The Samaritans, who prefer to call themselves Israelites, are the remnant of the twelve tribes of Israel, originated in the time of the judges (11th B.C.E), when the old priest – Eli ,son of Yefune, from the lineage of Itmar, son of Aaron , left the holy place on Mt. Gerizim and established a cult site at Shiloh, to rival the one at Mt. Gerizim.
The background to that split, concerning the Chosen Place, was the dispute within the priesthood family. Uzi, son of Bachki, of the line of Phineas , who were promised by inheritance of the high priesthood, was the High Priest in those days, while Eli resolved to usurp the High Priesthood from the descendant of Phineas.
The author of the major work of Samaritan history, the chronicler, Abu’l –Fath, of the fourteenth century C.E., tells the story as follows :
“A terrible civil war broke out between Eli son of Yafni, of the line of Ithamar, and the sons of Phineas, because Eli ,son of Yafune , resolved to usurp the High Priesthood from the descendants of Phineas. He used to offer sacrifices on the altar of stones . He was 50 years old, endowed with wealth an in charge of the treasury of the children of Israel. He offered a sacrifice on the altar , but without salt, as he were inattentive. When the Great High Priest Azzi learnt of this , and found that the sacrifice was not accepted , he thoroughly disowned him and it is said he rebuked him .
Thereupon he and the group that sympathized with him, rose in revolt and at once he and his followers and his beasts set off for Shiloh.
Thus Israel split into factions.
He sent to their leaders saying to them, ” Anyone who would like to see wonderful things, let him come to me.” Then he assembled a large group around him in Shiloh, and built a Temple for himself there;
Now, he had two sons, Hophni and Phineas, who rounded up young women of attractive appearance and brought them to the Tabernacle which had been built by his father. They let them savor the food of the sacrifices, and had intercourse with them inside the Tabernacle .
At this time the Children of Israel became three factions:
- A loyal faction on Mount Gerizim
- A heretical faction that followed false god.
- A faction that followed Eli to Shiloh.
(Taken from Abu’l- Fath ,Kitab Al-Tarikh ,Paul Stenhouse; Sydney :Mandelbaum Trust, University of Sydney,1985,Pages 47-48 – with slight modifications by Robert T. Anderson & Terry Giles- ‘The Keepers’ Pages 11-12 ).
This event ,not only brought a major separation, between the Israelites, but also marked the end of the ‘Rhuta ‘ (means grace in Aramaic) – The Days of the Grace , and the beginning of the ‘Fanuta’ (means concealment in Aramaic) – the days of the concealment of God from his people. The latter will end , according to the Samaritan tradition, in “The End of the Days” when the Savior (‘Thab’ – means the Returner) will show up.
There is no rational interpretation, in the Jewish sources, for the passage of the High Priesthood from the lineage of Phineas to the lineage of Ithamar.
The Tabernacle (Mishkan), according to the Jewish Sources, was transferred after the death of Eli ,to Nob ( a village near Jerusalem) and after the death of Samuel it was transferred from Nob to Gibeon (a city north of Jerusalem). Only after 440 years, since the entrance of the Children of Israel to the land Canaan, the cult site, was transferred by kings David and Solomon, to Jerusalem, while the Samaritans still keeping the Holy Chosen Place on Mt.Gerizim.
The Jewish Version of the Origins of the Samaritans.
The Jewish Bible, tells another story about the origins of the Samaritans. Jewish interpretations of the origin of the Samaritans, focuses on II kings 17-25, which reflect the devastation of the northern kingdom of Israel at the end of the eight century B.C.E.
After Solomon death , a civil war broke out and the former united kingdom,split into two kingdoms, Judah in the south, with Jerusalem as its capital, and Israel in the north whose capital was eventually established in Samaria.
The two kingdoms struggled for two centuries, before the emerging of the Assyrian conqueror.
