Talk:Samaritans

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I would like to achieve a proper consensus on the matter. TL;DR, in the following paragraph, revert "Palestine" back to "the land"
The paragraph in question: 
::Samaritan tradition states that they descend from the northern Israelite tribes who were not deported by the Neo-Assyrian Empire after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria). Samaritans attribute the schism between them and Judaism to have been caused by Eli, who they say created an alternate shrine at Shiloh, in opposition to Mount Gerizim. Samaritans consider Mount Gerizim (near both Nablus and biblical Shechem), and not the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to be the holiest place on Earth. They believe that Samaritanism is the true religion of the ancient Israelites, preserved by those Israelites who remained in Palestine during the Babylonian captivity; and regard Judaism, the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, as a closely related but altered and amended religion brought back by Judeans returning from Babylonian captivity.
The sentence previously changed to "Palestine" from "the land".
This has been disputed because:
:(a) the sentence refers to what Samaritans believe
:(b) Palestine as a popular geographical toponym among scholars in the last 2000 years contains modern connotations. 
A question has been raised: "How do Samaritans refer to their land?". I couldn't find a solid answer to this question. With that, it was agreed by several editors to change it to something neutral such as "Samaria" or " their homeland". 
I would suggest reverting back to "the land" since it has already been stated at the beginning of the paragraph that they believe they are from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), so it is clear that "the land" refers to the territory of that kingdom.
This does not mean that the Palestine toponym has no place in this article because clearly, it does! Palestine is the common English name for the land. It is convenient to use "Palestine" and it is no problem when describing Samaritans from an academic perspective. Therefore, in the next paragraph where it says:
::In the 12th century, the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela estimated that only around 1,900 Samaritans remained in the regions of Palestine and Syria
We need not change anything, because "the region of Palestine" is strictly an intuitive toponym for the land. "Land of Israel" is clearly not a proper name to use in English or from an academic perspective, unless we are strictly speaking about people who use this term (which is apparently not the case).
Please state whether you support my proposition, agree in principle but have a different proposition, or disagree.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 09:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There seems like there is the possibility of bypassing the issue altogether by simply saying something like: "...preserved by those Israelites who were not taken to Babylon" (the short and simple option, which also avoids the double usage of the phase 'Babylonian captivity') or "...preserved by the Samaritans of the northern kingdom, who, unlike the Judahites of the southern kingdom, were not displaced to Babylon following the fall of Judah to Nebuchadnezzar II." Iskandar323 (talk) 10:24, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Bypass is good and I'm OK with the first one of those. Selfstudier (talk) 10:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment. I apologize if people here, stressed, feel that a bypass is in the offing for all and sundry to avoid a drastic drop from (un) natural causes in the Wikipedia IP constituency of editors. I go by sources, several of which say a population was taken from the area of Samaria and replaced by a foreign population which was relocated in the Assyrian province of Samerina (in Palestine, because it has a larger extension than the Biblical 'Samaria'). (2) People have forgotten that we have a template that allows for details - direct citation of the references used - to be placed in  footnotes. (c) I think editors should think twice before creating an I/P precedent for the thesis some maintain here: that Palestine is unacceptable as a neutral descriptive term for Middle Eastern articles on history prior to the Roman conquest - which is utterly bizarre. Were that precedent established we would have a crowd of three of four POV pushing warriors rushing in to mechanically erase the term from hundreds of articles.Nishidani (talk) 10:55, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record then, this is a strictly local consensus (if one is reached) not applicable to any other article. Selfstudier (talk) 10:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: This particular statement is already couched in terms of  and does not imply objectivity. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:20, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: As implied in the initial statement, this does not change the legitimacy of the term "Palestine" anywhere else, but simply in the place where it says what Samaritans believe. I agree with  that this is a one-case matter and not strictly a precedant. Seemingly we have a unique case here.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 15:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

