Samaritans

The book of Kings recounts how all Ten Tribes were exiled by the Assyrians and replaced by foreigners, and Ezra–Nehemiah rejects them as non-Israelites. Yet other biblical and Second Temple texts, along with the archaeological record, show that northern Israelites continued to live in Samaria well into the Second Temple period. Far from vanishing, the northern tribes maintained a temple and priesthood that cooperated with their southern neighbors and played a role in shaping the Pentateuch.

Jews have long understood “the place that YHWH will choose” to mean Mount Zion in Jerusalem, while Samaritans have interpreted it as Mount Gerizim near Shechem. Archaeology and redaction criticism converge on a compromise solution: it refers to a series of places, one place at a time.

The textual remnants of a Second Temple religious polemic between Judeans and Samaritans about where God’s chosen mountain lies.

Is there a genetic marker for kohanim, priests? Are Ashkenazi Jews descended from Khazars? Why is there such a close genetic connection between Samaritans and Jews, especially kohanim? A look at what genetic testing can tell us about Jews.

Mount Gerizim appears in the Pentateuch as the mountain of blessing and plays a prominent role in Samaritan tradition, but the Jewish tradition sidelines this mountain and the Samaritans themselves in a polemic that began more than two and half thousand years ago.

The Israelite-Samaritan interpretation of “you should afflict your souls” (ועניתם את נפשתיכם) and our experience of Yom Kippur.

In reference to the parturient, the Torah speaks of a 33 or 66 day period of דמי טהרה “blood of her purity” as distinguished from a 7 or 14 day period “like menstruation.” What is the difference between these two periods according to Leviticus and how did later groups such as rabbinic Jews, Karaites, Samaritans, and Beta Israel understand it?