Samaria
Samaria, the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron, is used as a historical and biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south, Galilee to the north, the Jordan River to the east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The region is known in Arabic under two names, Samirah, and Mount Nablus.
The first-century historian Josephus set the Mediterranean Sea as its limit to the west, and the Jordan River as its limit to the east. Its territory largely corresponds to the biblical allotments of the tribe of Ephraim and the western half of Manasseh. It includes most of the region of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, which was north of the Kingdom of Judah. The border between Samaria and Judea, while historically fluid, is set at the latitude of Ramallah.
The name "Samaria" is derived from the ancient city of Samaria, capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel. The name Samaria likely began being used for the entire kingdom not long after the town of Samaria had become Israel's capital, but it is first documented after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which incorporated the land into the province of Samerina.
Samaria was used to describe the northern midsection of the land in the UN Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947. It became the administrative term in 1967, when the West Bank was defined by Israeli officials as the Judea and Samaria Area, of which the entire area north of the Jerusalem District is termed as Samaria. In 1988, Jordan ceded its claim of the area to the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 1994, control of Areas 'A' and 'B' were transferred by Israel to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority and the international community do not recognize the term "Samaria"; in modern times, the territory is generally known as part of the West Bank.
Etymology
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew name "Shomron" is derived from the individual Shemer, from whom King Omri purchased the hill on which he built his new capital city of Shomron.The fact that the mountain was called Shomeron when Omri bought it may indicate that the correct etymology of the name is to be found more directly in the Semitic root for "guard", hence its initial meaning would have been "watch mountain". In the earlier cuneiform inscriptions, Samaria is designated under the name of "Bet Ḥumri" ; but in those of Tiglath-Pileser III and later it is called Samirin, after its Aramaic name, Shamerayin.
Historical boundaries
Northern kingdom to Hellenistic period
In Nelson's Encyclopaedia, the Samaria region in the three centuries following the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, i.e. during the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian periods, is described as a "province" that "reached from the sea to the Jordan Valley".Roman-period definition
The classical Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote:During the first century, the boundary between Samaria and Judea passed eastward of Antipatris, along the deep valley which had Beth Rima and Beth Laban on its southern, Judean bank; then it passed Anuath and Borceos, identified by Charles William Wilson as the ruins of 'Aina and Khirbet Berkit; and reached the Jordan Valley north of Acrabbim and Sartaba. Tall Asur also stands at that boundary.
Geography
The area known as the hills of Samaria is bounded by the Jezreel Valley; by the Jordan Rift Valley ; by the Carmel Ridge ; by the Sharon plain ; and by the Jerusalem mountains.The Samarian hills are not very high, seldom reaching the height of over. Samaria's climate is more hospitable than the climate further south.
There is no clear division between the mountains of southern Samaria and northern Judea.
History
Over time, the region has been controlled by numerous different civilizations, including Canaanites, Israelites, Neo-Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks.Israelite tribes and kingdoms
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites captured the region known as Samaria from the Canaanites and assigned it to the Tribe of Joseph. The southern part of Samaria was then known as Mount Ephraim. After the death of King Solomon, the northern tribes, including Ephraim and Menashe, separated themselves politically from the southern tribes and established the separate Kingdom of Israel. Initially its capital was Tirzah until the time of King Omri, who built the city of Samaria and made it his capital. Samaria functioned as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel until its fall to the Assyrians in the 720s. Hebrew prophets condemned Samaria for its "ivory houses" and luxury palaces displaying pagan riches.The archaeological record suggests that Samaria experienced significant settlement growth in Iron Age II. Archaeologists estimate that there were 400 sites, up from 300 during the previous Iron Age I. The people dwelt on tells, in small villages, farms, and forts, and in the cities of Shechem, Samaria and Tirzah in northern Samaria. Zertal estimated that about 52,000 people inhabited the Manasseh Hill in northern Samaria prior to the Assyrian deportations. According to botanists, the majority of Samaria's forests were torn down during the Iron Age II, and were replaced by plantations and agricultural fields. Since then, few oak forests have grown in the region.
