stephan huller

I am posting this for my friend Benny Tsedaka. It might be of interest to some:



Part of the findings belong to our Israelite Samaritan forefathers are displayed in the impressive museum in Ma'aleh Edomim, in the way from Jerico to Jerusalem, as said in the prable of "The Good Samaritan" alongside fancy mosaic tiles from Samaritan synagogues that Magen uncovered in various places in Samaria. The Samaritan findings include: tools, artifacts, mosaics and several inscriptions. There is a special big hall in "The Good Samaritan" Museum that contains the related Samaritan artifacts (just as there is a special hall of Jewish artifacts, and a hall for the Christian findings) that Dr. Yitzhaq Magen the Museum creator dedicated a big hall for display of each faith. In the process of establishing the museum Magen even published a special large volume called "The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan".

It is unpleasant for me to spoil the joy, by asking the troubling question: What do the Israelite Samaritans have to do with "The Good Samaritan"? If we insist upon historical accuracy, we will answer this question by saying that there was not anything common to the Israelite Samaritans and the parable of the "Good Samaritan" or the ancient Christian site that developed out of this parable.

"The Good Samaritan" Parable is within the framework of the Christian message, as a Christian commentary to the verse and commandment from the Pentateuch of "Love Your Neighbor". More than that the parable spoken by Jesus in the tenth chapter of the Book of Luke in the New Testament about the man who does the favor of assisting the dying man on the road is used as a protest parable of Christianity towards the indifference of the Jews in the Second Temple Period towards their Messiah, Jesus. The parable became a guiding message to Christianity in the period when this faith was at the eve of being the religion of the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital, Byzantium.

However,Dr. Yitzhaq Magen who initiated the museum in Ma'aleh Edomim, in a speech during the opening ceremony followed Prof. Shmaryahu Talmon's interpretation of the parable, denying the presence of a Samaritan in the area around Jerusalem to say that the writers of the New Testament changed the identity of the third figure in the Parable from “Israel” to “Samaritans” not aware of the tradiditional tringle: Cohen, Levi, Israel or: Priest, Levite, Israel Israelylite. But of cource most scholars accepted the Identity “A Samaritan” as the original one due to the positive attitude of Jesus towards the Samaritans of his time.

Unfortunately, the guiding message of the Good Samaritan parable never was absorbed in early Christianity. Since Christianity adopted this rule from the Good Samaritan parable, it treated the Samaritans in the opposing manner and meaning of the message of Jesus. The Judaism that is presented by the figures of the Priest and the Levite in this parable show their indifference to the wounded man on the main road to Jericho [The writer of this piece suggests that possibly the wounded man represented Jesus himself], and the priest and levite represent a Judaism that is never persecuted but used by Christianity as a historical testimony that should be preserved to legitimize the existence of Christianity.

In fact, the Samaritans, who are represented in the parable by the figure of The Good Samaritan who cares about the wounded man, were chased and killed by the Christians in numbers of hundreds of thousands. Samaritan properties and lands were confiscated, their power as a great nation was broken, and they became a persecuted minority just because they fought with the remnant of their force against the intention to convert them into Christianity.

This is not the only example when followers of various faiths have behaved totally the opposite of what they were taught by their founders. However, this whole issue just emphasizes the absurdity of how artifacts and exhibits that belong to the Samaritans today, as the successors of those who were the original owners to the site, now commemorate a message that has nothing to do with the hard historical reality of those who distributed this message. It is a sad fact that early Christianity destroyed and broke the power of the Samaritan People who only currently show signs of recovery, starting almost from zero at 141 individuals in March 1919 to 760 today [April 2013].

In the period of the rise and establishment of Byzantine Christianity the Samaritans numbered many hundreds of thousands of individuals, held armies, and activated a unique physical and spiritual culture. The big calamity that was enforced upon the Samaritans by this faith included conversion by force, the suppression of the Samaritan revolts by bloodbaths, selling of tens of thousands of young Samaritans to slavery, and stealing of property and lands by abominable laws of inheritance. This broke the power of our forefathers so that their spirit collapsed, their stature was bent down, their number dwindled to a time when they could not raise their heads to look straight in the eyes of those who shortened their steps from the mass of the their humiliation.

The site of "The Good Samaritan" as an outstanding Christian site with the relics of the Ancient Christian church within it, like other Christian sites in the region of Samaria, including the relics of the octagon Christian church on the top of Mount Gerizim – symbolize our historical frustrations, devastations and defeats.

An integral part of our new uprightness will be the eventual centralization of our luxurious past antiquities (of the Israelite Samaritan nation) in the place of our glory. As it is unimaginable that archaeological findings that symbolize the luxurious past of the Jewish People, found in Jerusalem will be displayed outside of Jerusalem, it is also unimaginable that the tens of thousands of findings that Magen exposed in his excavation on Mount Gerizim that represent the luxurious past of our nation from its Mount Gerizim centrality, will be taken and wander on display in various places outside of Mount Gerizim.

The place for the many findings that were found on Mount Gerizim should be in a museum that will be built on Mount Gerizim, on the top the mountain of our life and glory, with all means of secured display. The place should not be at a Christian site nor in the Rockefeller Museum storages in East Jerusalem but in their most natural place of our luxurious culture of our forefathers – In Mount Gerizim.

Benyamim Tsedaka

Pictures: The writer of this piece with Dr. Yitzhaq Magen[left]
- 3 Samaritan Mosaics in the "Good Samaritan Museum in Ma'Aleh Edomim, Jerusalem-Jerico road

Duvduv

In addition to the issue about when Samaritans believe they worshiped at Gerizim in the first centuries, which your friend Benyamim should know about, I have another question: the Samaritans only sacrifice on Passover, but if they have access to the location all year round, why do they not bring all other sacrifices required by the Torah during the year as well?

Duvduv

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...ne&aid=7824449

If Hadrian constructed a pagan temple on Mt. Gerizim after the Bar Kochba period (130 CE), and then it fell into disuse by the time of Julian the Apostate in 363 and a sanctuary was then rebuilt until the prohibitions of Justinian, this might in fact suggest that the author of John 4:20 (in the PAST TENSE) inadvertently referred to the period before Julian the Apostate in the 4th century during the existence of the pagan temple and not to the first century CE.