Dear Friends of ancient mythology! Here I would like to introduce beside the holy mountains, like the Argaios in Cappadocia or the Mons Casius in Syria, another holy mountain, the Mons Garizim in Samaria. The coin: Samaria, Neapolis, Trebonianus Gallus 251-253 AE 24, 12.09g, 45°. Av.: [AVT] KAI Γ OVI TPEB ΓAΛΛOC [CEB] Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r. Rv: ΦΛ NEAC - POΛ[EΩC] Eagle stands frontally with wings spread out, thus holding cult image of Mons Garizim with temple, shrine and gardens; left above star, right moon crescent Ref.: Rosenberger 113; SNG 6, 1035 F+/about VF, typical sand patina of coins found in Palestine Note: The full name of the town was Flavia Neapolis Samaria The coin shows an eagle carrying a picture of the garizim on its wings: At the foot of the mountain we see a portico that surrounds the holy district; a long, steep staircase leads up to the mountain plateau to the temple of Zeus Hypsistos, shown in perspective and standing on a high foundation; on the right, a long, winding path leads to a tower (or altar) on a slightly offset second hilltop. Excavations have revealed the foundations of the temple, parts of the staircase with a total of 300 (according to other sources 1,500) steps have also come to us. On some coin pictures it is clearly to be recognized that a number of further sacral buildings adorned the mountain slope. On the coin there is probably only a model, which was carried in processions, a so-called Agalma, which was limited to the most important. Flavia Neapolis was founded by Vespasian 72 A.D. 2km west of Sichem in Samaria and received his name in honour of his father Flavius Vespasianus. It was a famous place in the religious history of the Old Testament. Here the sacrifice of Abraham is said to have taken place, where he wanted to sacrifice his son Isaac out of obedience to God, here the tomb of Joseph is supposed to be located, which is worshipped today by all 3 Abrahamitic religions, and here the source of Jacob is supposed to be, where Jesus met the merciful Samaritan woman. Mount Garizim, 870m high, has been known since Deuteronomy 11:29 (Old Testament) as the Mountain of Blessing. The Ebal (today Tell er-Ras, 845 m), situated close to him, was called the Mountain of the Curse, but later understood together with it as a double-peaked world mountain with cosmic significance. Both is a reverberation of archaic holiness, the so-called mountain cult, which we have encountered many times before. The Samaritans, whose centre Sichem lies in the plain to which the pass between the two mountains opens, believed that the Garden of Eden had once been on the Garizim and, after their separation from Jerusalem Judaism, built, probably towards the end of the 4th century BC, a temple of their own on the mountain, which Antiochos IV dedicated to Zeus Xenios or Zeus Hellenios, and which John Hyrkanos I, to whom the temple now as a Seleucid sanctuary toowas doubly hated , destroyed it in 128 BC. Hadrian replaced it after the Bar Kochba war by a sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Hypsistos (= Zeus on the mountain). Today the mountain is again in the possession of the Samaritans and they celebrate there annually their Passover celebration. The attached picture shows today's Nablus with the southern summit of Mons Garizim in the background. On the right side of the picture you can still see the mountain side of Ebal (from Wikipedia). Sources: (1) Der Kleine Pauly (2) M&M, coin description (3) Hans Volker Kieweler, Garizim, 2012 (at https://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/18870/ (4) Wikipedia Excursus: The Samaritans I think this is the right place to talk about the Samaritans now. The Good Samaritan: The story of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament (Lk 10:25-37) is one of Jesus' most famous stories. It is not in the synoptic gospels, but belongs to the so-called Lucan special good. And it is not a parable, because its structure does not correspond to it. In a conversation with a scribe, Jesus is asked to say who his neighbor is. And Jesus tells: A man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by robbers, robbed, and was seriously injured. A priest saw him and walked past him, so did a Levite. But then a Samaritan took pity on him, cared for him, and brought him on his mount to his inn. There he gave the innkeeper two denarii and asked him to take care of him. He himself wanted to come back and reimburse his expenses. Then Jesus asked the scribe who of the three had been next to the man who had been attacked. And the scribe had to admit that it was the Samaritan. And Jesus asked him to do the same. It is important to know that the Samaritans were then considered apostates by the Orthodox Jews and despised by them. Vincent van Gogh, The Good Samaritan, 1889 History: The Bible reports that the people of Israel founded a great empire in Palestine after leaving Egypt. The personal union of these 12 tribes existed under David and Solomon until about 926 B.C. Then this alliance broke up and the tribes Judah and Benjamin joined together to form the southern kingdom Judah with the capital Jerusalem, while the other 10 tribes founded the northern kingdom Israel with the capital Shechem. When the Assyrians kidnapped large parts of the Jewish population in 722 B.C., it was probably more the wealthy upper class. The less wealthy were able to remain and in time mingled with the resettled peoples of the east. They held on to their ancient beliefs. They do not describe themselves as Samaritans but as "Shomroni" (= keepers), because they were the only ones to keep the original commandments of Moses. According to their self-understanding they are the last descendants of the Northern Empire, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. In 586 B.C. the Babylonians took the upper class of the southern empire to Mesopotamia, the so-called Babylonian captivity. After the Babylonians were subjugated by the Persians, the Jews returned to Judah in several waves. The Samaritans were considered quasi-pagan by them because they had come into contact with the newly settled peoples and their gods. So they were not allowed to help rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Around 440 B.C. Ezra and Nehemiah carried out a religious reform in Jerusalem and Judah, which forced the followers of the old Israelite tradition to flee to Samaria. A major reason was the prohibition of mixed marriages, especially for priests. Existing marriages were to be dissolved. Manasseh, who was married to the daughter of the Persian governor of Samaria, was expelled from Jerusalem. Under him, the priestly service at the shrine on Mount Garizim was organized. Jerusalem was not the right place to worship God, but the Garizim, because the people of Israel had been blessed there by god. Around 450/430 B.C. they built their own temple on the Garizim. It was destroyed in 128 B.C. by the Hasmonean John Hyrkanos I. But for more than 3000 years now the Samaritans have been living on the Garizim, which they worship as a holy mountain and place of God. Today there are still 700 Samaritans living in Cholon near Tel Aviv and in the village Kiryat Luza near Nablus. Neapolis is today's Nablus, the largest city in the West Bank with more than 100,000 inhabitants, well known to all of us from the news about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nablus Some differences to Orthodox Judaism: The Samaritans recognize only the five books of Moses (Pentateuch). In particular, they reject oral Jewish teaching. Their Pentateuch is written in their own Samaritan script, which is based on ancient Hebrew, while today's Hebrew script derives from Aramaic, which the Jews only adopted in Babylonian exile. This is one of the reasons why they consider themselves to be the more faithful keepers of the tradition. So there are still high priests among them. The Samaritans also expect the Messiah. But he would not come from the tribe of Judah, but from the tribe of Joseph. And they do not expect a king, as the Jews do, but a prophet like Moses, a Taheb (Aramaic = restorer), who will restore the religious state of ancient Israel. While the origin of Jews from a Jewish mother determines their religious affiliation, that of Samaritans is their father (Wikipedia). Literature: (1) Luke's Gospel, New Testament (2) https://de.qantara.de/inhalt/samaritaner-in-nablus-das-andere-volk-israel (3) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritaner Best regards
