This post is based on the episode with Matt Chalmers about his research on the Samaritans. At the time of the interview, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Northwestern University’s Department of Religious Studies. This post was generated by AI but edited by a human.
Most people have heard of the Good Samaritan.
Far fewer know who the Samaritans actually are.
The phrase has become so familiar that its original historical context is often overlooked. Yet the Samaritans are not simply characters in a Christian parable. They are a living religious community whose history stretches back to antiquity and whose members understand themselves as descendants of ancient Israel.
They possess their own version of the Torah, maintain distinctive religious traditions, and regard Mount Gerizim—not Jerusalem—as the proper place to worship the God of Israel.
Their history raises a fundamental question: Who has the authority to claim the religious inheritance of ancient Israel?
In this episode of The Levantini Podcast, I speak with Matt Chalmers, a scholar of religion whose research focuses on Samaritan identity and the formation of religious boundaries in late antiquity.
Our conversation explores the origins of the Samaritans, their relationship with Judaism, their representation in Christian and rabbinic literature, and the ways modern scholarship is reconsidering the traditional narratives about their past.
What emerges is a history far more complicated than the familiar story of a Jewish sect that broke away from Jerusalem.
Who Are the Samaritans Today?
The Samaritans, who also identify as Samaritan Israelites, are a small religious community whose members trace their ancestry and religious traditions to ancient Israel.
Their religious life centers on the Torah, the five books traditionally attributed to Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Unlike rabbinic Judaism, Samaritan religion does not recognize the remaining books of the Jewish Bible as scripture with the same authority.
The most significant geographical distinction is the location of their central holy place.
For Samaritans, that place is Mount Gerizim, overlooking the area of ancient Shechem, near modern Nablus.
Jerusalem does not occupy the same religious position in Samaritan tradition that it does in Judaism.
Today, Samaritan communities live principally near Mount Gerizim and in Holon, Israel.
At the time of the interview, Chalmers described a population numbering fewer than one thousand people. The community's precise population changes over time, and the episode also discusses emerging forms of Samaritan identification beyond the traditional communities, including in Brazil.
The Samaritans are therefore not merely an ancient historical curiosity. They are a living community whose identity continues to develop.
The Good Samaritan: How Christianity Shaped Their Image
For many readers, the best-known reference to the Samaritans comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a traveler is attacked by robbers and left injured beside the road.
A priest and a Levite pass without helping him.
A Samaritan stops, treats the man's injuries, takes him to an inn, and pays for his care.
The story answers a question about the meaning of being a neighbor.
But what does it tell us about the historical relationship between Jews and Samaritans?
Chalmers argues that scholars have sometimes relied too heavily on the parable as evidence of a fixed, universal hostility between the two communities.
The story certainly assumes that the Samaritan's role is meaningful to its audience.
Yet that does not establish that every Jew and Samaritan in the first century regarded the other as an enemy.
The parable is a literary and religious composition with its own purposes.
It should not automatically be treated as a straightforward description of social relations across the ancient Mediterranean.
This distinction between what a text says and what historians can infer from it becomes central to our discussion.
Mount Gerizim: The Samaritan Holy Mountain
For Samaritans, Mount Gerizim is not an alternative to Jerusalem.
It is the authentic holy place of Israel.
Samaritan traditions associate the mountain with major events in Israel's sacred history, including the worship of God and the traditions surrounding the patriarchs.
In the Jewish Torah, Mount Gerizim appears prominently in passages concerning blessing and covenant.
Deuteronomy 11:29 identifies Mount Gerizim with blessing and Mount Ebal with curse. The ceremony is developed further in Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8.
Samaritan tradition gives Mount Gerizim an even more central role.
In the Samaritan Pentateuch, a command concerning worship on Mount Gerizim forms part of the expanded Decalogue tradition.
Samaritan interpretation also identifies Mount Gerizim with the location of Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac.
Jewish tradition instead associates that event with Mount Moriah, later connected with Jerusalem.
These differences are not merely geographical.
They express competing claims about where the authentic religious traditions of ancient Israel were preserved.
Was there a Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim?
Archaeological evidence demonstrates that Mount Gerizim was an important sanctuary in the Persian and Hellenistic periods.
Its precise architectural form and the terminology used to describe it remain matters of discussion.
