Theme

Samaritans as ethnic group not a sect.

Sherlock
-If this woman’s death was suspicious, why point it up?
-Good Samaritan.
-Who press-gangs suicide bombers?
-Bad Samaritan.

Questions to audience
Who are the Samaritans? And why they are good?

Vocabulary
According to Cambridge, Oxford and Macmillan dictionaries an idiom «a good Samaritan» means
someone who gives help to people who need it.

What does Bible say?

Jesus tells the parable, or story, of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 of the New Testament. In that Bible
chapter, he says, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers.
They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be
going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite,
when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled,
came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his
wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and
took care of him."

The Good Samaritan was the person who had mercy upon the man that was half-dead and robbed on the
side of the road. After a priest and Levite passed the downtrodden man, showing him no mercy or
compassion, the Samaritan took care of him and saved his life.

History
The Samaritans were a group of people who lived in Samaria - an area north of Jerusalem. They were
half-Jews and half-Gentiles. When Assyria captured the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. some
were taken in captivity while others left behind. The ones left behind intermarried with the Assyrians.
Thus these people were neither fully Hebrews nor fully Gentiles. The Samaritans had their own unique
copy of the first five books of Scripture as well as their own unique system of worship. At the time of
Jesus the Jews and the Samaritans did not deal with one another. Jesus, however, ministered to the people
of Samaria preaching the good news to them.
Who are they nowadays?
Samaritans belong to the Jewish subethnos. They themselves believe that they come from the kingdom of
Israel, being descendants of Joseph. The naming of the original territory of their residence, Samaria, is
associated with the reign of King Ambri, who ruled in the kingdom of Israel. Subsequently the historical
area was destroyed by the Assyrians. Nowadays amount of Samaritans is extremely small, there are only
about 900 people in the world.
The Samaritans are a religious sect of ethnic Jews living near Mount Gerizim, Nablus, Hebron, and the
West Bank in Israel. This community differs from mainstream Judaism by claiming that followers only
accept the five books of Moses (Torah), and not the books of the Prophets or later texts.

Theology of the Samaritans

Samaritans believe that Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the sanctuary that God ordained from the
beginning. They claim that the Torah was given to Moses by the God of Israel; later Rabbinical texts are
rejected. The five books of Moses is the foundational sacred text, supplemented by historical chronicles.
They believe that at the end of days, the dead will be resurrected by the Taheb, either a "restorer" or "a
prophet like Moses." In relation to Passover, they have their own Haggadah (the text for the Seder ritual).
Samaritans also retain a high priesthood and priests, who are considered the true interpreters of the Law.

The enmity between Jerusalem and the Samaritans is reflected in gospel references: "These twelve Jesus
sent out with the following instructions: 'Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the
Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel'". They are sometimes the foil for the unbelief of the Jews
in Jerusalem as in Luke's Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan woman at the well. Acts
relates the story of the conversion of the Samaritans by the disciples Peter and John.

Language
Samaritans' language is a dialect of Aramaic. According to the movie «A History of Christianity» it is the
language that Jesus spoke. By the way, samaritans were one of the first ethnic groups, which used writing
looked alike most of modern alphabets. The first written document date back to 15 age BC. As the
Samaritans use neither vowels nor diacritical signs, the pronunciation has only been preserved by
tradition. Samaritan literature consists of writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and for the latest period,
Greek.

Problems
Interesting is centuries-old history of Samaritans community itself. But for us especially curious is
situation, when small group of people lives and functions with its own ethnic and religious specific in
conditions of conflict which started in 1940s between Israel and Palestine.
Today Samaritans occasionally got involved into Jews and Arabian conflict. Furthermore there's barely
one more group in Israel, whose interests were equally shared between two sides of conflict and which
was dependent on any changes.