Faces of Semite isolated groups (Samaritans & Mandaeans )
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant, descended from ancient
Semitic inhabitants of the region.
The Samaritans are adherents of Samaritanism, an
Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism.
Based on the
Samaritan Pentateuch,
Samaritans say that their worship is the true religion of the ancient
Israelites prior to the
Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the
Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism, which they say is a related but altered and amended religion, brought back by those returning from the
Babylonian exile.
Ancestrally, Samaritans claim descent from the
Israelite tribes of Ephraim and
Manasseh (the two sons of
Joseph (son of Jacob)) as well as from the priestly tribe of
Levi, who have links to ancient
Samaria from the period of their entry into the land of
Canaan, while some suggest that it was from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the
Samaritan polity of
Baba Rabba. Samaritans used to include a line of
Benjamin tribe, but it went extinct during the decline period of the Samaritan demographics. The split between them and their brothers; the children of Judah (the
Jews) began during
Eli the priest, and the culmination was during the
Kingdom of Israel and
Kingdom of Judah when the Samaritans (then Kingdom of Israel) refused to accept
Jerusalem as the elect, and remained on
Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans say that Mount Gerizim was the original
Holy Place of
Israel from the time that
Joshua conquered Israel. The major issue between Jews and Samaritans has always been the location of the chosen place to worship God; Jerusalem according to the
Jewish faith or Mount Gerizim according to the Samaritan version
.
In the Talmud, a central post-exilic religious text of Judaism, the Samaritans are called
Cutheans (
Hebrew: כותים,
Kutim), referring to the ancient city of
Kutha, geographically located in what is today
Iraq. In the biblical account, however,
Cuthah was one of several cities from which people were brought to Samaria, and they worshiped
Nergal.
Modern genetics suggests some truth to both the claims of the Samaritans and the account in the Talmud.
Once a large community of over a million in late
Roman times, the Samaritans shrank to several tens of thousands in the wake of the bloody suppression of the
Third Samaritan Revolt (529 AD) against the
Byzantine Christian rulers and mass conversion to
Islam in the
Early Muslim period of
Palestine.
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Mandaeans (Modern
Mandaic: מנדעניא Mandaʻnāye,
Arabic: الصابئة المندائيون aṣ-Ṣabi'a al-Mandā'iyūn) are an ethnoreligious group indigenous to the alluvial plain of southern
Mesopotamia and are followers of Mandaeism, a Gnostic religion. The Mandaeans were originally native speakers of Mandaic, a
Semitic language that evolved from
Eastern Middle Aramaic, before many switched to colloquial
Iraqi Arabic and
Modern Persian. Mandaic is mainly preserved as a liturgical language. During the century's first decade the indigenous Mandaic community of Iraq, which used to number 60--70,
000 persons, collapsed in the aftermath of the
Iraq War of 2003; most of the community relocated to nearby
Iran,
Syria and
Jordan, or formed diaspora communities beyond the
Middle East.
The other indigenous community of
Iranian Mandaeans has also been dwindling as a result of religious persecution over that decade.
There are several indications of the ultimate origin of the Mandaeans. Early religious concepts and terminologies recur in the
Dead Sea Scrolls, and "Jordan" has been the name of every baptismal water in Mandaeism. This connection with early baptismal sects in the eastern Jordan region and the elements of
Western Syrian in the
Mandaean language attests to their levantine origin.
The ultimate Jewish origin of the Mandaeans can still be found despite the vehement polemics against the Jews in Mandaean literature, in which
Moses is a false prophet and Adonai (one of the names used in the
Jewish bible) is an evil god. There are fewer indications of a relation between early Christians and Mandaeans, which make the connection more problematic. Some scholars, including
Kurt Rudolph connect the early Mandaeans with the Jewish sect of the Nasoraeans.
The emigration of early Mandaeans from the
Jordan Valley took place the latest at the second century CE due to pressure from orthodox Jews.The migrants first went to
Harran in
Assyria and entered the southern provinces of Mesopotamia during the third century CE. It appears that
Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, was partly influenced by the newcomers. The Mandaeans had also hostile relations with the
Byzantine Church and the
Babylonian Jews.