Were Samaritans once Jews

Answer 1

Samaritans were related to the Jewish bloodlines. You could call them "cousins," as it were, of the Jews. Geographically, they were neighbors of the Jews. However, they did not follow the Jewish teachings, so they were viewed by the Jews as apostates. That is why the Jews did not associate with Samaritans.

Answer:

According to Jewish sources (2 Kings 17:24), after the Assyrians exiled the Israelite Ten Tribes, the Assyrian king brought non-Jews from Cutha, Babylonia and Syria (Hamat), and settled them in the depopulated area where the Ten Tribes had lived (Samaria). They were taught Judaism by one of the Jewish priests (2 Kings 17:27), and they were taught the Torah, which they wrote in the Old Hebrew script.

The Talmud relates how the Samaritans adopted some of the mitzvot (Torah-commands) but not others (Talmud, Berakhot 47b), how they denounced the Jews to Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to destroy the newly-built Second Temple (Talmud, Yoma 69a), and how they interfered with the declaring of Rosh Hodesh (the New Moon) (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 22b). Our traditions relate how the Samaritans would waylay the Jews who tried to journey to the Holy Temple.

Answer 2

Ethnically, the Samaritans are believed to have been a mixture of various, mainly Semitic races, including the remnants of the Israelites who were not deported by the Assyrians in 722 BCE or fled into exile at that time.

Their religion at the time of Jesus was an archaic form of Judaism, but they were not considered to be Jews.

Answer 3

A:Ethnically, the Samaritans (or Samarians) are believed to have been a mixture of various, mainly Semitic races, including the remnants of the Israelites who were not deported by the Assyrians in 722 BCE or fled into exile at that time.

The Israelites are now known to have been polytheistic right up until the final destruction of their kingdom in 722 BCE, as were the immigrants whom the Assyrians brought in to replace those who had left. However, the Samaritans of the time of Jesus practised an archaic form of Judaism, believed to have been introduced by King Josiah of Judah during his expansion into Samaria. In spite of this, the Jews did not regard the Samaritans as true Jews.

Christian Answer:

Following a, roughly, three-year period of rebellion and assault by the Assyrians... the House of Israel (Ten Tribes) was defeated, removed and carried away from their land -- and the "half-brother" tribes of Judah disappeared from world view and history... scattered among the Gentile nations in the world.

The Assyrian king replaced the Israelites with Gentile peoples from all around. And the Samaritans ceased to be the "half-brothers" of the Jews. They were now "Gentiles," to be shunned and avoided by Jewish law.

"Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only." (II Kings 17:18)

These were the "Samaritans" extant in Jesus' day... rejected and shunned by the Jews. For centuries, no longer their "brothers" -- but "unclean Gentiles" whom Jesus made into a spiritual object lesson in His "Good Samaritan" parable [a parable that left a bad taste in the mouths and jealousy in the hearts of those Jews who heard Him tell it].

Jewish answer:

According to Jewish sources (2 Kings 17:24), after the Assyrians exiled the Israelite Ten Tribes, the Assyrian king brought non-Jews from Cutha, Babylonia and Syria (Hamat), and settled them in the depopulated area where the Ten Tribes had lived (Samaria). They were taught Judaism by one of the Jewish priests (2 Kings 17:27), and they were taught the Torah, which they wrote in the Old Hebrew script.

The Talmud relates how the Samaritans adopted some of the mitzvot (Torah-commands) but not others (Talmud, Berakhot 47b), how they denounced the Jews to Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to destroy the newly-built Second Temple (Talmud, Yoma 69a), and how they interfered with the declaring of Rosh Hodesh (the New Moon) (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 22b). Our traditions relate how the Samaritans would waylay the Jews who tried to journey to the Holy Temple.

Answer 4

A:The Samaritans, or Samarians, came from the province of Samaria, formerly the Hebrew kingdom of Israel before its destruction in 722 BCE. The Samaritans would have been of mixed race, descendants of the original Israelites and the immigrants whom the Assyrians brought in to replace the Israelites who had been deported. Thus, they shared a common Hebrew heritage with the Jews.

Although polytheistic or perhaps at this stage henonistic, the Israelites had shared belief in the same chief God with the Jews, who lived in Judah to the south. At some stage after the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, the Samaritans adopted a monotheistic version of Judaism and accepted a version of the Torah as scripture. They rejected other books of the Jewish scriptures.