(Photo 2- Part of the tens of the scholars that attended the Congress.)
The opening session is held the opening words and blessing of the priests [Numbers, Chap. 6] by the guest of Honor, the Samaritan Israelite High Priest Elazar b. Tsedaka. In his words the High Priests has surveyed the enormous accomplishments of the Samaritan Studies during the last four years since the previous congress that held in Helsinki/Finland in the year 2000. High Priest Elazar has pointed mainly the three books that came out since then: The Book of The Samaritans, a collection of 28 articles mainly on the History of the Samaritan Israelites; The Book "From Samaria to Shechem" by Prof. Menachem Mor, first attempt to write a comprehensive description of the History of the Samaritans in the Biblical and Helenistic periods; The book "Mount Gerizim Excavations 1" first of 5 books series that describe 395 Inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic scripts discovered in Ancient Luza on the peak of Mount Gerizim by Dr. Yitzhaq Magen.

(Photo 3- High Priest Elazar with Dr. Nissim Dana, a popular lecturer of Eretz Yisrael Studies in Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan/Israel that participated in the Congress and lectured about "The Samaritans Between Past and Present".)

High Priest Elazar has blessed the vast contribution of many scholars to the Samaritan Studies from all corners of the world. He remarked specially the self contribution of the Samaritan scholars and beginning of books came out in Arabic in the Middle East about the Samaritan heritage.

Then Prof. Mor has read a letter of blessing from the acting president of SES, Prof. Reinhard Pummer and the Congress has started in a successful momentum. At the first night the University of Haifa staff has prepared a special dinner that utilized by the participants from everywhere to be acquainted to one another.

26 lectures on various subjects have been read in English to show the great progress of the Samaritan Studies. Over half of the lecturers were new faces in Samaritan Studies a fact that proves the great future of the object. There were lectures on the history of the Samaritan People, the culture, art, archaeology, language, literature, Samaritans and Jews, Samaritans and Christians, Samaritan in the Islamic period - The new discoveries of Dr. Milka Levi Rubin that has filled a hole of 130 years[800-930] in the history of Jews and Samaritans in the Land of Israel, thanks to a very special document, Ms. 10 of the Samaritan Collection of the National Library of Paris scribed in the year 1523 A.D. A survey of Benyamim Tsedaka of like a 150 Samaritan Households and Families that disappeared mainly through the late Islamic period. New Discoveries of Prof. Bat Sheva Bonne-Tamir on the Genetics of the Samaritans. New reports by Israel Tsedaka on the  great treatment and help of the late Second President of Israel Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi and the first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben Gurion towards the Samaritans in the State of Israel. Most of the lectures were on a very high level. All lectures will be collected to a proceeding will be published soon as usual after each congress. The discussions after most of the lectures were in a high standard and fruitful.
(Photo 4 - Prof. Yochanan Eshel, the chairman of the second session with Dr. Milka Levi-Rubin of the Middle Eastern Studies Department of The Hebrew University In Jerusalem that lectured on "Islamization of the Samaritan Community during the Early Moslem Period")

In the final session, Wednesday Evening, July 7, 2004, Prof. Mor has thanked all the participants for their highly participation in the Congress. Dr. Joseph Zsengelle' from Hungary has invited the participants and members of the SES to the Seventh Congress that he wished to host in the University of Papa/ Hungary in 2008.

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Samaritan Session for EABS in Groningen 2004, July 28th.

Ingrid Hjelm, University of Copenhagen

The Relevance of Samarian / Samaritan History for Research in Political and Religious Circumstances in Judaea in the Persian Period. 

Abstract: In biblical scholarship, 2 Kings’ 17’s deportation of Samaria’s population, has basically led to a neglect of the city and province of Samaria’s political and religious roles the city and province of Samaria played during Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian hegemony. Deceived by 2 Kings’ shift of focus and Ezra and Nehemiah’s ‘people of the land’ (am ha-aretz) and ‘enemies of Judah’ as well as Josephus’ placement of the building of a temple on Mt. Gerizim during Alexander rather than Darius, Samaria and Samaritan history has been treated as nothing but a disturbing element in the Judah and Jerusalem oriented histories of post-Assyrian biblical Israel. Recent excavations on Gerizim, Inscriptions, Onomastic evidence in e.g. Elephantine and Samaria Papyri, all of which point to a well established Yahweh cult on Gerizim and in Samaria from early in the Persian period, seriously undermines standard assumptions of Jerusalem’s priority as Yahwism’s centrum and producer of the shared Jewish and Samaritan Torah and Joshua traditions. This lecture will argue that scholarly paradigms for exilic and post-exilic Samaria’s and Judah’s political and religious relationship must be changed to accord with extra-biblical evidence from both regions.

Rivkah Shahal, Ashkelon Academic College, Israel

The Samaritans, the Godfearers and Proselytism in Rabbinic Sources

Abstract: The phenomenon of those who join themselves to God goes back many years. Examples are in abundance. Are the Samaritans also part of proselytism –do they also fit into the category of joining themselves to the people of Israel? In my lecture, I will discuss the following points, especially the historical phenomenon of the ‘God Fearers’ in relation to the Samaritans. The term ‘God fearing’, which appears a number of times in the Hebrew Bible, is unclear. Is it an adjective alone or does it have social-religious affiliations as a characterisation of certain groups? Do the Samaritans fall into the category of being ‘God Fearers’? 1) An obscure verse in Isaiah enabled the sermonizer of Bamidbar Rabba to grade the different categories. ‘God fearing’ is at the bottom of the scale. Samaritans are not mentioned and they are not found to be part of the Jews. 2) Post-exilic Judaism was tolerant of accepting and even encouraging proselytism. Were Samaritans object of this interest? Apparently not. 3) In the first century CE, Paul encountered idolatrous ‘God Fearers’ in the synagogue at Antioch and other places. He called them: hoi phoboumenoi ton theon. 4) The finding of the pillar at Aphroditias in minor Asia sheds light on the ‘God Fearers’. 5) To the sermonizer, ‘God Fearers’ are on the same level as true proselytes. The Samaritans, on the contrary, are not true ‘God Fearers’ (yir’ey  elohimi) and therefore are not true proselytes, because they continued to worship idols: ‘They feared the Lord and served their own gods’ (2 Kgs 17.33). The sermonizer used the Hebrew root yr’ in his characterisation of both. The sermon opposes Rabbi Akiva’s position that the Samaritans are true proselytes. In my lecture I will analyse the possible reasons that motivated the sermonizer to blame the Samaritans for idol worship.

Benyamim Tsedaka, A.B.-Institute for Samaritan Research, Holon, Israel. The Collection of Samaritan Manuscripts at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, as a Tool for Complete Research on Samaritan Literature.

Heinz Pohl, Berlin. Polemic between the Karaites and the Samaritans on the Background of some of the 80 Samaritan manuscripts in the State Library of Berlin.

Joshua Sabih, University of Copenhagen. Samaritan, Jews and Christians under Islam: Script, Language and Religious Identity.

Thank you Ingrid Hjelm for sending us this information!

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