How do Samaritan beliefs differ from Jewish beliefs?

🏞️ The image depicts Samaritan men in white garments and red fez hats gathered on Mount Gerizim for a religious ritual. A participant holds a Torah scroll wrapped in a blue-striped tallit. The scene, illuminated by warm light during sunrise or sunset, highlights their Passover or pilgrimage festival, celebrated in accordance with ancient Israelite traditions.

Samaritans share Israelite monotheism and the Mosaic Torah with Jews, but they diverge on scripture, sacred place, religious authority, and messianic expectation—accepting only the Pentateuch, centering worship on Mount Gerizim, upholding priestly authority over rabbinic law, and expecting the Taheb (a prophet-like-Moses, Deut. 18:18) rather than a Davidic Messiah. These differences shape distinct liturgy, festivals, and communal life despite overlapping origins and many shared practices.

Scripture and canon

Samaritans regard the Torah as the sole divinely authoritative scripture, holding the Samaritan Pentateuch to be the original and unchanged Torah and treating Moses as the greatest prophet. They explicitly reject the Prophets, Writings, and all rabbinic Oral Torah (Mishnah/Talmud), which are central sources of authority in Rabbinic Judaism.

Sacred place

For Samaritans, Mount Gerizim is the one legitimate sanctuary chosen by God, and they do not recognize the sanctity of Jerusalem or its Temple Mount. Jewish tradition centers holiness on Jerusalem and Mount Zion, in contrast to the Samaritan focus on Gerizim.

Authority and law

Samaritan religious authority is vested in a hereditary priesthood from the tribe of Levi, and halakhic life is derived directly and literally from the Torah rather than from later rabbinic interpretation. By contrast, Jews look to rabbinic teachers and the halakhic tradition embodied in the Oral Torah for interpretation and application of the commandments, which Samaritans reject.

Textual tradition

The Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic Text in roughly six thousand places, with some variants affecting interpretation as well as wording, and Samaritans affirm their version preserves the pristine Torah. Samaritans also preserve readings that emphasize Mount Gerizim’s primacy, aligning with their sanctuary doctrine.

Messianic hope

Samaritans anticipate the Taheb (“Restorer”), a prophet-like-Moses from the tribe of Joseph who will inaugurate the end time, gather Israel, and accompany the resurrection of the dead, rediscovering the Tabernacle’s tent on Mount Gerizim before his death. Jewish eschatology, by contrast, awaits the Messiah rather than the Taheb, a distinction noted in intergroup comparisons of belief.

Ritual practice

Samaritans continue literal Pentateuchal observances such as the communal Passover lamb sacrifice on Mount Gerizim, along with distinctive prayer customs (including praying barefoot and facing Gerizim) and strict purity practices, including separate housing for menstruating women. They celebrate only the biblical festivals mandated in the Torah (e.g., Passover, Unleavened Bread, Weeks), and they do not observe later Jewish holidays like Hanukkah or Purim because these are not in the Pentateuch.

Lineage and community

Samaritans maintain patrilineal descent norms and historically have required adherence to Torah-based communal standards, with prayers oriented toward Gerizim. The community is very small and is concentrated around Mount Gerizim (near Nablus) and in Holon in Israel.

Historical self-understanding

Samaritans present themselves as the faithful Israelite remnant that preserved the original Mosaic religion in the north after the Assyrian conquest, with the split rooted in rival sanctuaries and priestly lines. In this view, Jerusalem’s prominence arose with dissenters who followed Eli to Shiloh, while the true sanctuary and priestly succession remained at Gerizim among those who became the Samaritans.

Common ground

Both Samaritans and Jews are heirs of ancient Israel and worship the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, receiving the Torah through Moses as foundational revelation. They share many commandments and patterns of life from the Torah, even as their canons, sanctuaries, and authorities diverged over time.

— Azahari Hassim

Founder, The World of Abrahamic Theology