The Samaritan anti-Semitic Gospel of John!

Very few New Testament scholars, mention the Samaritans, unless it is about The Parable of the Good Samaritan, yet, the Bible as a whole (OT + NT) mentions the Samaritans, and or their land several times.  So why did Jesus as a so-called Jew, use a Samaritan as the theme of human kindness in his parable, and not a Jew? In the parable, a priest and a Levite, both Jewish religious leaders, pass by the injured man without helping him.  To the Jews the Samaritans, although a northern neighbours, are seen a Gentiles, and as a foreign insignificant nation.  Of the four canonical gospels, John is the odd one out, not because it has no place in the Synoptic Gospel, but because it is a pro-Samaritan gospel, and anti-Jewish.  The Samaritan woman in John 4:9 shows the contempt the Jews felt for the Samaritans, when she says to Jesus: for Jews do not associate with Samaritans.   The Jews saw the Samaritans as Gentiles of the nations (a) Isaiah 8:23 NABRE, While the Samaritans saw themselves as the Israelite Samaritans, the Pentateuch loving sect.

The Gospel of John seems on the face of it a poor basis for Jewish-Christian dialogue.  The Protestant New Testament scholar Eldon Jay Epp in 1975 advanced the thesis that the attitude toward the Jews that finds expression in… the Gospel of John co-acted with the extraordinary popularity of that gospel.  So as to encourage and to buttress anti-Semitic sentiments among Christians from the second century C.E. until the present time.  This leads to the conclusion that the Fourth Gospel, more than any other book in the canonical body of Christian writings.  Is responsible for the frequent anti-Semitic expressions by Christians during the past eighteen or nineteen centuries, and particularly for the unfortunate and still existent characterization of the Jewish people by some Christians as ‘Christ-killers.’

Why then would Jews go and live in a land of foreigners, that they despise as a Gentile Nation, and worse.  Not only that, they have to run the gauntlet of the dangers of passing through Samaritan lands each time they would want to go back to Judah/Judaea to see families, or for Jewish festivals, such as the Passover.  Christians writers have misleadingly differentiated the people of Samaria, and Galilee as two separate nations.  They were, in fact, the same people, the Israelites Samaritans.  Samaria came into being within the reign of King Ormi (885 BCE-874 BCE) who changed the name of his northern kingdom, from Israel, to Samaria.1 Kings 16: 23-24. 

On the topic of which people lived where, the late Rev. Prof. John Bowman, MA, B.D., D.Phil. The Head of the Department of Semitic Languages and Literature in the University of Leeds Wrote: Whatever date we assign to Ezekiel, the inhabitants of Northern Israel in his days were Samaritans. Rev. Prof. John Bowman, Samaritan Studies, p.301.  Also, see the work Samaritan Influence in The Gospel of John by the scholar Edwin D. Freed, Emeritus Professor of Religion, Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 4 (October 1968), pp. 580-587 (8 pages) Published By: Catholic Biblical Association. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43712286 

I close with what the Jews said in answer to Jesus: Then the Jews answered and said to Him, ‘Do we not say, rightly, that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ John 8:48 NKJV.

What do you say on part or all of the post?

Jeanne, J. E., pp. Jero Jones.