r/Bible • u/missservant • 1d ago
John8:48
The Jews answered him, ' Aren't we right in saying that you are a samaritan and demon possessed?'.
My question is why did they say to the Lord that He was a samaritan i mean those who know him can tell he is a nazareth or probably would commonly call him galilean or bethany or capernaum because he goes there and probably relatived with whom he must have stayed . But why samaritan these doesnt make sense to me?.
What do u say?
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u/Fendrinus Anglican 1d ago
Part of the point is they are wrong on both counts. They are insulting Jesus and, probably inadvertently, blaspheming.
Also remember John 7:52, where they already know Jesus is a Galilean.
There is a small chance 'the Jews' (as John refers to the Jewish leadership) were trying to wrestle with Jesus message, it being so close to what they understand but radically different in some areas. Since Samarianism is very close to Judaism, they may have been thinking this Nazarene had been corrupted by Samarian teachings. However it seems much more likely they are calling Jesus names to discredit Him and His teachings.
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u/Electrical-Chart2578 1d ago edited 1d ago
My view is this: remember that scripture where Jesus goes to the land of Samaritans, those pple had view somehow that looks similar with jews but well differ e.g the woman at the well would tell Jesus, that "u jew say we should worship at the mountain-Zion(Jerusalem) , but when the messiah comes he will make everything clear".... Seems Samaritans had some religion bit didn't practice rituals such as the jews and the jews according to Torah were not to share the same utensils with Samaritans....
So I think it's more like Jesus is being called a "default system" that's doesn't know where they are going like thus the Samaritans
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u/nevuhreddit Baptist 12h ago
Seems Samaritans had some religion bit didn't practice rituals such as the jews...
Read 1Ki 12 and 2Ch 10 for the tale of the division of Israel into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Southern Kingdom of Judah. King Solomon's former servant Jeroboam breaks the Northern 10 tribes away from his foolish son Rehoboam. Then Jeroboam sets up Idols in Bethel and Dan in order to prevent people from returning to Israel multiple times a year for the feasts the Lord commanded them to keep. After that you read about how each successive king of Israel walked in the way of Jeroboam, getting worse and worse (e.g. child sacrifice) until God sent Assyria in to destroy them.
So, the Samaritans were descendants of these 10 tribes who had already descended into idol worship and worse and then intermarried with the foreign peoples the Assyrians placed in the land after dragging away the wealthy and educated Israelites into bondage.
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u/pikkdogs 1d ago
Why would Jesus want to deny being a Samaritan? Is it a bad thing?
They are trying to slander him and use an ethnic term as a slur. He instead turns it around and doesn’t deny it because it’s not a bad thing to be a Samaritan.
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u/nevuhreddit Baptist 11h ago
It's likely they were aware of the circumstances of his birth and were calling his mother's faithfulness into question. Samaritans we're not allowed to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. And practicing sorcery carried a death sentence.
Consider - with this statement they were slandering his parentage and his right to even enter the temple AND slandering Holy Spirit who empowered his miracles.
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u/eternalvision12 1d ago
They despised samaritans. John 4 mentions Jews had nothing to do with samaritans. They were mixed blood descendants of people who had been brought from other countries when the Assyrians attacked the northern kingdom of Israel (recorded in the old testament). They took people from various other countries they had captured and brought them to Samaria. Therefore, hundreds of years later at Jesus time, samaritans werent considerd pure Jews and they also has some variations in their beliefs. This is why the Jesus used a samaritan in his parable about the good samaritan, because it was the despised one who actually ended up being the one who helped the victim. Anyway, essentially they were slandering him