Six Years after Currents: What's New in Samaritan Studies

Beskrivelse

In 2004, I wrote a status quaestonis article for Currents in Biblical Research vol. 3.1. In addition to giving information on recent achievements in the field, I also hoped to inspire scholars to a greater awareness of its necessity for biblical studies in general, hence the title: "What do Jews and Samaritans have in Common: Recent Trends in Samaritan Studies". That the time was ripe for a new updating was clear from the fact that "the last two decades had nearly doubled the number of articles and books on Samaritan matters". Thus the 3^rd edition of A Samaritan Bibliography by Alan Crown and Reinhard Pummer that came in 2005 lists about two thousand more entries than Crown's first edition of the book from 1984. Some of these entries refer to congress volumes and articles that have been published from congresses held by Société D'Etudes Samaritaines. From a very ambitious 1^st volume, The Samaritans, edited by Allan Crown in 1989, which brilliantly covered most fields of Samaritan Studies and still offers a good starting point for new comers in the field, succeeding volumes have continued discussions raised therein. Two major new achievements have considerably added to these discussions. One is the renewed excavation on Mt. Gerizim conducted by the Israeli archaeologist Yitzhaq Magen since 1984. The excavation uncovered hitherto unknown Hellenistic period structures of the ancient temple city of Luzah consisting of about 10.000 inhabitants around a huge temple complex. This complex, however, rested on the foundations of a smaller temple, which Magen dated to the fifth century BCE. Among the finds were many coins and about 500 marble inscriptions from the Hellenistic period. The second achievement that affects our understanding of Samaritan history is the re-evaluation of Judah and Judaeans in the neo-Babylonian, Persian and Fourth century BCE, published by Eisenbrauns in three congress volumes (2003, 2006 and 2007) with Oded Lipschits as the main editor. Many more publications have appeared in the last decade, which supply scholars with tools for textual, linguistic and historical studies. Some of these will be presented in greater detail during the session.