Samaria (redirected from Shomron)

Samaria (səmâr`ēə), city, ancient Palestine, on a hill NW of modern-day Nablus (Shechem). The site is now occupied by a village, Sabastiyah (West Bank). Samaria (named for Shemer, who owned the land) was built by King Omri as the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel in the early 9th cent. B.C. The scene of the wickedness of Omri's son Ahab and Ahab's wife Jezebel, Samaria was considered a place of iniquity by the Hebrew prophets. In the expansion of Assyria, Samaria fell in 721 B.C. to Sargon. The native population was deported, others were settled in its place, and the city was made the capital of an Assyrian province. (1 Kings 16.23–33; 20.1–21; 2 Kings 6.24–33; 10.17–28; 13.9–13; 17). It was destroyed in 120 B.C. by John Hyrcanus and was rebuilt by Herod the Great, who called it Sebaste in honor of Emperor Augustus [Gr.,=Sebastos]. There Philip the Evangelist (see Philip, Saint) preached and the incident of Simon Magus occurred (Acts 8.5–24). According to tradition St. John the Baptist is buried there. Remains of a church of the Crusaders are in the city. Excavations (1908–10, 1931–35) uncovered fortifications and the palace of Omri, as well as ostraca, or potsherds, and ivories probably made by Phoenician artists. There are also extensive Roman remains. The city has given its name to the

Samaritans, of whom a small remnant still live at Nablus and Jaffa, Israel. The Samaritans are the descendants of non-Jewish colonists from Babylonia, Syria, and elsewhere who were settled in Samaria when the Israelites were deported (722 B.C.) In the Bible the Samaritans recognize only the Pentateuch and are even more scrupulous about observing its ordinances than are Orthodox Jews. They worship on Mt. Gerizim, where they had a temple in ancient times. The continual hatred between Jew and Samaritan apparently governed the choice of characters in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.30–37). The Samaritan language is a variety of Palestinian Aramaic (a Semitic language). The Samaritan manuscripts, although pre-Masoretic (see Masora) are not believed to be ancient, but they supply some useful variants of biblical passages.

Bibliography

See J. W. Crowfoot et al., The Buildings of Samaria (1942) and The Objects from Samaria (1958); A. Parrot, Samaria (tr. 1958).

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Samaria

Central region, ancient Palestine. Extending about 40 mi (65 km) north-south and 35 mi (55 km) east-west, it was bounded by Galilee to the north, Judaea to the south, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the Jordan River to the east. It corresponds roughly to the northern portion of the modern West Bank territory. Ancient Shechem (near modern Nabulus) was the region's crossroads and political centre until the Assyrian conquest of Israel in the 8th century BC. The town of Samaria, its capital, was built by King Omri c. 880 BC. It was taken by Sargon II in c. 724–721 BC, and its inhabitants were transported into captivity. It was rebuilt by Herod the Great, who renamed it Sebaste in honour of the Roman emperor Augustus (Greek, Sebastos). In AD 6 the region became part of the Roman province of Judaea.