50.2 Par'shah Ki'Tavo

[alon]

Name of Par’shah- 50.2 Ki’Tavo,
Par’shah- Deuteronomy 26:1-29:9
Haftara- Isaiah 60:1-22


D’rash: Deuteronomy 27:12a (NASB) “When you cross the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people:

This got me wondering, so I did a little research on why the Samaritans worship on Mt Gerazim. Turns out this is it. Mt Gerazim was regarded as a place of blessing.

Moses told the people there should be only one place of worship:

Deuteronomy 12:11b (NASB) … that the place in which the Lord your God will choose for His name to dwell, there you shall bring all that I command you: …

Melech Shlomo built the Temple for the Lord in Jerusalem as the one place of worship. God placed His blessing on it: “… I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. (1 Kings 9:3b)

After Israel was destroyed and most the people exiled, foreigners occupied Samaria and intermarried with the Jews left there. They tried to learn of this strange God of their new land, yet still they brought with them pagan practices. These were latter called Samaritans.

2 Kings 17:24a,26a, 27,29a (NASB)  The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons of Israel. … So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations whom you have carried away into exile in the cities of Samaria do not know the custom of the god of the land; …  Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Take there one of the priests whom you carried away into exile and let him go and live there; and let him teach them the custom of the god of the land.” … But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the houses of the high places which the people of Samaria had made

The Samaritans canon was only. So to them Deuteronomy 12:5 was authoritative “But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come.” However in the Samaritan it reads “to seek the place the Lord your God has chosen.” To the Samaritans, "the place" had already been chosen, and the location would be found in .

Samaritans used the following -based reasoning in support of their identification of Gerazim as the place:
- The first place Abraham built an altar after entering the Promised Land was in Shechem, overlooked by Mount Gerazim
- They were to shout the blessings from Mount Gerazim once they had entered the promised land (Dt. 11:29-30; 27:2-7, 12)
- Both instances of the 10 Commandments (Ex. 20:17, Dt. 5:21) in the Samaritan Bible are followed by words very similar to those found in Dt. 27:2-7, tying the Commandments themselves to Gerazim.
- The end of ch 11 alludes to the chosen place as Mount Gerazim
- Jerusalem was “chosen” several centuries after the Israelites entered the land. However, Deuteronomy 12:1 is clear that Moses instructions were to be followed as long as they dwelt in the land. Just a few verses later, 12:5          contains the first mention of the “place YHWH will choose.”
- Look at the instructions for the ceremony to be held on Mounts Ebal and Gerazim. They included sacrifices, which could only be done at the chosen place.
- In Exodus 15:17, in the song they sang after the miraculous sea crossing reads: ““You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, The place, O Lord, which You have made for Your dwelling, The     sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established.” This speaks of a location already known as the place The Lord had established for a residence. The first mention of the chosen place in Deuteronomy 12:5 also calls it     the place "the has chosen for his residence." 

They say the Judeans abandoned the original chosen place for their own political ends, wanting Jerusalem in their own land to be the chosen place. They then edited the text, changing what the Samaritans say was the original “has chosen” to “will chose,” as well as changing Gerazim to Ebal in Deuteronomy 27:4 where it talks of setting up the altar for sacrifices. Of course in their these things were “corrected.”

Samaritans claim Eli, from the disfavored line of Ithimar, coveted the high priesthood, but was unable to attain it. He and a group of supporters established both a counterfeit tabernacle and priesthood in Shiloh, which eventually was moved to Jerusalem and became a temple. Neither Jerusalem nor this temple were ever authorized in . Shechem, on the other hand was a special place to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the purpose of the exodus was to return there.

Samaritans apparently never got over the insult of being rebuffed when they asked to help rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and were refused. They played some dirty tricks on the Judeans over the years. Yerushalami Rosh Hashanah 2:1 tells that they sabotaged signal fires used to signal the New Moon. Festival dates were specific, so knowing the first day of the month was important. The Jews set up a system of signal fires so when the New Moon was observed in Jerusalem, the signal fire at the Temple would be lit. Watchmen at the first circle of fires would see this and they lit their fires. Then the second circle and so on. Thus the message spread quickly. Samaritans would light fires close to, just before the New Moon.

In a sense, we too hold as the only true canon. It is our base, the place we always return to for comparison to determine the truth of any writing. If it disagrees with any part of , then it is false. Interestingly enough, I got into a discussion with someone who’d been on staff at Wycliff (the Bible translators) and in the end got a confession that when sorting the over 5400 source manuscripts for the “New Testament,” most of which disagreed, the way they told which were best to use was to compare them to . Too bad they didn’t use this throughout their translation efforts.

However a canon is (according to my dictionary), “a group of literary works that are generally accepted as representing a field.” Essentially it is an approved list, in this case our 66 book Bible. Now we could argue for inclusion or deletion of certain books, and in fact many different churches have their own different canon. But the 66 book Protestant Bible is, for better or worse what we have as the closest to our own beliefs. So unlike the Samaritans we do read other books, counting them as scripture, and by them we know God did choose Yerushalayim as His Holy City. It is the City of David, through whose line Messiah was to come!

There had always been tension between the tribes, and even wars. However when the Jews returned from exile to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple and then to reoccupy the land there was a special animosity for these Jews who were the product of intermarriage and whose religious practices had been perverted. Samaritans were not allowed in the Temple, and so their best (as they saw it) option was to continue their worship on Gerazim. They were in effect another kind or type of Judaism, a trend that would soon spread until in Yeshua’s day there were many sects and a few different types.