Chalmers notes that some Samaritan traditions reject the idea that a temple building stood on the mountain, while recognizing the existence of a sanctuary there.
The central historical point is that Mount Gerizim supported an organized religious community with its own priestly authority.
That authority would eventually become a major point of conflict with the rulers of Jerusalem.
The Samaritan Pentateuch: A Different Version of the Torah
One of the most important surviving witnesses to ancient biblical textual history is the Samaritan Pentateuch.
It contains the same five books found at the beginning of the Jewish Bible.
But its text differs from the traditional Jewish Masoretic Text in thousands of places.
Many differences are relatively minor, involving spelling, grammar, or the harmonization of parallel passages.
Others are more consequential.
The Samaritan text places particular emphasis on Mount Gerizim as the proper place of worship.
Historically, scholars often interpreted these differences as evidence that Samaritan scribes had altered an originally Jewish text to justify their own religious practices.
Chalmers explains why this model has become increasingly difficult to sustain in its simplest form.
Was the Samaritan Torah copied from the Jewish Torah?
The question assumes that a single, fixed Jewish Torah already existed before a distinct Samaritan version emerged.
But the textual history of the Pentateuch was more complicated.
The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that multiple textual forms of biblical books circulated during the Second Temple period.
Some manuscripts exhibit readings and harmonizing features comparable to those found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, without being distinctively Samaritan texts.
This complicates the assumption that every difference must represent a later Samaritan alteration.
Chalmers discusses the possibility that the Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuchs developed from overlapping traditions within a broader Israelite textual culture.
Under this model, the two versions are not necessarily best understood as an original and a defective copy.
They may instead reflect related developments from a shared textual inheritance.
The exact chronology and editorial history remain debated.
Why Is the Samaritan Torah Written in a Different Script?
Anyone who has seen a Samaritan Torah manuscript will immediately notice its distinctive writing.
The Samaritan script differs considerably from the square Hebrew script used in most Jewish manuscripts and printed Hebrew books.
It belongs to a historical family of scripts related to ancient Paleo-Hebrew.
Forms of Paleo-Hebrew were also used in Jewish contexts during the Second Temple period, including on some Jewish coins.
This creates an intriguing problem for the history of religious identity.
Both communities claimed continuity with ancient Israel.
Yet they came to preserve their scriptures in visibly different scripts.
Chalmers discusses competing scholarly explanations.
One possibility is that the Samaritan script reflects the continuation or adaptation of an older writing tradition.
Another connects the emergence of a clearly distinctive Samaritan script with the changing political and religious environment of the late Roman Empire.
A third approach focuses on the stories that Jews, Christians, and Samaritans told about the script's origins.
Those stories reveal that the script itself became an argument about authenticity.
Who preserved the older form of Israel's writing?
Who possessed the authoritative Torah?
And who had the right to interpret it?
These questions mattered because the physical appearance of a sacred text could become evidence in a dispute over religious legitimacy.
Did the Torah Originate Entirely in Judah?
The relationship between Samaritan and Jewish scripture raises another question: where did the traditions of the Hebrew Bible originate?
Older reconstructions frequently emphasized the role of Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah in the composition and editing of biblical literature.
There are good reasons for this emphasis.
Much of the Hebrew Bible presents history from a Judahite perspective and criticizes religious practices associated with the northern kingdom of Israel.
But scholars have increasingly identified traditions that preserve northern interests, memories, and sacred places.
Chalmers points to biblical narratives in which northern religious sites are treated positively or remain important to Israel's story.
One possible explanation is that traditions originating in the north were preserved, transmitted, and eventually incorporated into literature produced or edited in Judah.
The fall of the northern kingdom to Assyria in the late eighth century BCE may have been an important part of this longer history of transmission.
Yet the evidence does not permit a simple division between books written in the north and books written in the south.
Instead, the biblical literature may preserve the contributions of multiple Israelite communities whose traditions were eventually combined.
This broader perspective helps explain why the Samaritans and Jews could inherit related scriptures while developing different understandings of Israel's sacred geography.
Why Did John Hyrcanus Destroy the Samaritan Sanctuary?
One of the decisive events in Samaritan history was the destruction of the sanctuary on Mount Gerizim by the Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus I.
The event took place in the late second century BCE.
Chalmers discusses archaeological and numismatic arguments that have led some scholars to date the destruction to approximately 111–110 BCE rather than the traditionally cited 128 BCE.
