Samaritan Self-Consciousness in the First Half of the Second Century b.c.e. in Light of the Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim and Delos

Abstract

Yitzhak Magen and his team have secured 395 inscriptions and fragments of inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic on the summit of Mount Gerizim. The number of inscriptions in one place is noteworthy, and calls for attention. Another find was made on the island of Delos in the Aegean Sea. Two inscriptions which praise benefactors for their support for the "Israelites who send their temple tax to Argarizein" were uncov ered. The author suggests a new understanding of these inscriptions, and by reading them together it is possible to have a unique glimpse of how early Samaritan selfconsciousness took shape by distancing itself from the Jewish position. Many of the phrases in the Gerizim corpus find parallels in comparable material from Egypt, the Sinai peninsula, Mesopotamia and Turkey. The phrase "in this place," however, has no parallels in other inscriptions, and together with the references to the home village of the dedicators this gives an impression of a community dedicated to their own place of worship, Mount Gerizim, and living in its vicinity. The community behind the Delos inscriptions term themselves "Israelites," and directs their religious focus towards Mount Gerizim. This is the earliest attestation of this name for the Samaritans. Keywords Gerizim -Delos -inscriptions -Samaritans -self-consciousnessDuring the recent excavations on the summit of Mount Gerizim 395 inscrip tions and fragments of inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic were found.

Samaritans, Biblical Studies, and Ancient Judaism: Recent Trends

“…These inscriptions more than quadrupled our archive of relevant inscriptions from the period. A smaller corpus of inscriptions from Gerizim were excavated and published a few years prior (Magen, Misgav, and Tsefania 2000), but the most famous Samaritan inscriptions are two Greek examples from Hellenistic Delos which include the Greek transcription Argarizein from the Hebrew (Bruneau 1982; Kartveit 2014; White 1987).…”

Land/Homeland, Story/History

“…22.6). 15 It was, initially, small and physically modest, but that changed in the first half of the second century BCE, when there appear some 395 inscriptions in Aramaic, Hebrew, and also paleo-Hebrew (Magen, Misgav, and Tsfania 2004;Dušek 2012;Kartveit 2014). Many are carved on large architectural stones, such as columns or lintels, so that they would have been conspicuous parts of structures (Kartveit 2014: 456).…”

Theories of the Origin of the Samaritans—Then and Now

“…The inscriptions from Mount Gerizim and from Delos witness to a developed self-consciousness in the early second Century BCE, rejecting Jerusalem as a place of worship (Kartveit 2014a). Excavations and inscriptions show a functioning community centred on Mount Gerizim in the second century BCE, with roots in earlier periods.…”