Samaritans

a colony of Babylonians planted in Palestine by Sargon 722 B. C. The country of Samaria lay north of Judea and south of Galilee. The colonists brought with them some Babylonian religious ideas akin to those held by the Israelites whose home they were sent to possess. The men of Judah sent missionaries among them. The Samaritans never fused with the Jews, however. Christ speaks of the women of Samaria as though they were foreigners. They founded a sanctuary of their own on Mount Gerizim. Shechem, now the Turkish town of Nabulus at the foot of the mountain, was their first town. A few Samaritans, possibly half a hundred families, still linger in a quarter of the old city of Shechem. They hold to the idea of one and one only true God. They still make three pilgrimages a year to Mount Gerizim to celebrate the principal festivals of their religion. They hold to the five books of Moses, but reject the rest of the Bible.