Galilee. John 4:1-42 recounts Jesus' encounter at Jacob's well with the wife of Sychar (Shechem), in which he himself claims to be the Messiah. In Acts 8:5-13, it is related that Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached there.

In the time of Jesus, Roman Judea was divided into three tetrarchies: Judea, Samaria and Galilee, with Samaria in the middle (John 4:3-4). But later (in 135) Judea was renamed Syria Palestine, after the Bar Kokba revolt.

Contemporary Ages

20th century

Map of West Bank showing its administrative areas. From beige, the 'A' area; from pineone, the 'B' area and, from violet, the Israeli settlements, which are administered by the Regional Council of Samaria. Of clear green, are the natural reserves.

Samaria was part of the Turkish Empire until, towards the end of World War I (1917-1918), British forces invaded Palestine, ending four centuries of Turkish rule over the region. After the war, in 1922, the administration of the territory was entrusted by the League of Nations to England, as part of the British Mandate for Palestine, which existed until 1948.

But as a result of the subsequent war that broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors on the occasion of its declaration of independence that year, the lands of Judea and Samaria that were contemplated for the creation of a future Palestinian Arab state (according to UN plans) were incorporated by Transjordan with the support of Iraqi forces, coming under their control.

These lands were administered by Jordan under the new name of the West Bank, and its residents were to be issued Jordanian passports.

However, in 1967, during the Six-Day War, Samaria and the entire West Bank fell to Israel. And it was not until November 1988 that Jordan ceded its claims to these territories (except for certain prerogatives in Jerusalem) to the PLO, a fact that would later be ratified by the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty of 1994, since Jordan it tacitly recognized the sovereignty of the Palestinian National Authority over the West Bank. Finally, in the Oslo agreements of 1995, the ANP was formally given responsibility for the administration of some territories (the so-called 'A' and 'B' areas) in said zone..

Samaria is one of several standard statistical districts used by Israel's Central Department of Statistics. The Israeli DCE also collects statistical data in the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza district, Palestinian territories. It has developed several basic statistical series in these territories, dealing with, among other aspects, population, employment, wages, foreign trade and national accounts". The Palestinian National Authority however uses the governorates of Nablus, Jenin, Tulcarén, Calquelia, Salfit, Ramallah and Tubas as administrative centers for the same region.

The Samaria Regional Council administers Jewish communities and settlements throughout the West Bank. For its part, the international community considers such settlements illegal in light of international law, although the Israeli government objects to this.