Assyrian period
In the 720s, the conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser V of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which culminated in the three-year siege of the capital city of Samaria, saw the territory annexed as the Assyrian province of Samerina. The siege has been tentatively dated to 725 or 724 BC, with its resolution in 722 BC, near the end of Shalmaneser's reign. The first documented mention of the province of Samerina is from the reign of Shalmaneser V's successor Sargon II. This is also the first documented instance where a name derived from "Samaria", the capital city, was used for the entire region, although it is thought likely that this practice was already in place.Following the Assyrian conquest, Sargon II claimed in Assyrian records to have deported 27,280 people to various places throughout the empire, mainly to Guzana in the Assyrian heartland, as well as to the cities of the Medes in the eastern part of the empire. The deportations were part of a standard resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to deal with defeated enemy peoples. The resettled people were generally treated well as valued members of the empire and transported together with their families and belongings. At the same time, people from other parts of the empire were resettled in the depopulated Samerina. The resettlement is also called the Assyrian captivity in Jewish history and provides the basis for the narrative of the Ten Lost Tribes.
Babylonian and Persian periods
According to many scholars, archaeological excavations at Mount Gerizim indicate that a Samaritan temple was built there in the first half of the 5th century BCE. The date of the schism between Samaritans and Jews is unknown. Much of the anti-Samaritan polemic in the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical texts originate from this point and on.Hellenistic period
During the Hellenistic period, Samaria was largely divided between a Hellenizing faction based around the town of Samaria and a pious faction in Shechem and surrounding rural areas, led by the High Priest.Samaria was a largely autonomous province nominally dependent on the Seleucid Empire. However, the province gradually declined as the Maccabean movement and Hasmonean Judea grew stronger. The transfer of three districts of Samaria— Ephraim, Lod and Ramathaim—under the control of Judea in 145 BCE as part of an agreement between Jonathan Apphus and Demetrius II is one indication of this decline. Around 110 BCE, the decline of Hellenistic Samaria was complete, when the Jewish Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus destroyed the cities of Samaria and Shechem, as well as the city and temple on Mount Gerizim. Only a few stone remnants of the Samaritan temple exist today.
Roman period
In 6 CE, Samaria became part of the Roman province of Iudaea, following the death of King Herod the Great.Southern Samaria reached a peak in settlement during the early Roman period, partly as a result of the Hasmonean dynasty's settlement efforts. The impact of the Jewish–Roman wars is archaeologically evident in Jewish-inhabited areas of southern Samaria, as many sites were destroyed and left abandoned for extended periods of time. After the First Jewish-Roman War, the Jewish population of the area decreased by around 50%, whereas after the Bar Kokhba revolt, it was completely wiped out in many areas. According to Klein, the Roman authorities replaced the Jews with a population from the nearby provinces of Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia. An apparent new wave of settlement growth in southern Samaria, most likely by non-Jews, can be traced back to the late Roman and Byzantine eras.
New Testament references
The New Testament mentions Samaria in Luke 17:11–2, 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 8:1, it is recorded that the early community of disciples of Jesus began to be persecuted in Jerusalem and were 'scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria'. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached and healed the sick there. In the time of Jesus, Iudaea of the Romans was divided into the toparchies of Judea, Samaria, Galilee and the Paralia. Samaria occupied the centre of Iudaea. In the Talmud, Samaria is called the "land of the Cuthim".Byzantine period
Following the bloody suppression of the Samaritan Revolts against the Byzantine Empire, which resulted in death, displacement, and conversion to Christianity, the Samaritan population dramatically decreased. In the central parts of Samaria, the vacuum left by departing Samaritans was filled by nomads who gradually became sedentarized.The Byzantine period is considered the peak of settlement in Samaria, as in other regions of the country. Based on historical sources and archeological data, the Manasseh Hill surveyors concluded that Samaria's population during the Byzantine period was composed of Samaritans, Christians, and a minority of Jews. The Samaritan population was mainly concentrated in the valleys of Nablus and to the north as far as Jenin and Kfar Othenai; they did not settle south of the Nablus-Qalqiliya line. Christianity slowly made its way into Samaria, even after the Samaritan revolts. With the exception of Neapolis, Sebastia, and a small cluster of monasteries in central and northern Samaria, most of the population of the rural areas remained non-Christian. In southwestern Samaria, a significant concentration of churches and monasteries was discovered, with some of them built on top of citadels from the late Roman period. Magen raised the hypothesis that many of these were used by Christian pilgrims, and filled an empty space in the region whose Jewish population was wiped out in the Jewish–Roman wars.