Cultures

Samaritans

Also Known As Shomronim The community's own Hebrew name for itself, keepers of the law.

Peoples

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Samaritans." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/cultures/samaritans.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Samaritans. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/cultures/samaritans

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-samaritans,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Samaritans},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/cultures/samaritans},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Samaritans are a small community, numbering fewer than a thousand people, living at Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim and at Holon in Israel, who hold that theirs is the Israelite religion as it stood before the return from Babylon. They keep their own Torah, written in the Samaritan script and differing from the Jewish text at many points including the commandment naming Gerizim as the chosen place, their own priesthood tracing itself to Aaron, and their own calendar. The Passover sacrifice is still performed on Gerizim each year, which makes it the only surviving practice of the animal sacrifice the Hebrew Bible commands.

Facts

Origins

Origin Region

Mount Gerizim above Nablus, with a second community at Holon in Israel. 1

Language Family

Samaritan Hebrew for scripture and Samaritan Aramaic for liturgy, both Northwest Semitic; Arabic is the spoken language of the community today. 2

Traditions

Principal Religious Traditionsthe subject's own account

Samaritanism, which holds Gerizim rather than Jerusalem to be the place God chose and keeps its own Torah, calendar and priesthood, with the Passover sacrifice still performed on the mountain. Fewer than a thousand people carry it. 3

Practice

Practice Statusthe subject's own account

Living, and practised in varied local forms 3

Learn More

Mount Gerizim, the Samaritan Torah and Passover

Samaritans hold that theirs is the Israelite religion in its original form, and that the division came when Eli established a rival sanctuary at Shiloh, abandoning the true one at Mount Gerizim. On that account the Jews are the schismatics. Reinhard Pummer's study sets out the Samaritan position, the Jewish counter account, and what the archaeological and textual evidence actually supports.

The Samaritan canon is the Torah alone, in a version differing from the Masoretic text at some thousands of points, most of them minor and a small number theologically decisive, above all the reading that establishes Gerizim rather than Jerusalem as the chosen place. It is written in the Samaritan script, a direct descendant of the older Hebrew letters that Jewish scribes replaced with the square Aramaic form.

Practice follows the Torah closely and without the rabbinic tradition. The Passover sacrifice is still performed on Mount Gerizim, with lambs slaughtered and roasted at the site on the eve of the festival, which makes it the only continuing animal sacrifice in the Abrahamic religions. The calendar is calculated by the priestly line, the sabbath is kept strictly, and purity rules concerning menstruation and childbirth are observed in a form Jews abandoned with the Temple.

From a Nation to Under a Thousand People

The Samaritans were once numerous. Estimates for the Roman and early Byzantine periods run into the hundreds of thousands, with communities across the eastern Mediterranean and a temple on Gerizim that was destroyed in the second century BCE. A series of revolts against Byzantine rule in the fifth and sixth centuries of the common era, and the reprisals that followed them, broke the community, and conversion and pressure reduced it further under later regimes.

By the early twentieth century there were around a hundred and fifty Samaritans left, which is as close to extinction as a religion can come and still continue. The community survived and grew, and the survey published by the Israelite Samaritan Information Institute counts something over eight hundred people today, living in two places: Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim above Nablus, and Holon near Tel Aviv.

That division is also a political situation. Samaritans hold both Israeli and Palestinian documents, take part in both societies, and have generally sought to stand outside the conflict between them. The demographic problem of a community this small is acute, and the priesthood, which traces itself through an unbroken line, is maintained within it. The atlas records the Samaritans as a living religion and a living people rather than as a survival.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Israeli Film Archive (Jerusalem Cinematheque) Record for Samaritans Passover Sacrifice on Mount Gerizim (1969)

This source names Samaritans directly: "one-minute archival actuality film Samaritans Passover Sacrifice on Mount Gerizim."

Source Israeli Film Archive (Jerusalem Cinematheque) Record for Samaritans Passover Sacrifice on Mount Gerizim (1969)

Israelite Samaritan population survey

This source names Samaritans directly: "This is the Samaritan community's own annual census, maintained by the Israelite Samaritan Information Institute, and this record holds it as a custodian source for exactly that reason: for a..."

