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185 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA SAMARIA ea-meri-a, SAMARITANS. I. The Region. I. Origin and History. Other Early Writings (§ 2). Name and History (§ 1). Origins (¢ 1). 4. Literature on the Samaritans. Area and Roads (§ 2). Josephus' Account (§ 2). On the History of the Samaritans Shechem and Neighboring Cities History to 66 A.D. (§ 3). (§ 1). (§ 3). Later History (§ 4). On the Sacred or Semi-sacred Books The City Samaria (§ 4). 2. Doctrine. (§ 2). Other Inland Cities (§ 5). 3. Language and Literature. On Manuscripts and Other Works Cities of Western Samaria (§ 6). Pentateuch, Targum, and Arabic (§ 3). II. The People. Translations (§ 1).

L The Region: Samaria denotes both the central region of Palestine, between Judea and Galilee, and the capital of this district. From the time of Omri the city of Samaria became the

z. Name capital of the northern kingdom of and History. Israel, so that the city-name was ex tended to the entire country (e.g., I Kings xiii. 32; II Kings xvii. 24, 26, 28; Jer. xxxi. 5; Hos. vii. 1; Amos viii. 14). The people dwelling in the land of Samaria were called Samaritans (II Kings xvii. 29). A similar usage is found in the Assyrian 8amerina, connoting both the city and the land. When the city received the name of Sebaste from Herod the Great in 27 B.C., Samaria was in application restricted to the district. The Arab conquest destroyed all traces of the name, except among occidentals and in learned language. The oldest form of the name, given in the Masso retie text as Shomeron, seems to have Shameran (cf. I Kings xvi. 24, and the Assyr. Samerina, the Aram. Shamerayin of Ezra iv. 10, 17, and the Gk. Sam dreia). Originally synonymous with the kingdom of Israel, the area of Samaria varied with the for tunes of that kingdom. In 734-733 Tiglath-pileser so limited the territory that Hoshea retained only the small district from Judah to the plain of Jez reel (cf. II Kings xv. 29, xvii. 24 sqq.; Ezra iv. 10). The rapid decline of Assyria. after 640 seems to have enabled Judah to extend its power over this region (cf. II Kings xxiii. 15, 19 sqq.; II Chron. xxxiv. 6-7), which it quickly lost after the battle of Megiddo (608). The Seleucid Demetrius II. de tached three districts hitherto belonging to Sa maria (Apherema, Lydda, and Ramathaim) and gave them to the Hasmonean Jonathan (145 B.C.). In 128 B.C. John Hyrcanus subdued the whole of Samaria and united it with the Judean kingdom; but in 63 B.C. Pompey freed Samaria and incorpo rated it with the new province of Syria. " Sama ria " in this case means the city and the region from Judah to the plain of Jezreel, excepting Scythopolis and Carmel. In 30 B.C. Hcrod received Samaria from Augustus, and after the tetrarch's death it, together with Judea and Idumea, was placed under the control of his son Archelaus. In 6 A.D. these three districts formed part of the province of Syria, though they were governed by a special procurator at Cmarea, except in 41-44, when Samaria and its vicinity were in the dominion of Agrippa. On the outbreak of the Jewish revolt, Samaria was given to Vespasian as a part of the province of Judea, and its fortunes were henceforth identical with those of Palestine.

The boundaries of Samaria to the east and west may be regarded as the Jordan and the declivities

of the mountain district respectively. During the

period of the dominion of Israel the mountain

district was inhabited by the tribes

z. Area and of Ephraim and Manasseh (Josh. xvi.

Roads. xvii.); Josh.xvii.14-18 implies that the

tribe of Joseph spread to the southern

region west of the Jordan. Josh. xvii.16, 18 implies

another advance of the tribe of Joseph, this time

to the north, possibly to the southern border of tue

great plain to the range of Yazid. Here lay, ac

cording to Judges i., the cities of Beth-shear, Ib

leam, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor, which later came

under the sway of Israel, even though they were not

actually occupied by Israelitic stocks (Josh. xvii.

11-13). According to Josh. xvii. 11, the district of

Manasseh extended along the southern side of the

plain of Jezreel from the Jordan (Beth-sheen) to the

Mediterranean (Dor), and was consequently more

than thirty-six miles wide. The length of the dis

trict of Ephraim was from north to south be

tween twenty-one and twenty-four miles and the

territory embraced the richest and most fertile por

tions of the mountain district (Josh. xvi. 6--8, xvii.

7-10; cf. Deut. xxxiii. 13-16). The region of

Ephraim, whose southern boundary has been given

in the article JUDEA (q.v.), stretched eighteen miles

from north to south, and thirty miles from the Jor

dan on the east to the plain of Sharon on the west.

It was thus inferior to Manasseh both in area and

in fertility. Apparently there was no strict line of

demarcation between the districts of Manasseh and

of Ephraim (Josh. xvi. 9, xvii. 8). Samaria was

crossed by important highways. The continuation

of the road to the coast cut through the northwest

corner of Samaria from Megiddo in the direction of

Lydda; and another branch of the same road reached

Samaria by way of Jezreel near the present Janin,

where it again divided. One of these latter roads

reached the highway to Egypt at Kafr Kud, while

the other ran southward to the cities of Samaria

and Shechem. Shechem was at the junction of sev

eral important roads. From the south came the

road from Judea (Jerusalem) by way of Bethel,

from the southwest a road from Jaffa, and from the

southeast a road from Jericho by way of the Wadi

al-Humr and the plain of al-Mahnah. To the north

west, through the Wadi al-Sha'ir, a road led to Dor

and later to Cwsarea, while to the northeast ran a

road to Scythopolis, which was joined in the upper

portion of the Wadi Far'ah by a road from the ford

of the Jordan near Adams. The southern ranges of

Samaria, on the other hand, were far less accessible.

The ancient center of the district was Shechem,

which lay on the watershed not quite a mile east of

the modern Nablus. Its pre-Israelitic mhabitants