text: "preserved by those Israelites who were not taken to Babylon" Entirely misleading phrase. The Israelites were not relocated to Babylon. The article on the Babylonian captivity states that only a percentage of the population of the Kingdom of Judah was relocated, and that there is no evidence for a wide disruption in the population of the area.:
**"Although Jerusalem was destroyed and depopulated, with large parts of the city remaining in ruins for 150 years, numerous other settlements in Judah continued to be inhabited, with no signs of disruption visible in archaeological studies." Dimadick (talk) 15:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't know why we are confusing events in Samaria in 720 BCE with events in Judea well over a century later. The only nexus is that Judah was an ally of the Assyrians in the earlier period, an alliance forged after Israel/the northern kingdom of Samaria attacked Judah a decade earlier, and Tiglath-Pileser 111 intervened to defend Judea against the Israelites of the north.Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree with that, if we are to bypass by rephrasing, it should be constructed from scholarly work. This is why I suggested a consensus only for the "Palestine"->"the land" matter - not becuase it is very important, but to prevent edit-warring. The whole paragraph can be rephrased alltogether.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 15:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

text: The phraseology of "who were not taken to Babylon" is just the mirror image of the current "who remained in Palestine" - it was just a proposed editorial fix to the current imbroglio. I did not say it was perfect, or that it precluded further fixing: both are equally vague on the actual populations involved. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem here is that they were supposedly deported by Assyria and not Babylon. This is why I suggest just changing it back to "the land", which as implied earlier in the paragraph is the territory of Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)--Bolter21 (talk to me) 11:01, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't agree and all this is a distraction anyway, allow Nishidani to continue his interrupted good work on the article and then deal with this and anything else that's contested. Selfstudier (talk) 11:11, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely of this opinion now that it seems possible that the article has some potentially glaring contradictions. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

text: I'm really confused now - I thought the Samarian narrative was all about remaining in place when the Judahites got taken to Babylon, and therefore remaining truer to the version of the religion that came before whatever religious experience the exilic lot had in the courts of Mesopotamia - does Samaritan tradition derive from not one, but two nexus points - the Assyrian invasion AND the Babylonian one - or is it just the Assyrian one as suggested above? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  As far as Samaritans are concerned, the Babylonian exile of the Jews was a nexus in Jewish history.  The Samaritans sat back and watched events to the south unfold.  It's important to them because Samaritans trace those features of Judaism that differ from their own religion to the Jewish Babylonian exile period.Romomusicfan (talk) 12:52, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, anachronism. Do you want a shovellode of quotations stating that before 400 the use of 'Judaism' is an anachronism. apart from a thread showing the egregious errors I n what you wrote are based on unfamiliarity with the topic? The Babylonian exile was one that affected Judeans, who earlier had 'sat back and watched as the Samarian Israelites' fought Assyria. Judah was a tributary state and ally of Assyria in the first of the Samaritan deportations in the late 800s. Proof once more than people air their 'knowledge' on the basis of glimpses over related wiki articles which are worthless as summaries of contemporary scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 15:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  According to Samaritans, it was not a nexus point in their own history - they just carried on through that period.  Samaritans - as outside obsevers - consider it a nexus point in Jewish history as they trace certain dissimilarities between the two religions to this point and the influence of Babylonians.  The Assyrian invasion however was a nexus point for Samaritans as at this point they were (part of) the remainder of the subtraction of exiles from (Northern) Israel.Romomusicfan (talk) 15:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the point of all this. All the page is interested in is what reliable scholarship states or argues. Unless editors can cite chapter and verse from that source, they are opinionizing, as here. It's not a forum.Nishidani (talk) 17:07, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was originally replying to Iskandar323's question.  Come to that, my second post on this thread was also basically a further reply to Iskandar323.  But never mind.  Romomusicfan (talk) 17:27, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

