When Jesus reached the famous well at Shechem and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink, she replied full of surprise: "Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (John 4:9). In the ancient world, relations between Jews and Samaritans were indeed strained. Josephus reports a number of unpleasant events: Samaritans harass Jewish pilgrims traveling through Samaria between Galilee and Judea, Samaritans scatter human bones in the Jerusalem sanctuary, and Jews in turn burn down Samaritan villages. The very notion of “the good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37) only makes sense in a context in which Samaritans were viewed with suspicion and hostility by Jews in and around Jerusalem.
It is difficult to know when the enmity first arose in history—or for that matter, when Jews and Samaritans started seeing themselves (and each other) as separate communities. For at least some Jews during the Second Temple period, 2Kgs 17:24-41 may have explained Samaritan identity: they were descendants of pagan tribes settled by the Assyrians in the former <span>northern kingdom </span>of Israel, the region where most Samaritans live even today. But texts like this may not actually get us any closer to understanding the Samaritans’ historical origins.
The Samaritans, for their part, did not accept any scriptural texts beyond the Pentateuch. Scholars have known for a long time about an ancient and distinctly Samaritan version of the Pentateuch—which has been an important source for textual criticism of the Bible for centuries. In fact, a major indication for a growing Samaritan self-awareness in antiquity was the insertion of "typically Samaritan" additions into this version of the Pentateuch, such as a Decalogue commandment to build an altar on Mount Gerizim, which Samaritans viewed as the sole “place of blessing” (see also Deut 11:29, Deut 27:12). They fiercely rejected Jerusalem—which is not mentioned by name in the Pentateuch—and all Jerusalem-related traditions and institutions such as kingship and messianic eschatology.