According to the Biblical story, edited later in Judah, as most of the Scholars opinions , the Samaritans descended from peoples deported by the Assyrian, from other parts of the empire, during the 8th B.C.E and resettled in Samaria. One of these people, according to the bible, were the “Cuthean” who were brought from Cutha. Eventually “Cuthean” became the Jews derogatory nickname , for the Samaritans. Later, those new inhabitants, named “lion proselytes”, (2 Kings 17) as they adopted a form of Israelite religion as a response to a plague of lions sent by God to punish them for ignoring the God of the land.
The Jewish resources, in a polemic attitude, doesn’t not distinguish between this new inhabitants, and the original residents of Samaria, who survived the Assyrian Exile, and maybe Intentionally, denominate the whole People of Samaria as Samaritans.
Sargon’s Inscriptions
The Assyrian King, who conquered Samarita in 721- 722, was Sargon the second (721-705 B.C.E). In one of Sargon’s inscriptions he testifies as follows:
“From my the first year to the fifteen, of my kingship, I besieged and conquered Samarina. I took as booty 27,290 people who lived
there. I gathered 50 chariots from them. I taught the rest of the deportees their skills. I set my eunuch over them, and I imposed upon them the same tribute as the previous king (Shalmaneser V).”
there. I gathered 50 chariots from them. I taught the rest of the deportees their skills. I set my eunuch over them, and I imposed upon them the same tribute as the previous king (Shalmaneser V).In other Inscription from Nimrud Prisms (COS 2.118D, pp. 295-296,):
“…the Samar]ians [who had agreed with a hostile king]…I fought with them and decisively defeated them. 27,280 people who lived there…..carried off as spoil. 50 chariots for my royal force …[the rest of them I settled in the midst of Assyria]….The Tamudi, Ibadidi, Marsimani and Hayappa, who live in distant Arabia, in the desert, who knew neither overseer nor commander, who never brought tribute to any king–with the help of Ashshur my lord, I defeated them. I deported the rest of them. I settled them in Samaria/Samerina…”
According to both of Sargon’s inscriptions, only 27,290 (or 27.280) of the people who lived in Samaria, were exiled by the Assyrians, while according to the Bible, only the landowners in Samaria, numbered about 60,000 people. (2 Kings 42,15,19 and 20 – thousand of Talents of silver, which equal to 1 million Shekels,divided to 50 shekels per person). This indicates, that most of the population in Samaria survived the exile, and necessity, have influenced the new resident’s religion.
In the next centuries , the kings of the Assyrian empire kept bringing, in a foreign population, from other areas of the empire, to the area of Samaria.
The Remnants of the Northern Kingdom
In 2 chronicles chapter 30, which according to Bible’s scholars was composed at the end of the Persian era, We learn that King Hiskia, who ruled Judah between 726-715, had sent posts to all Israel and Judea, asking them to take a part in the Passover sacrifice in Jerusalem :
And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD, the God of Israel.” (2 chronicles 30:1)
” So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying: ‘Ye children of Israel, turn back unto the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that He may return to the remnant that are escaped of you out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.” (2 chronicles 30:6)
And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, who acted treacherously against the LORD, the God of their fathers, so that He delivered them to be an astonishment, as ye see.
Now be ye not stiff necked, as your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified for ever, and serve the LORD your God, that His fierce anger may turn away from you.
For if ye turn back unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that led them captive, and shall come back into this land; for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if ye return unto Him.’
So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun; but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.
Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.” (2 chronicles 30:7-10)
In 2 chronicles chapter 34:9, In the time of King Josiah, who ruled Judah in the years 649-609, the author of the book, tells a story about contributions made by the descendants of the tribes Menashe and Ephraim, and the remnant of the Israelite kingdom in Samaria, to the decontamination of the Palace in Jerusalem:
“And they came to Hilkiah the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the door, had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin, and they returned to Jerusalem.”
From here we can learn, that most of the Israelites – people of Samaria , stayed in the area and were not exiled by the Assaryan. We can also learn that they adhered Samaria and didn’t feel belong to Jerusalem neither it’s population.
It’s also interesting to see, that those who humbled themselves , and came to Jerusalem, became a “Real Israelite “, and were accepted by the Jews, in contrast with those who has have remained in Samaria.