Source Israelite Samaritan population surveyIsraelite Samaritan Information Institutethe holders' own account

Luke 10:33-34

This source names Samaritans directly: "The centre of the parable of the good Samaritan."

Source The Holy Bible, American Standard Version (1901), verse-per-line textAmerican Revision Committee

Memar Marqah

This source names Samaritans directly: "The Memar Marqah (Teaching of Marqah) is the most important work of Samaritan theology outside the Pentateuch itself, a fourth century CE Aramaic compilation of homiletic and liturgical material..."

Source The Samaritans: A ProfileReinhard Pummer

Mount Gerizim Excavations

This source names Samaritans directly: "This is an archaeological excavation report issued by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and its standing rests on that documented excavation itself, the physically excavated remains of the Samaritan..."

Source Mount Gerizim ExcavationsYitzhak Magen

Population Survey

This source names Samaritans directly: "The Israelite Samaritan Information Institute's own population survey, tracking the community's size at dated points across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: 140 individuals on 1 March 1919..."

Source Population Survey

Samaria

The community lives on and beside Mount Gerizim in Samaria.

Samaritan

The Samaritan Torah is written in the Samaritan script.

Samaritan Book of Joshua (Chronicle)

This source names Samaritans directly: "The Samaritan Book of Joshua is a medieval Arabic chronicle, distinct from and considerably expanding on the biblical book of the same name, that carries Samaritan history from Joshua's conquest of..."

Source The Samaritans: A ProfileReinhard Pummer

Samaritanism

Samaritanism is the community's religion.

Samaritanism Prayer and Invocation Tradition

This source names Samaritans directly: "Prayer and invocation in Samaritanism are described here rather than quoted at length, an editorial choice rather than a restriction."

Source Samaritanism (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Samaritans

This source names Samaritans directly: "The Wikipedia article on the Samaritans, giving a total population of approximately 900 as of 2024, continued growth beyond the Israelite Samaritan Information Institute's own most recently..."

Source Samaritans

Samaritans Passover Sacrifice on Mount Gerizim (1969)

This source names Samaritans directly: "The archive's own synopsis describes Samaritans gathering around ovens dug into the ground, and, after a religious ritual, forty lambs sacrificed for Passover being skinned, impaled and roasted, a..."

Source Israeli Film Archive (Jerusalem Cinematheque) Record for Samaritans Passover Sacrifice on Mount Gerizim (1969)

Samaritan's Purse

This source names Samaritans directly: "An evangelical Christian international relief and disaster response organization founded in 1970 by Baptist pastor Bob Pierce, and led since 1979 by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham."

Source Samaritan's Purse (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Samaritan's Purse (Wikipedia)

This source names Samaritans directly: "The English Wikipedia article on Samaritan's Purse, founded in 1970 by Bob Pierce and later led by Franklin Graham."

Source Samaritan's Purse (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Samaritan's Purse Amasses Over $1 Billion in Assets, Raising Red Flags (The Roys Report, 2022)

This source names Samaritans directly: "A 29 June 2022 investigative feature by Sarah Einselen for The Roys Report, reporting that Samaritan's Purse ended its 2021 fiscal year with net assets exceeding 1.2 billion dollars after two years..."

Source Samaritan's Purse Amasses Over $1 Billion in Assets, Raising Red Flags (The Roys Report, 2022)Sarah Einselen

Samaritan's Purse IRS Form 990 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)

This source names Samaritans directly: "ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer's digitised reproduction of the filed IRS Form 990 for Samaritan's Purse (EIN 58-1437002, Boone, North Carolina)."

Source Samaritan's Purse IRS Form 990 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)Samaritan's Purse (filed with the US Internal Revenue Service, reproduced by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)

The Samaritans: A Profile

This source names Samaritans directly: "Reinhard Pummer's profile is an outside academic account of the Samaritan community, covering its script, scripture, doctrine including the expected Taheb, and its sacred site at Mount Gerizim..."

Source The Samaritans: A ProfileReinhard Pummer

Wikipedia, Samaritans (source)

This source names Samaritans directly: "Wikipedia's article on Samaritans, a continuously edited tertiary source with no fixed publication year, accessed 2026-08-20."

Source Wikipedia, Samaritans (source)Wikipedia contributors