The precise dating should be treated as a scholarly question rather than an uncontested fact.
But why would a Jewish ruler attack a sanctuary devoted to the same God worshipped in Jerusalem?
The Hasmoneans and religious authority
The Hasmonean rulers emerged from the political and military struggles associated with the Maccabean Revolt.
Their authority was unusual because they combined political leadership with the office of high priest.
Control of religious institutions was therefore inseparable from the legitimacy of their state.
Chalmers suggests that the sanctuary on Mount Gerizim presented a political and priestly challenge.
A rival center of worship, supported by its own priestly hierarchy, complicated Hasmonean efforts to consolidate authority.
Destroying or subordinating that sanctuary may have been part of a broader strategy of territorial and institutional expansion.
This interpretation does not establish Hyrcanus's personal intentions with certainty.
But it offers a plausible explanation rooted in the political realities of the period.
Did the destruction permanently divide Jews and Samaritans?
The destruction of the sanctuary is often treated as a decisive moment in the separation of Jewish and Samaritan religious identities.
Chalmers argues for a more nuanced approach.
The event may have accelerated the development of sharper boundaries.
But religious identities do not become fixed overnight.
Jewish and Samaritan communities continued to interact, dispute religious authority, and negotiate their relationship for centuries afterward.
The destruction of Gerizim was therefore an important turning point, not necessarily the instant birth of two fully separate religions.
Three Competing Stories About Samaritan Origins
One of the most revealing parts of the interview concerns the different explanations of where the Samaritans came from.
Chalmers organizes the discussion around three broad approaches.
1. The Samaritan account: Continuity with ancient Israel
According to Samaritan tradition, their community preserves the authentic religious heritage of Israel.
Their sacred history begins with Moses and the Israelites entering the land.
Later developments associated with Shiloh and Jerusalem are understood as departures from the proper worship of God on Mount Gerizim.
In this account, the Samaritans are not a group that broke away from Judaism.
Rather, they are the Israelites who maintained the original tradition while others departed from it.
2. The Jewish and Christian polemical account: Foreign settlers
A competing explanation draws on 2 Kings 17.
The biblical narrative describes the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel and the settlement of populations brought from other parts of the Assyrian Empire.
Later Jewish writers, especially Josephus, developed this account into a polemical explanation of Samaritan origins.
In Josephus's presentation, the Samaritans are descendants of foreign settlers who adopted Israelite religious practices but lacked a legitimate claim to Israelite ancestry.
He also portrays them as opportunistically claiming or denying Jewish kinship depending on circumstances.
This account strongly influenced subsequent Christian writing and, eventually, modern historical scholarship.
But it is not a neutral description of Samaritan history.
It reflects the perspective of authors engaged in disputes about ancestry, legitimacy, and religious authority.
3. The historical approach: Related traditions developing together
Chalmers favors a third model.
Rather than treating Samaritans as a late offshoot of an already fully formed Judaism, this approach understands Samaritan and Jewish identities as developing alongside one another.
Both emerged from a wider world of Israelite religious traditions.
Over time, they developed increasingly distinct institutions, texts, practices, and accounts of their own histories.
The separation was neither immediate nor uniform.
It unfolded across the Second Temple period and continued into late antiquity.
This model also avoids assuming that the relationship between Samaritans and Jews was the only relationship that mattered.
Christianity, and later Islam, also participated in the larger historical process through which communities defined their relationship to ancient Israel.
What Did Ancient Rabbis Think of the Samaritans?
Rabbinic literature provides some of the most revealing evidence for the changing relationship between Jews and Samaritans.
The rabbis frequently referred to Samaritans as Kutim or Cutheans.
But their treatment was not consistent.
Chalmers notes that some early rabbinic traditions, particularly in the Mishnah and Tosefta, appear relatively open to recognizing Samaritans as Israelites for certain religious purposes.
Questions arose about blessings, agricultural obligations, ritual practices, and the acceptability of Samaritan food.
These debates suggest that the boundary between the communities was not always understood as absolute.
Later rabbinic literature sometimes adopts a more exclusionary position.
In parts of the Babylonian Talmud, Samaritans are treated as categorically distinct from Jews.
Yet even there, Chalmers finds evidence that the rabbis recognized Samaritan claims to proper Israelite religious practice.