[alon]

Jews referred to Samaritans as “kutim,” probably in reference to a location in Iraq from which exiles were brought to Samaria. (2 Kings 17:24-41) This redistribution of peoples created distinct groups occupying Samaria. Not everyone from the Northern Kingdom was exiled by the Assyrians. (2 Chronicles 30:1-31:6 ) Most remained and preserved the ancient Israelite traditions that differentiate their religion from the Judaean faith. Some intermarried. Many Jews did not intermarry, and a large group of Gentile Samaritans also did not intermarry. However after the plague of lions in 2 Kings (above) they asked for instruction about the god of this new land- small “g” because they did not see Him as “the” God of all things and all people. They worshiped El Elohe Yisroel, but also built alters and created idols for their own pagan gods.

Some Samaritans who remained faithful were indeed Israelites, but in Judaean thought they were half-bred. “Half Jews” was a common derogatory term for Samaritans.

Recall that ancient pagan practice was to worship the gods of the land you were in. This is one thing that differentiated the Elohei Yisroel from all other gods of the ancient world. Their God went with His people wherever they went. This is depicted in the Hebrew writings as God’s Mirkavah Throne which had one wheel on each of its four sides, indicating He could go anywhere. And the four winged angelic “beasts” with ten eyes who suported the throne each faced in one of the cardinal directions, indicating they saw everything. So God on His throne was Lord over all creation!

The Samaritans had their own writing, called “Samaritan Hebrew;” a script descended from ancient Paleo-Hebrew. Jewish Israelites adopted new square letters, part of the Aramaic alphabet.

Samaritans believed their version of to be original and the Jewish the one edited by Babylonian Jews. Judeans on the other hand said the Samaritan had been edited to reflect their own views. Jewish writings stressed the foreignness of the Samaritans; their religious practices and traditions contrasted to the true faith. Samaritans saw this as a denial of their right to inclusion with the people of Israel. They saw themselves as the faithful remnant, keepers of the ancient faith. Samaritans called themselves benei Yisroel “the sons of Israel” and shomrim “the keepers.”

Samaritans had always opposed worship of God in Jerusalem, believing they should worship on the place of YHVH-m’Kaddesh, God Who Sanctifies (Ex 31:13) covenantal blessing, Mt. Gerizim (Deu 27:12). A major reason for their rejecting the Nevi’im, the prophetic writings of the Judeans was they supported Jerusalem and the Davidic dynasty.

The Samaritans had a fourfold creed:
One God–YHWH,
One Prophet–Moses,
One Book–,
One Place–Mt. Gerizim.

1st cen Jews agreed there is but One God, YHVH. And they agreed Moshe was a prophet, but they believed there were others. They believed in as the basis for all scripture, however there were many other scriptural writings. There is a lot of academic debate as to when these writings were organized into a canon. But Judaens absolutely disagreed on Mt. Gerazim as the place of worship, believing instead that the Temple Mount in Yerushalayim was the center of worship.

Judeans and Samaritans believed the other had taken the wrong path, their religious practices heretical. This conflict in a very real sense defined the polemic of the first century. Judaism was very fractured, with many different sects, each believing theirs the true path which would bring about the coming of ha’moshiach. And as in this case there were even what might be termed “different Judaisms.”

An interesting point is the group who approached and were rejected by the returnees to help build the Jerusalem Temple (Ezra 4:1-2) were probably Gentile Samaritans who had never intermarried. Theologically the Samaritan remnant who had never intermarried could not have supported building a Temple in Jerusalem. Those who did intermarry could have fallen into either camp.

Samaritans also had sectarian differences at times. Apparently there were during the Byzantine period (295-634 CE) at least nine sects of Samaritans. Most were called Dositheans, and according to Eulogius of Alexandria (@ 582-603) this included 1 “Christian” sect. However there is some confusion since there was more than one Dositheus. According to Hegesippus, Dositheus lived later than Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24), the first heresiarch (the originator of a heresy or the leader of a group of heretics ) of the Church; Clement of Rome, Origen, and Epiphanius say he was the teacher of Simon. Origen says that Dositheus pretended to be the Christ, relating Deu 18:15 to himself. Origen also says Dositheus' disciples purported to possess texts by him and claimed he never suffered death. However Epiphanius claims he died of starvation in a cave, adding some of his disciples led loose lives; while others maintained a rigid morality, refraining from meat, observing ritual circumcision, rigorously keep the Sabbath, and observed the laws of Levitical purity.

Apparently however those left in Israel during the original diaspora were strong enough their version of the religion prevailed. The polytheism and idolatry did not last, and neither did many of the Dositheans and other sects. However Dositheus is credited with founding the contemporary version of Samaritanism. Today they are far more unified than traditional Judaism.

Samaritans bristle at the claims that their religion is the result of the mixing of peoples and religious practices of foreigners who the Assyrians brought in to replace the elites taken away in their first diaspora. And while contemporary Samaritanism does not include their pagan practices, the historical effects of paganism and intermarriage cannot be ignored. They also point out that scrolls found in Qumran cave #4 have texts that differ from the Masoretic text used by Judaism today. Since there were different texts at the time just before Yeshua, they claim this validates their own slightly different text.

There are four tenets of identification for a modern Samaritan:
Reside in the Holy Land
Participate in the sacrifice on Mt. Gerazim at Pesach
Keep Shabbat as commanded in
Adhere to the laws of ritual purity and impurity prescribed in