The Samaritans.

I learned this today in class and I just want to pass it along...

I know that we have all heard about how much the Jews hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jews, but do we understand why? It all goes back to a misunderstanding that occurred in the time of Nehemiah. When the temple was being rebuilt again at the end of the Old Testament, there were Jews living in Samaria and Jews living in Jerusalem. The Samaritan Jews thought that when Nehemiah built the wall around the Temple in Jerusalem, he was telling them that they were not allowed to come and worship there. You see, back in the time of the kings of the Old Testament and the Babylonian exile, all of the Jews lived in Samaria/Babylon. The Jews that stayed there and intermarried when the exile was over became the Samaritan Jews of the New Testament; they were looked down upon for intermarrying, but they were still Jews. So after Nehemiah built the wall around the Temple, the Samaritan Jews built their own Temple on Mount Gerizim (John 4:20).

This is why it was so significant in John 4 when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman...not only because it was a man talking to a woman, but because they were supposed to hate each other with a hundreds-of-years old hatred. I just think that is significant.