Who were the Samaritans mentioned in the New Testament?

WHO WERE THE SAMARITANS?

“Samaritans figure prominently in the New Testament. It is important to understand who they were and how they were viewed and treated by the Jews. When the ten tribes were carried away captive, the area of Samaria was repopulated by those living in neighboring areas. These people worshiped idols but began to adopt Jewish practices and teachings into their worship, and eventually they become more observant to the Mosaic law than the Jews. When the Jews who had been carried away captive were eventually granted permission from Cyrus, the Persian king, to return to Jerusalem (remember our lesson from last year about Ezra in the Old Testament!), the Samaritans were eager to be recognized as Israelites and to be included in Jewish worship. Yet the Jews viewed them as being a tainted race because of their intermarriage with surrounding tribes.

“The Samaritans believed that they, during the Jews’ exile, had preserved the true scriptures, the true priesthood authority, and the true form of temple worship. They had built a Mount Gezim and claimed that they, not the Jews, were legitimate heirs to the priesthood because they were descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh.[1] These differences resulted in animosity and violence between the two groups. The Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gezim in 128 BC and reduced the Samaritans’ land to a fraction of what it had been before. [3]

“By the time Christ came, tensions between the Samaritans the Jews had eased, but the groups were still not friendly with each other. The Samaritans, despite the ruined temple, still worshipped and offered sacrifices on Mount Gezim and were contemptuous of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. James E. Talmage wrote that they “accused the Jews of adding to the word of God, by receiving the writings of the prophets;… favored Herod because the Jews hated him, and were loyal to him;… had kindled false lights on the hills, to vitiate the Jewish reckoning by the new moons, and thus thrown their feasts into confusion, and, in the early youth of Jesus, had even defiled the very Temple itself by strewing human bones Passover.”[4] The Jews weren’t much better. According to Talmage, the Jews also treated the Samaritans poorly: “They had been subjected to every form of excommunication, by the incommunicable name of Jehovah; by the Tables of the Law, and by the heavenly and earthly synagogues. The very name [Samaritan] became a reproach.”[5] In their courts, the Jews would not recognize the testimony of a Samaritan, nor would they even touch or eat food that had been prepared by Samaritan hands.[6]”

“Walking with the Women of the New Testament,” Heather Farrell, pp 165-167.