The very intensity of the arguments reveals that Samaritan identity remained a meaningful challenge to rabbinic authority.
The Samaritan accusation against Jerusalem
Chalmers discusses a particularly revealing story from Genesis Rabbah.
A rabbi traveling toward Jerusalem encounters a Samaritan near Mount Gerizim.
The Samaritan challenges him for going to worship at what he calls a ruined or corrupted house rather than at the true holy mountain.
The story reflects a dispute about the religious legitimacy of Jerusalem and Gerizim.
Chalmers suggests that it may preserve something of the accusations Samaritans directed toward Jews.
The language is especially interesting because rabbinic authors themselves used accusations of corruption against Samaritan practices.
The two communities appear, at least in these literary representations, to have employed similar arguments against each other.
The Samaritans in the New Testament
The New Testament preserves several references to Samaritans.
They appear in the Gospel of Matthew, in multiple passages in Luke, in the Gospel of John, and in Acts.
These passages are important, but Chalmers cautions against treating them as transparent windows into Samaritan social history.
Each Gospel uses Samaritan characters for its own literary and theological purposes.
The Samaritan woman in John 4
In the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well.
Their conversation turns to the question of where God should be worshipped.
The woman identifies the competing claims of the Samaritans and Jews: worship on the ancestral mountain or worship in Jerusalem.
Jesus responds by presenting a future in which worship will not be defined by either location.
Chalmers interprets this passage as more than evidence of disagreement between Jews and Samaritans.
He sees the author of John using that disagreement to articulate a third religious possibility.
The Gospel constructs a vision of Israel's future that is not contained within either existing community.
This is a literary and theological interpretation, not a direct record of how all first-century Samaritans viewed Jews or Jesus.
Were the Samaritans a Sect of Judaism?
For much of modern scholarship, the Samaritans were described as a Jewish sect.
Chalmers questions whether that terminology is historically appropriate.
The problem is that Judaism itself was not a single, uniform tradition during the Second Temple period.
Different communities disagreed over scripture, priesthood, worship, ritual, and religious authority.
Calling the Samaritans a sect of Judaism can therefore imply that a clearly defined parent religion existed before Samaritan identity emerged.
Chalmers prefers the term Israel-facing traditions.
The phrase describes communities that organized their identities around the religious heritage of ancient Israel without assuming that one was necessarily derived from another.
It also allows historians to consider Judaism, Samaritan religion, Christianity, and eventually Islam within a broader discussion of how ancient Israel's legacy was interpreted and claimed.
The terminology is an analytical choice, not a universally accepted replacement for conventional religious categories.
But it highlights the central argument of the interview: the history of ancient Israel's religious inheritance cannot be reduced to a simple contest between Judaism and Christianity.
Why the Samaritans Matter to the History of Judaism and Christianity
The Samaritans complicate familiar narratives.
They preserve a version of the Torah that illuminates the textual diversity of the Second Temple period.
They maintain a sacred geography centered on Mount Gerizim rather than Jerusalem.
Their sanctuary was attacked by a Jewish ruler whose authority depended partly on control of the priesthood.
Their relationship with rabbinic Jews remained contested for centuries.
And Christian authors used Samaritan identity to articulate their own understandings of Israel's religious future.
None of this fits neatly into a story in which Judaism emerged first and other traditions simply separated from it.
Instead, Chalmers invites us to imagine a world in which multiple communities inherited, interpreted, and competed over the legacy of ancient Israel.
Their identities developed through those encounters.
The Samaritans were not merely observers of that history.
They were active participants in shaping it.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Samaritans
1. Who are the Samaritans?
The Samaritans, also known as Samaritan Israelites, are a religious community that traces its ancestry and traditions to ancient Israel. They follow the Torah and regard Mount Gerizim as their central holy place.
2. Are Samaritans Jewish?
Samaritans and Jews share ancient Israelite religious traditions, but they are distinct communities today. Whether ancient Samaritan religion should be classified as a branch of Judaism is a matter of historical interpretation.
3. Where do the Samaritans live today?
The traditional Samaritan communities live principally on or near Mount Gerizim, near Nablus, and in Holon, Israel.
4. How many Samaritans are there?
The Samaritan community numbers approximately one thousand people or fewer, depending on the date and definition used. The interview discusses a population of roughly 700–800 at the time it was recorded.
