Origins of the Samaritans
John 4:1–45
The NT includes several references to Samaritans. Jesus had trouble in the Samaritan villages (Luke 9:52–53) and instructed his disciples not to go there (Matt. 10:5–6). Nevertheless, he talked to the Samaritan woman (John 4) and used Samaritans as favorable characters in some of his stories, particularly the account of the 10 lepers (Luke 17:11–19) and the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37). Samaria was an early mission field for the growing Church (Acts 8).
Most of our knowledge of the Samaritans comes from their own literature produced during two major periods of renaissance, in the 3rd and the 14th centuries C.E. It is during the first period that Baba Raba organized a council of priests and laity and facilitated the building of several synagogues. Marqah wrote his theological work, Memar Marqah, which became the base of Samaritan theology, and Amram Darrah wrote poetry that became the core of the Samaritan liturgy.
Anderson, Robert T. “Samaritans.” Ed. David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck. Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible 2000 : 1159. Print.
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