text:  Agreed re. Eli and Chronicles.  The Jewish return from Babylon is regarded by Samaritans (as outside observers of the phenomenon of Judaism) as one stage of several in the (d)evolution of Judaism away from what they would regard as proper Israelitism (i.e Samaritanism). Romomusicfan (talk) 09:02, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, definitely in favour of the removal of the anachronistic use of "Palestine" to refer to the Babylonian Cisjordan.  (I have no objection to any other references to Palestine in the article, just that one.) Romomusicfan (talk) 09:02, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

text: This is fine to me. This whole paragraph has big claims and lacks proper sources. I didn't see it repeated in the article. Per WP:LEAD.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 08:51, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

text: In Judaism, I find this:  'Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Israelites, their ancestors.' Compare and Contrast with the wording you have suggested for this article.  They believe that Samaritanism is the true religion of the ancient Israelites, and regard mainstream Judaism as a closely related but altered religion.  I suggest that this article as a whole should use phrases such as 'Samaritan traditions state that' or 'Samaritans consider' rather than the presently over used phrases such as 'believe' and 'claim'. This will help ensure NPOV in the rival claims of the two groups, and religions, in which wikipedia can have no stance. Therefore the wording I would suggest would be closer to        Samaritans consider their religion to be the true religion of the ancient Israelites, regarding mainstream Judaism as a closely related but altered religion. RegardsPngeditor (talk) 15:53, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed re. "claim" but I don't see anything too wrong with "believe".Romomusicfan (talk) 08:41, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reconciliation of a paragraph in the lead section 

message: Well it's been sorted now.  Thanks one and all.Romomusicfan (talk) 09:08, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Resolved

message: There material on the Samaritan revolts needs a lot of work and better sourcing, both here and on the Samaritan revolts page. In this diff, material on the aftermath of the revolts was added to the lead, but I checked and the body barely mentions any of this and certainly not with these words. The last paragraph of the section of the page on Byzantine times comes the closest, but this is unsourced, and the material is only covered in a marginally better manner on the main page. As I mentioned in my edit summary, there's some way to go before we can stand up the removed statement. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:23, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Samaritan revolts

message: In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews  we have this Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים, ISO 259-2: Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites and Hebrews  And in this  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites   The Jews and the Samaritans are descendants of the ancient Israelites.  Therefore I cannot see why this Samaritans article should have this  Samaritans (/səˈmærɪtənz/; Samaritan Hebrew: ࠔࠠࠌࠝࠓࠩࠉࠌ‎,romanized: Šā̊merīm, transl. Guardians/Keepers [of the Torah]; Hebrew: שומרונים, romanized: Šōmrōnīm; Arabic: السامريون, romanized: as-Sāmiriyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group who claim descendance from the ancient Israelites.    In both cases, NPOV and consistency between articles should result in the rewording as follows.           Samaritans (/səˈmærɪtənz/; Samaritan Hebrew: ࠔࠠࠌࠝࠓࠩࠉࠌ‎,romanized: Šā̊merīm, transl. Guardians/Keepers [of the Torah]; Hebrew: שומרונים, romanized: Šōmrōnīm; Arabic: السامريون, romanized: as-Sāmiriyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group who descend from the ancient Israelites.  AND   Samaritans descend from the northern Israelite tribes who were not deported by the Neo-Assyrian Empire after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel. Evidence for both Jewish and Samaritan claims to their origins needs to be treated the same.Pngeditor (talk) 07:07, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: In all instances, the language of 'originate' is probably the more appropriate, since 'descent' is a murkier concept and probably needs the 'claim' caveat. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:15, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Britannica uses the phrasing:  Iskandar323 (talk) 07:28, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I replaced descend with originate, as suggested.Pngeditor (talk) 08:12, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think this edit might be taking things too far.  There are some possible euphemisms for claiming descent, but simply treating their views as unchallenged "Samaritans descend from ..." is simply taking up a non-NPOV for the Samaritans, which is not the same as NPOV, esepcially as there are other points of view (Jewish version, secular scolarship etc) 2.24.71.91 (talk) 02:01, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

