Bibliography
| Title: Samaria and the Samaritans in Josephus's Antiquities 1-11 Type: Generic Year: 1989 Abstract: "Four centuries of western scholarship studying Samaria and the Samaritans have given the Josephan corpus a central place in reconstructing the early history of the Gerizim religious community. An exhaustive analysis of Josephus's comments regarding Samaria and the Samaritans is herein undertaken for the first time, however. Employing the writings of Josephus for reconstructing history make necessary an understanding of his use of source material, identification of his own prejudices, and correlation of his narratives with other literary as well as artifactual and written data. The central issue is coming to better understand the relationship(s) between what he wrote and the actual events. These issues have held a central place in the long history of the study of Josephus. The Antiquities of the Jews 1-11 provides an extended narrative block with a known source, even though the particular biblical text used remains a mystery. Exegetical study of his references to Samaria and to the Samaritans indicates that Josephus did not bring to his work an anti-Samaritan attitude which colored his presentation and that most of omissions of information regarding the people or the area are merely incidental. The confusion of names and designations for the Samaritan religious community which characterizes the presentation of Josephus, especially for the Persian period, probably reflects both the sociological complexity of the population and the ambivalence of the Jews toward the adherents to the Gerizim cult, even in the time of Josephus. They were viewed by him as faithful Hebrews and yet as non-Judean. Thus, they were not viewed as a sect of the Jews in the same sense that Pharisees were, but were placed by Josephus under the more inclusive label Hebrews. In their common identity as Hebrews, Josephus shared a common milieu with the Samaritans, which is disclosed by a number of parallel exegetical traditions and he probably employed a source of information regarding the founding of the Gerizim temple which ultimately derived from the Samaritans themselves." Keywords: Groups and Religious Movements in Palestinian Judaism |