This paper discusses the problems and state of the Samaritan diaspora situation in Antiquity. It was difficult for contemporaries to distinguish between Jews and Samaritans therefore it is more difficult to decide today whether a diaspora was Jewish or Samaritan. Even so, there are regions of the Eastern Mediterraneum where a Samaritan diaspora can be defined, though no history of any of them can be sketched.
In 2003, the Biblical chairs of the Reformed Theological Academy of Papa, Hungary decided to inaugurate a research centre focusing especially on the history and literature of early Judaism and nascent Christianity ("Shime'on Centre for the Study of Hellenistic and Roman Age Judaism and Christianity"). Apart from promoting the study of this area in Middle Europe, a pre-eminent aim of the Centre is to organise international conferences, in order to provide a common ground for western scholars and those working on the more restricted research possibilities in the former "eastern bloc".One of the most promising projects of the Shime'on Centre is an international series of conferences on the deuterocanonicalliteraturethose early Jewish writings that belong to the Old Testament of the Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox churches, but are not considered canonical by the Protestants. The importance of this corpus is widely recognised in contemporary scholarship. This is marked by the growing number of related publications. Yet it remains important to create an opportunity to work through the entire deuterocanomcal material as such. The conferences-the proceedings of the fIrst of which are published in this volume-aim to provide a yearly forum for discuss of this literature. From year to year, in every Mayor June a conference will
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