text: I made an edit, and, as noted in the summary, I think 'originate' works well in the first paragraph, but the second paragraph starts with several claims and assumptions, not a single simple one about descent, so I think the original wording of 'Samaritan tradition claims...' is preferable. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:34, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks Iskandar. Samaritan traditions should be respected, but they shouldn't be treated as unchallenged fact. 2.24.71.91 (talk) 05:44, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Samaritan traditions should be treated in exactly the same manner as Jewish traditions.Pngeditor (talk) 09:55, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

text: @Nishidani: Both articles now use similar 'origination' language in the first paragraph. What are you proposing? A change here, there or in both articles? The main point raised in this thread was about consistency, and it seemed a fair one. While both groups may have originated in a religion, not an ethnos, did not the religions themselves originate in an ethnos - therefore whether or not the ethnos now remains the same ethnos as then, via the conduit of faith, does not the origin remain? Iskandar323 (talk) 13:19, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'ethnos' was formed by the 'religion'- not in our modern sense of the word 'religion' -and not the other way around. The religion itself required a millennium to find its definitive formulation. Ethnos is widely used of course, but to my ear it is a word which neatly retains, euphemistically, while eliding (the German word is aufheben) the idea of race, is very much a modern notion. Dozens of clan-structured tribes roamed, settled, mixed and fought throughout the earlier period over this porose territory, Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Ivri, Canaanites, Israelites etc.etc. - the Bible is perplexingly full of them - and what they shared was a basic north-western Semitic language, with dialect differences. Language is what counts, not an ethnos in the erratic common acceptation of a genetically uniform people.  At one point, several groups coalesced under a Yahweh/El credo, residually polytheistic nonetheless, with a specific lifestyle in part dictated by dietary discriminations and were united under some kind of polity  which broke into two regional 'houses', like that of Omri or perhaps 'David'. Exogamy was particularly favoured by the latter, and eventually a specific Judaean identity in Judea formed, mostly defined by a priestly elite with a prepossessing concern to make their own exile, with all that implied, the defining myth of their place, and compulsively, all those who looked to them for guidance, in the world. They started the idea of pure line of descent that still afflicts our thinking, and the Samaritans resident in the former northern Israelitic kingdom formed, in this biblical and rabbinical mythopoetic thinking, the foil against which this new Judaicness was to be defined, hence the material of the 'mongrelization' of their adversaries, the Samaritans, all the more intense because of the profound affinities. As Mason pointed out 15 years ago, 'The Ioudaioi (strictly speaking 'Judaeans' not Jews) of the Graeco-Roman world remained an ἔθνος: a people associated with a place and its customs—no matter how far, or how long, they had been away from Judaea.' (Steve Mason's Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History, Journal for the Study of Judaism 2007 38(4-5):457-512, p.511-512) I.e., the culture and its territorial cult determined their identity, not their 'ethnos' (in the modern sense), which in any case has always been polymorphic, and a very substantial part of the modern Jewish populations did not originate from there except if you are inclined to believe that one ancestor in antiquity with a Middle Eastern background, trumps all others who via marriage in the long line of descent ended up under the Jewish umbrella, and that single hypothesized primal ancestor among hundreds must be the definer of who you really are, if you are a Jew, while the other ancient contributors to one's ancestry, from different ethnoi, don't count - a ubiquitous but infantile argument. If anything, the Samaritans have far stronger claims to 'originate' from Israel/Palestine than anyone else there. They all appear to have practiced strict endogamy for millennia, dying out when they didn't, unlike the Jews, whose success perhaps also lies in their diasporic promiscuity. But this is waffle and this is not a forum. The point is, there is a dyscrasy between the two pages dealing with two peoples associated with Judea/Israel, in a context where Jewish polemics about Samaritan ethnic/racial inauthenticity dominate to challenge their foundation myth, whilst this doesn't hold for the Jewish narrative, which is just as much mythical, when not sheer rhetorical and emotional confusion Nishidani (talk) 15:56, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Samaritan and Jewish relationship to Israelites