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Like Jews and Christians, the Samaritans worship the biblical God (Judaism). But their Holy Scripture consists only of the Pentateuch, whose religious laws they observe as the Jews do. Christian interest in them rests not merely in the fact that there is reference to them in the NT (Luke 10:30–37; 17:16–18; John 4:4–42; Acts 8:4–25). Knowledge of their origin and religion helps us also to understand the development of Jewish religion. On the assumption that at central points (esp. law, priesthood, and eschatology) their religion preserves the state…

[German Version] A mountain (940 m) situated northeast of Nablus/Shechem opposite Mt Gerizim. According to Deut 27:4 (where the Samaritan Pentateuch and Old Latin have Gerizim!), an altar was to have been erected ¶ on Mt Ebal (according to Deut 11:29 [MT], the mount of the curse), not on Gerizim (mount of the blessing), and according to Josh 8:30 (in the LXX 9:2) this was done. Ebal may have replaced Gerizim in the MT for cult-polemic, indeed anti-Samaritan, reasons. For 4QJoshuaa, Gilgal seems to have been the site for the altar. On the northern slo…

[German Version] (Arab. Ǧebel eṭ-Ṭūr) is the “mount of blessing” (881 m) situated across from Mount Ebal, south of Nablus/Shechem, whose cultic significance is attested literarily (Deut 11:29; 27:4 [Samaritan Pentateuch], 12; Josh 8:33 and Judg 9:7; Samaria) and archaeologically. The cultic site (altar) in Ḫirbet et-Tananir is Bronze Age. The results of excavations on the high plateau of Gerizim itself: remnants of a gate structure from the Persian era and a fortified settlement (roughly 40 hectares) from the Hellenistic era (c. 200 bce) and a sacred precinct destroyed under J…