On the Samaritans

There's a recent article in Der Spiegel on the Samaritans. I read a good bit of the article last week and found it informative in regard to some features of the modern Samaritans and their history within the last century. I thought of linking to it here, but there are so many weird bits in it--the article takes the Samaritan view of history as correct in opposition to the Jewish view reported in the Hebrew Bible. Just read the article and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, I didn't want to link to the article without providing some commentary, which I was not prepared to write at the time. But now Jim Davila has done the hard work. He has provided extensive commentary to the article, noting all the dubious points and correcting them. So, now I feel good about telling you to read the original article for its information about modern Samaritans, and read Davila's notes to the article to learn more about the ancient Samaritans.