5. What religion do Samaritans practice?
Samaritans practice an Israelite monotheistic religion centered on the Torah, distinctive priestly traditions, and worship associated with Mount Gerizim.
6. What is the Samaritan Pentateuch?
The Samaritan Pentateuch is the Samaritan version of the five books of Moses. It differs from the traditional Jewish Masoretic Text in spelling, wording, harmonizations, and some religiously significant passages.
7. Is the Samaritan Torah older than the Jewish Torah?
Neither complete textual tradition can simply be labeled the original. Both preserve material with ancient roots, and their relationship is complicated by the existence of multiple biblical textual forms during the Second Temple period.
8. Why do Samaritans worship on Mount Gerizim?
Samaritans believe Mount Gerizim is the proper place chosen for worship of the God of Israel. Their scriptural interpretation and religious traditions place the mountain at the center of Israel's sacred history.
9. Where is Mount Gerizim?
Mount Gerizim is located near Nablus, in the West Bank, overlooking the area of ancient Shechem.
10. Did Samaritans have a temple?
Mount Gerizim contained an important ancient sanctuary. Its exact architectural character and the appropriateness of calling it a temple are debated.
11. Who destroyed the Samaritan sanctuary?
The Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus I destroyed the sanctuary on Mount Gerizim during the late second century BCE.
12. Why did John Hyrcanus attack Mount Gerizim?
One scholarly interpretation connects the attack to Hasmonean territorial expansion and efforts to consolidate priestly and political authority in Jerusalem.
13. Did Samaritans descend from the northern kingdom of Israel?
Samaritans claim continuity with ancient Israel. Modern scholarship generally examines their emergence within the broader development of Israelite religious communities rather than relying exclusively on later polemical accounts of foreign origins.
14. What does 2 Kings 17 say about the Samaritans?
Second Kings 17 describes the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the settlement of foreign populations in Samaria. Later authors connected this narrative to Samaritan origins, although the passage itself requires careful historical interpretation.
15. Who were the Cutheans or Kutim?
Kutim is a name used for Samaritans in Jewish sources, associated with the tradition of settlers from Cuthah. The term often appears in debates about Samaritan ancestry and religious legitimacy.
16. What is the difference between Samaritan and Jewish scripture?
Samaritans recognize the five books of Moses as their central scripture, while Judaism recognizes the broader Hebrew Bible. Their versions of the Pentateuch also contain textual differences.
17. Why is Samaritan writing different from modern Hebrew?
The Samaritan script developed from an ancient writing tradition related to Paleo-Hebrew, whereas most Jewish Hebrew texts use the later square script.
18. Are Samaritans mentioned in the New Testament?
Yes. Samaritans appear in Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts. These references reflect different literary and theological interests.
19. What is the parable of the Good Samaritan?
In Luke 10, Jesus tells a story about a Samaritan who helps an injured traveler after other passersby fail to assist him. The parable emphasizes mercy and the meaning of being a neighbor.
20. Who was the Samaritan woman at the well?
She is a character in John 4 who discusses worship on Mount Gerizim and in Jerusalem with Jesus. The passage plays an important role in the Gospel's presentation of religious identity.
21. Did Jews and Samaritans always hate each other?
No simple account of permanent hostility adequately describes their relationship. Ancient sources reveal periods of interaction, shared practices, disputes, and efforts to establish religious boundaries.
22. Did rabbis consider Samaritans Israelites?
Rabbinic opinions varied. Some early sources treated Samaritans as Israelites for particular religious purposes, while later sources sometimes drew sharper distinctions.
23. Were Samaritans a sect of Judaism?
Some older scholarship described them that way. Other scholars, including Matt Chalmers, favor understanding Samaritan and Jewish identities as related traditions that developed alongside one another.
24. Did Samaritans live outside Samaria?
Yes. Ancient evidence attests to Samaritan communities in parts of the Mediterranean, including inscriptions and literary references associated with diaspora populations.
25. Why are Samaritans important to biblical scholarship?
Their Pentateuch is an important witness to ancient biblical textual diversity. Their traditions also illuminate competing claims about sacred geography, priesthood, and the religious inheritance of Israel.
26. Why do Samaritans matter to the history of Christianity?
Christian authors used Samaritan figures and disputes about Israelite worship to develop their own theological arguments. Samaritan identity therefore forms part of the context in which early Christian identity emerged.
