Samaria

For other uses, see Samaria (disambiguation).

Hills of Samaria, 2011

Map the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Samaria was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel (in blue). 830s BC.

Site of Dothan, where according to the Book of Genesis, Joseph was sold by his brethren

Samaria (/sə.ˈmɛr.iː.ə/), or the Shomron (Hebrew: שֹׁמְרוֹן, Standard Šomron Tiberian Šōmərôn ; Arabic: السامرة, as-Sāmarah – also known as جبال نابلس, Jibāl Nāblus ) is a mountainous region in the northern part of the geographical area to the west of the Jordan River, roughly corresponding to the Northern West Bank. The name derives from the ancient city Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. During the 1967 Six-Day War, the entire West Bank was captured by Israel. Jordan ceded its claim to the area to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in November 1988. In 1994, control of Areas 'A' and 'B' were transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

Etymology

The name Samaria is of biblical origin, derived from the individual [or clan] Shemer, from whom Omri purchased the site. (1 Kings 16:24). It was the only name used for this area from ancient times until the Jordanian conquest of 1948, at which point the Jordanians coined the term West Bank.

Geography

To the north, Samaria is bounded by the Jezreel Valley; to the east by the Jordan Rift Valley; to the west by the Carmel Ridge (in the north) and the Sharon plain (in the west); to the south by the Jerusalem mountains. In Biblical times, Samaria "reached from the [Mediterranean] sea to the Jordan Valley", including the Carmel Ridge and Plain of Sharon. The Samarian hills are not very high, seldom reaching the height of over 800 metres. Samaria's climate is more hospitable than the climate further south.

History

Main article: Samaria (ancient city)

The city Samaria was established as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Omri circa 884 BC. Prior to the Omride period the site appears to have been the center of an extensive wine and oil production area, which may have accounted for its choice as the new capital. Apparently the origin of the name of the site was from Shemer the eponymous owner of the land that Omri purchased for two talents of silver (1 Kings 16:23–24). The city is built on the summit of a rocky hill. The earliest remains consist of extensive rock cut installations, initially thought to date to the Early Bronze Age by Kenyon, these have recently been re-evaluated, first by Stager and then by Franklin, and are now recognized to be the remains of an extensive early Iron Age oil and wine industry (designated Building Period 0).

In 1908-1910, Harvard’s Committee on Exploration in the Orient conducted an expedition to excavate the site of Samaria-Sebaste. Remains of the royal palace built by Omri and Ahab during the Israelite period were discovered along with buildings constructed by the Babylonian, Greeks and Romans. Among the pottery fragments unearthed were ostraca bearing Hebrew inscriptions in carbon ink citing Biblical names and memoranda of commercial shipments.

Approximately 27 BC, the city was rebuilt by Herod the Great who named it Sebaste after the emperor Augustus. Herod surrounded the city with a large wall and included within it a smaller walled component that featured a temple.

Post World War II

The modern history of Samaria begins when the territory of Samaria, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, was entrusted to the United Kingdom to administer in the aftermath of World War I as a British Mandate of Palestine, by the League of Nations. As a result of the 1948 Palestine War, most of the territory was unilaterally incorporated as Jordanian-controlled territory in the northern West Bank and residents would later receive Jordanian passports.

The Jordanian-held northern West Bank came under the control of Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Jordan ceded its West Bank claims to the PLO in November 1988, later confirmed by the Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace of 1994. Jordan recognizes the Palestinian Authority as sovereign in the territory. In the 1994 Oslo accords, responsibility for the administration over some of the territory of Samaria (Areas 'A' and 'B') was transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

Samaria is one of several standard statistical districts utilized by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. "The Israeli CBS also collects statistics on the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza District. It has produced various basic statistical series on the territories, dealing with population, employment, wages, external trade, national accounts, and various other topics." The Palestinian Authority however use Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Salfit, Ramallah and Tubas Governorates as administrative centres for the same region.

The Shomron Regional Council administers the Israeli population and settlements throughout the northern West Bank.

New Testament reference

Map of Israeli settlements administered by the Shomron Regional Council in the West Bank

The New Testament mentions Samaria in Luke chapter 17:11-20, in the miraculous healing of the ten lepers, which took place on the border of Samaria and Galilee. John 4:1-26 records Jesus' encounter at Jacob's well with the woman of Sychar, in which he declares himself to be the Messiah. In Acts 8:5-14, it is recorded that Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached there. In the time of Jesus, Iudaea of the Romans was divided into three toparchies, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Samaria occupied the centre of Iudaea (John 4:4). (Iudaea was later renamed Syria Palaestina in 135, following the Bar Kokhba revolt.) In the Talmud, Samaria is called the "land of the Cuthim".

Samaritans

Main article: Samaritans

The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group, named after and descended from ancient Semitic inhabitants of Samaria, since the Assyrian Exile of the Israelites. Religiously the Samaritans are adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism. Based on the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans claim their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered and amended religion brought back by those returning from exile. It is commonly, though inaccurately, accepted that Samaritans are mainstream Jews.

Their temple was built at Mount Gerizim in the middle of fifth century BC and was destroyed by the Macabbean (Hasmonean) John Hyrcanus late in 110 BC, although their descendants still worship among its ruins. The antagonism between Samaritans and Jews is important in understanding the Christian Bible's stories of "Parable of the Good Samaritan" and the "Samaritan woman at the well".

See also

• Archevites
• Samaritan Revolts
• List of burial places of biblical figures
• Judea and Samaria area
• Israeli settlements

References

Bibliography

• Rainey, A. F. (1988). "Toward a Precise Date for the Samaria Ostraca". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 272 (272): 69–74. doi:10.2307/1356786. JSTOR 1356786. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Stager, L. E. (1990). "Shemer's Estate". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 277/278 (277): 93–107. doi:10.2307/1357375. JSTOR 1357375. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Becking, B. (1992). The Fall of Samaria: An Historical and Archaeological Study. Leiden; New York: E. J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09633-7.
• Franklin, N. (2003). "The Tombs of the Kings of Israel". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 119 (1): 1–11. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Franklin, N. (2004). "Samaria: from the Bedrock to the Omride Palace". Levant. 36: 189–202. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Tappy, R. E. (2206). “The Provenance of the Unpublished Ivories from Samaria,” Pp. 637–56 in “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times” (Ps 78:2b): Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, A. M. Maeir and P. de Miroschedji, eds. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
• Tappy, R. E. (2007). “The Final Years of Israelite Samaria: Toward a Dialogue between Texts and Archaeology,” Pp. 258–79 in Up to the Gates of Ekron: Essays on the Archaeology and History of the Eastern Mediterranean in Honor of Seymour Gitin, S. White Crawford, A. Ben-Tor, J. P. Dessel, W. G. Dever, A. Mazar, and J. Aviram, eds. Jerusalem: The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and the Israel Exploration Society.

External links

• Entry for Samaria in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Shomron National Park (Sebastia) at Israel Nature and Parks Authority site
• Pictures of the ruins of Shomron
• S. Vailhé (1913). "Samaria" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.