Why were the Samaritans so despised in the New Testament accounts?

Question

What was the situation with the Samaritans? For instance, in the Good Samaritan account, or accounts of traveling through Samaria, why was there a negativity associated with samaritans?

Serious answers please.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Long story short:

According to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible (McGraw Hill) by Louis F. Hartman, C.SS.R., feelings of ill will probably went back before the separation of the northern and southern Jewish kingdoms. Even then there was a lack of unity between the tribes of Jacob.

After the separation of Judah and Israel in the ninth century, King Omri of the Northern Kingdom bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer (1 Kings 16:24). He built there the city of Samaria which became his capital.

It was strong defensively and controlled the valley through which the main road ran between Jerusalem and Galilee. In 722 B.C. the city fell to the Assyrians and became the headquarters of the Assyrian province of Samarina. While many of the inhabitants of the city and the surrounding area of Samaria were led off into captivity, some farmers and others were left behind. They intermarried with new settlers from Mesopotamia and Syria.

Though the Samaritans were condemned by the Jews, Hartman says they probably had as much pure Jewish blood as the Jews who later returned from the Babylonian exile.

The story of both Israel's and Samaria's failures in keeping to the way of Yahweh is partly told in Chapter 17 of the Second Book of Kings. There, too, the sacred author tells how the king of As-syria sent a priest from among the exiles to teach the Samaritans how to worship God after an attack by lions was attributed to their failure to worship the God of the land. Second Kings recounts how worship of Yahweh was mixed with the worship of strange gods.

When Cyrus permitted the Jews to return from the Babylonian exile, the Samaritans were ready to welcome them back. The exiles, however, despised the Samaritans as renegades. When the Samaritans wanted to join in rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, their assistance was rejected. You will find this in the Book of Ezra, Chapter Four.

With the rejection came political hostility and opposition. The Samaritans tried to undermine the Jews with their Persian rulers and slowed the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple. Nehemiah tells us (Nehemiah 13:28-29) that a grandson of the high priest, Eliashib, had married a daughter of Sanballat, the governor of the province of Samaria.

For defiling the priesthood by marrying a non-Jewish woman, Nehemiah drove Eliashib from Jerusalem--though Sanballat was a worshiper of Yahweh. According to the historian Josephus, Sanballat then had a temple built on Mount Garizim in which his son-in-law Eliashib could function. Apparently this is when the full break between Jews and Samaritans took place.

According to John McKenzie in his Dictionary of the Bible, the Samaritans later allied themselves with the Seleucids in the Maccabean wars and in 108 B.C. the Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple and ravaged the territory. Around the time of Jesus' birth, a band of Samaritans profaned the Temple in Jerusalem by scattering the bones of dead people in the sanctuary. In our own era which has witnessed the vandalism of synagogues and the burning of black churches, we should be able to understand the anger and hate such acts would incite.

The fact that there was such dislike and hostility between Jews and Samaritans is what gives the use of the Samaritan in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) such force! The Samaritan is the one who is able to rise above the bigotry and prejudices of centuries and show mercy and compassion for the injured Jew after the Jew's own countrymen pass him by!

It is with those centuries of opposition and incidents behind their peoples that we can understand the surprise of the Samaritan woman (John 4:9) when Jesus rises above the social and religious restrictions not just of a man talking to a woman, but also of a Jew talking to a Samaritan.

You can find more about the story of the rift between Jews and Samaritans in the various biblical dictionaries and commentaries, and scattered through the historical and prophetical books of the Old Testament.

Answer 2

The Samaritans were partly Israelite and partly Gentile. Their religion was a mixture of Jewish and pagan beliefs and practices. The parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10: 25-37 shows the hatred that the Jews had developed for the Samaritans because the Samaritans had apostatized from the Israelite religion.

Answer 3

The Jews of Samaria had established places and rituals for worship that were not within the rules and laws of Judaism.
Therefore, Samaritans were looked down upon by Jews who held to scriptural orthodoxy.

Yet, the good Samaritan was spoken of by Jesus as a moral man, and when He went to meet the woman at the well (in Samaria) He showed that even the unorthodox were worthy of salvation.

Answer 4

Back when the Jews were taken captive and brought to Babylon, the Babylonian government sent some of their own peasant farmers to till the ground.

Because there was a remnant of Jewish peasants who continued in the Jewish religion and customs, these babylonian peasants followed the religion of the people of the land.

They were neither Jewish, nor of Jewish ancestry, yet after many years (Israel was in captivity for 70 years), they began to think of themselves as Jews.

When the Jews returned to Israel, these people living in Samaria (ie the Samaritans) claimed to be true Jews, while the TRUE Jews despised them for making these false claims.

There was great animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans because of this, and also because the Samaritans didn't even follow the Jewish Law accurately or completely.

Furthermore, the Jews felt that these Samaritans didn't have any rights to the Jewish Law.

Does this bit of history help clarify things? :-)

Answer 5

Who Were The Samaritans

Answer 6

Samaritans were people who left the Southern Kingdom of Judah and formed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The hatred between the two kingdoms was very similar to the North and South in the War between the States.(1861 to 1865)

Nothing is more bitter than a 'family' feud. The two kingdoms remain divided to this day. The 'lost sheep of the House of Israel' accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah. Sadly, the kingdom of Judah rejected their Messiah. The bitterness continues to be passed down to the next generation.

Answer 7

The Samaritans were a people who were despised by Israel. Because of the mixing of the Israelites with the people of Samaria. This was a one of the things God told his people not to do because of the wide spread idolatry through out the land around the children of Israel. The Israelites were to be a separated people given solely unto God, to follow his statutes and rules layed down by him to first to Abraham then further laws given to Moses. Let me say here that I think it was for reasons of the mixing of Religious beliefs and not the mixing of people.

Answer 8

The Samaritans only accepted the Pentateuch. Basically, a small religious difference. It was enough to fuel a hatred so strong that both sides would pretend the other wasn't there when they walked past the other.

Answer 9

In those days, ANYONE who was not Jewish was despised.