Who were the ancestors of the Samaritans of Jesus' day?

Answer 1

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. They shared a common Hebrew heritage with the Jews.

Answer 2

Anciently... the nation of Israel split into two kingdoms, the House [or kingdom] of Israel made up of ten of the twelve tribes led by the tribes of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh; and the House [or kingdom] of Judah [the Jews] led by the tribe of Judah.

The Jewish kingdom ruled from Jerusalem... and the kingdom of Israel's throne was located in Samaria. The two kingdoms lived a troubled co-existence for many years this way with their respective kings sometimes obedient to the laws of the Lord... most of the time, doing as they pleased.

For many decades, then, the people of Samaria were "Israelites." While both Houses took their turns in their sins... the House of Israel was the worst; and God brought the Assyrian Empire against them, hopefully, to terrorize them and "scare them straight" so that they might return to the ways of God in their lives. The dreaded Assyrians were the forerunners of and masters at terror.

But Israel refused to repent... and God caused them to go into captivity; totally removing them from their homeland:

"Then the king of Assyria invaded the entire land, and for three years he besieged Samaria... Samaria fell, and the people of Israel were exiled to Assyria. They were settled in colonies in Halah, along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and among the cities of the Medes.

"This disaster came upon the nation of Israel because the people worshiped other gods, sinning against the Lord their God... They had imitated the practices of the pagan nations the Lord had driven from the land before them, as well as the practices the kings of Israel had introduced...

"Again and again the Lord had sent His prophets and seers to warn both Israel and Judah: 'Turn from all your evil ways. Obey My Commands and laws... But the Israelites would not listen... They worshiped worthless idols and became worthless themselves." (II Kings 17:5-15 NLT New Living Translation)

"So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel. He punished them by handing them over to their attackers until they were destroyed... So Israel was carried off to the land of Assyria, where they remain to this day.

The House of Israel never returned, were scattered and absorbed into and among the Gentile nations of the world in their succeeding generations, growing to think of themselves as Gentiles... and they became "lost" in world history.

"And the king of Assyria TRANSPORTED GROUPS OF PEOPLE FROM BABYLON, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and RESETTLED THEM IN THE TOWNS OF SAMARIA, REPLACING THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. So the Assyrians took over Samaria and the other towns of Israel." (verses 20-24)

So, the Israelites were physically removed from their land, and Samaria and the surrounding towns changed hands. Assuming the question is inquiring about the Samaritans at the time of Christ... the descendants living in and around Samaria were GENTILES! Much hated by the Jews: one, just for being Gentiles; and, two, over the ancient resentment of the Jews over the forced removal of their brothers from their homeland by these Assyrians' forefathers.

Additional Comment:

As with any conquest and taking the defeated population into captivity, some of the original peoples remained in the Land - either by hiding, escaping or just not being taken by their captors for one reason or another. These undoubtedly would eventually 'merge' with the 'infusion' of new peoples being put into the Land. So it is quite conceivable that some of thes 'Samaritans' had blood of the Children of Israel in them becoming 'half-brothers/sisters or cousins of the scattered 'Lost Ten Tribes.'

Answer 3

The Samaritans were, and in fact still are, an offshoot of Judaism. The way they tell it, the Samaritans are descended from the northern Kingdom of Israel, survivors of the Assyrian invasion that wiped out that kingdom. They would then be descended from the "10 lost tribes of Israel," but not lost. Recall that the northern kingdom rejected the legitimacy of Solomon's Temple and had their own holy site. The Samaritans still, to this day, conduct sacrifices on Mount Gizarim, near Nablus on the West Bank, and they preserve a Samaritan Torah that differs (mostly in small ways) from the Jewish Torah. After the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, they never reconciled with the Samaritans. The traditional Jewish explanation of the Samaritans reeks of sibling rivalry and de-legitimizes the Samaritans. There are only a few thousand Samaritans left today, but 2000 years ago, there were many more and the rivalry between Jews and Samaritans about whose Torah and whose sacrificial center was legitimate was far more intense.