Anybody know anything about the Samaritans?

The Samaritans were a group of people that practiced a Judaism-like religion and continue to live in what is now modern Israel and the West Bank today. They are most known for the parable of the Good Samaritan, but have a long and interesting history. They were a large nation in biblical times, but their numbers have dwindled to just a small number of people. Samaritans claim to have decended from the lost tribes of ancient Israel. The Bible claims they moved into ancient Israel during the Babylonian exile and converted to Judaism because they felt honoring the local god would protect them from lion attacks.

www.the-samaritans.com has a lot of information about them, but I was wondering if anybody else knew any more.

I'm not so sure about what you wrote, because all I know about the Samaritans is that they are good.

Originally posted by hotpinkurinalmint
The Samaritans were a group of people that practiced a Judaism-like religion and continue to live in what is now modern Israel and the West Bank today. They are most known for the parable of the Good Samaritan, but have a long and interesting history. They were a large nation in biblical times, but their numbers have dwindled to just a small number of people. Samaritans claim to have decended from the lost tribes of ancient Israel. The Bible claims they moved into ancient Israel during the Babylonian exile and converted to Judaism because they felt honoring the local god would protect them from lion attacks.

there are so many things incorrect with this ^^

the samaritans were pagan, most of them did not practice judaism
They are descended from the tribes of israel, but (during biblical times) were looked down upon by other jews because they inter-married with pagans, and were only quasi-jewish(religiously)

Lion attacks? I would bet anything that that is not in the bible.

You're both wrong.

The Samaritan's are both a Religious and an Ethnic Group. The Ethnic Group can be traced back to the Babylonian Exile in ancient Samaria. [Antiquities 9.277–91]

They practice a Religion known as Samaritanism, which is roughly a mixture of Paganism and Judaism. They claim it's true Judaism however this is not recognized by the Israeli Government. There are roughly 500 of them alive, maybe as high as 700.