The Samaritan's Secret

Crime novelist Matt Beynon Rees explores the hidden world of the Samaritans, descendants of Jesus's "Good Samaritan," in their hilltop village overlooking the violent Palestinian town of Nablus. Rees introduces his third Palestinian detective novel "The Samaritan's Secret," which takes place in the Samaritan village and in the murky alleys of the ancient Nablus casbah. Rees shows some of the locations from the novel in this video.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Matt Beynon Rees
• Matt Rees
• mystery novels
• crime novels
• Palestine
• Middle East
• Israel
• samaritan

[Bertrando25]

What language does the Samaritan priest (?) spreak reading the Thora scroll?

I don't know neither Hebrew nor Arabic, but it doesn't sound to me as if it was one of the two. Is it perhaps (a variant) of Aramaic? Did they maintain Aramaic for their liturgy?

And what's the writing? Looks also similar to the old Hebrew alphabeth (and is perhaps?)

Is this the scroll who later had be stolen, or is it a newer one? I hope the old one wasn't destroyed.

[chubbyboustead]

In reading the scroll the priest is speaking "Samaritan," a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. Because they maintain that they were never sent into exile, the Samaritans say this language is closer to the language spoken in biblical times by the Jews, too. The writing is also in Samaritan characters which, they maintain, also are the ones used in ancient times by the Jews as well as by their Samaritan forefathers. The scroll is a newer one which they keep in the museum in their village.

[Bertrando25]

The writing seems really to be the same as the old Hebrew one (I can only judge optically), but I doubt that the language is closer to the one spoken in biblical times by the Jews, too. After the Assyrians had deported Israelites from the northern kingdom of Israel (with Samaria as capital) in the 8th c., they "imported" other people from other conquered territories, as the Assyrians always did. If they "mixed up" with the Israelites/Samaritans is disputed I think?

To continue

[chubbyboustead]

There are some historians who suggest that the Samaritans were brought in to repopulate the area after the Jews were exiled. Of course, the Samaritans themselves dispute that hotly, to say the least.

[iambored2006]

the samaritans werent descendants of jesus they were descendants of the ephraim and menashe tribes!

[chubbyboustead]

Watch the video again. It says the Samaritans are descendents of the "Good Samaritan" in Jesus's parable. It doesn't say they're descendents of Jesus.

[Malkibaal]

samaritans are the last hebrews with religion!

[CON10NDOR]

I BELIEVE JESUS WAS A SAMARITAN.

[72Yonatan]

@Bertrando25

He is reading Hebrew here. The Shomronim now send their children to school where they learn Arabic. They are bilingual at least.

[milkyroadtube]

@ZviJ1 Same to you brother!

[ZviJ1]

@milkyroadtube If you wish to view those masses as the revivers, so be it. But my points stand.

Happy & blessed Yom Teru`ah + Rosh Hodesh of the Seventh Month.

[milkyroadtube]

@ZviJ1 what yamani? who speaks yamani? I am talking about the standard modern Hebrew speakers who say gimel rafa instead of resh etc When I say 'those who revived' I don't mean Ben Yehuda and the like, but the masses of people who started speaking Hebrew in daily life. Their mother tongue was Jewish-German , Polish etc Of course everything I say is my opinion (who else's?) and NOT scientific. I'm just an ordinary guy who thinks: too bad, our beutiful language has become ugly, for good...

[ZviJ1]

@milkyroadtube Your last statement represents your own opinion. In reality Yemenite-accented Hebrew is much closer to what ancient Hebrew ought to sound. If you maintain the lack of gutturals as per the Samaritan dialect is the proper "sound", I've got a bridge to sell you.

For another, at least 2 of the people who revived Hebrew spoke it with oriental Semitic phonetics, but their successors largely abandoned that.

[milkyroadtube]

@rclamb04 of course they are! If you ask today's Israelis they'll say that Russian immigrants aren't jewish and Russian jews say Ethiopians aren't jewish and so on. When Jewish exiles returned from Babilon (middle class babilonised sort of guys) of course there was a lot of xenophobia between them and those who staid in Israel. So they came up with this story. A lot of people today think that Ashkenazim are turks... Same nonsence

[milkyroadtube]

@Bertrando25 he reads 'shma' yisrael' (hear o, Israel) from Deuteronomy 6:4 , in HEBREW language. Not arabic, not aramaeic and not any mixture of these. It doesn't sound hebrew to you because modern hebrew doesn't sound hebrew :)))) People who 'revived' modern hebrew (technically speaking created a creole) were native German, Polish and Russian speakers mostly. They brought their highly 'distorted' phonetics from Europe. As for this guy in the video his Hebrew does sound Hebrew as it should :)

[rclamb04]

The Samaritans are not Hebrews, read 2 Kings 17 The house of Israel was taken into captivity and the King of Assyria replaced them with people from various other lands he had conquered. Those people were being eaten by lions and such so the kings sent a Levit to teach them about Yahweh (the LORD). This is why they have knowledge of the Hebrew Bible but they are not Hebrews no more than the Askanasis are. This is why when Yahshua met the woman at the well she knew the Judahites had no dealings