What Role Did the Samaritans Play in the Bible?
Perhaps the most famous Samaritan is one who never existed—the “Good Samaritan” from a fictional story Jesus tells in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. But the Samaritans were and are a real ethno-religious group whose history spans millennia. Like Jews, Samaritans claim to be the descendants of the ancient Israelites. Where Do Samaritans Get Their Name? Relief depicting Assyrians forcing captives from Astartu (biblical Ashtaroth, located in the southeast of Syria today) into exile, 730–727 BCE. Source: The British Museum. The Bible presents David and Solomon’s reigns as a golden age in Israel’s history due to David’s military might and Solomon’s political acumen. Solomon’s heir, Rehoboam, however, lacked his father’s abilities and, upon taking the throne, failed to negotiate an agreement with disgruntled workers in Israel’s northern half. This precipitated a divide between the northern kingdom, which came to be called simply (if confusingly) “Israel,” and the southern Kingdom of Judah. This divide never healed. Jeroboam, the first king of the newly-separated Kingdom of Israel, established Shechem as …