Samaria

About Samaria

Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel, was built by King Omri around 880 BC (1Ki. 16:24). The city served as the royal residence and the center of political power for the northern kingdom until its fall to the Assyrians in 722 BC (2Ki. 17:5-6). After the Assyrian conquest, the region of Samaria was repopulated with people from various parts of the Assyrian Empire (2Ki. 17:24), who intermarried with the remaining Israelites and became known as Samaritans.

The Samaritans developed their own religious practices, which combined elements of Israelite tradition with foreign customs (2Ki. 17:26-28). They worshipped at Mount Gerizim instead of Jerusalem (Jhn. 4:20) and accepted only the first five books of the Bible as authoritative.

In the New Testament, Jesus encountered a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (Jhn. 4:7-26) and used a Samaritan as an example of compassion in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luk. 10:33). The early church spread to Samaria through the ministry of Philip (Act.8.5-25), and the apostles Peter and John later visited the region (Act.8.14-17).

Throughout the Bible, Samaria and the Samaritans are often portrayed as being in tension with the Jews due to religious and cultural differences (Jhn. 4:9; 8:48). However, Jesus and the early church demonstrated that the gospel was meant for all people, including the Samaritans.

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.