The Life of Christ

• Shortly after, during the reign of Ahab, Samaria became a stronghold for Baal worship (1 Ki. 18:22). Since then the prophets began to ascribe Samaria as a hotbed for idolatry, this being the burial place of Ahab and other idolatrous kings. • In B.C. 722, Sargon, the king of Assyria, carried off 27,270 captive Jews from Samaria in an effort to terminate the homogeneousness of the Northern Kingdom. The exiles were deported to Syria, Assyria, and Babylon.

• A mixture of people from Syria, Assyria, and Babylon were then imported to Samaria and began to mix with the Israelites who remained.

From that time on, this new breed was considered impure and non-Jewish by the pure-blooded Jews of Judah.

• This new community continued the worship of Yahweh, even though they were now a mixed race.

• Later when Ezra and Nehemiah returned to rebuild Jerusalem, they were met with opposition from those living in Samaria. What heightened the tensions between the Samaritans and the Israelites was Nehe miah’s strong push for a purity of race. (Nehemiah even expelled the grandson of the high priest because he married Sanballat’s daughter who was a Samaritan.)

The Samaritans would never accept the worship at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

• The Samaritans had offered to help build the temple in Jerusalem, but were turned down, so they built their own temple at Mount Gerazim, which the Jews later destroyed.

• The relationship between the Israelites and the Jews was further severed in 200 B.C. when the Samaritans dedicated their temple to Zeus. Then sometime between A.D. 6 and A.D. 9, the Samaritans scattered human bones in the Jerusalem temple during one of the Passovers in an effort to paint the entire temple “unclean.”

• Today there are only about 600 Samaritans who still follow their ancient religion.

The Samaritan creed cited eight articles :

Belief in one God

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Moses was the prophet

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The Law found in the Pentateuch

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• Mt. Gerizim as the place appointed by God for sacrifice. (They even believed that during the flood, God covered all the earth except Mt. Gerizim. The Jews also believed that Mt. Moriah wasn't covered.)

Belief in a Day of Judgment

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▪ The return of Moses as Taheb (a position similar to Messiah)

• They reject the writings of the Prophets and the Oral Law.

• They despise the temple and anything to do with temple-type worship.

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Jn. 4:5 So He came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph;

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