The Ancient Samaritans and Greek Culture

Abstract

After the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, the Samaritans, like all other peoples in the region, fell under the influence of Greek culture. In a gradual process of Hellenization, the Samaritans developed their own variant of Hellenism. The extant fragments of Samaritan literature in Greek, as well as quite a number of Greco-Samaritan inscriptions (both in Palestine and the diaspora) testify to the existence of a variegated Samaritan Hellenism.