The Samaritan Woman as a Quick-Witted Border Crosser in John 4

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide a description of the intersectionality approach and to offer an overview of the transformation and appropriation processes within the context of the transatlantic journey of this approach. Additionally, the current state of the discussion within the context of biblical studies will be outlined. An application of an intersectional analysis to a New Testament text example will be conducted based on the dialog at Jacob’s well between the Samaritan woman and Jesus in John 4. When applying the intersectionality approach, an attempt will be made to critically examine power and oppression structures on all three levels: the world of the text, the context of the New Testament, and the world of interpretation and interpretation history.

1. Introduction

1.1. Intersectionality—Origins and the Traveling of a Theory

1.1.1. The Origins

The starting point of the intersectionality approach is commonly identified with Kimberlé W. Crenshaw and her use of the metaphor of “intersections” (Crenshaw 1989, pp. 139–67) to describe the interaction of different forms of discrimination concerning Black women. Thus, the legal scholar’s essay is indeed to be valued as the birth or coinage of the intersectionality paradigm. However, in early Black feminism from the 1830s to the 1930s, as well as in the 20th century, there were pioneers such as Frances M. Beal and Deborah K. King, who operated with the concepts of “double jeopardy” (Beal [1970] 2020) or “multiple jeopardy” (King 1988, pp. 42–72), thereby providing an analytical tool and drawing attention to complex experiences of oppression. This already suggests that the intersectionality approach has its roots in Black feminism and the anti-racist activism in the USA.

An important milestone is the speech by the anti-slavery activist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth on women’s rights in 1851 (Truth [1851] 1995), in which she advocated for a voting right for both men and women and an electoral law which would include both. A second milestone is the statement of the Combahee River Collective from 1977, which criticized the limitation or emphasis on a single experience of oppression (Combahee River Collective [1977] 2020). The CRC also worked with the concept of interlocking oppressions with the goal “to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions” (Combahee River Collective [1977] 2020, p. 276).

Crenshaw’s metaphor of the intersection emerged from her analysis of the court case DeGraffenreid v. General Motors in 1976, following the dismissal of Black female employees by General Motors. It aimed to improve anti-discrimination laws, which were previously limited to a single axis of discrimination, and address its “framing problem” (Lutz 2023, p. 76).

Following Crenshaw, the intersectionality approach was further developed by protagonists such as Angela Davis (A. Davis 1981), Bell Hooks (Hooks 2014), and Patricia Hill Collins. Collins developed the model of the matrix of domination (Collins [1990] 2000), which she applied on four levels: the structural level of society and the social structures of oppression in different social fields, the disciplinary level of enforcement through institutional function or authority, the hegemonic level in terms of ideological legitimization of social practices, and the interpersonal level, i.e., the devaluation of the Other in everyday encounters.

The metaphor Crenshaw established in her article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” (Crenshaw 1989, pp. 139–67) became internationally accepted. Helma Lutz attributes the popularity and spread of the term to Crenshaw being both a political activist and a legal scholar. In particular, the UN World Conference against Racism in 2001 helped the approach break through, and the intersectionality approach to combating multiple discrimination was implemented in anti-discrimination directives at European and national levels (Lutz 2023, p. 78). It is clear that the intersectionality approach also traveled in the academic context, with all the problems associated with a traveling concept (Said 1983, pp. 226–47; 2001, pp. 436–52).

1.1.2. Transatlantic Traveling of a Theory

I would like to outline the transformation processes to which the intersectionality approach has been subjected (Carbado et al. 2013, pp. 303–12).

“Intersectionality moves across national boundaries: […] Intersectionality has moved internationally both as a means to frame dynamics that have been historically distinct within other domestic spheres and also as a way to contest material and political realities that are, by some measures, part of global and transhistorical relations of power” (Carbado et al. 2013, p. 307). The intersectionality approach has crossed the Atlantic and, since the 1990s, has entered academic discourse through England as well as in Europe and other parts of the world, such as Latin America and the Global South. These appropriation processes are made visible and self-reflectively related to their respective socio-historical contexts in the first part of The Routledge International Handbook of Intersectionality Studies (K. Davis 2023), which collects perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe, the Global South, and Latin America on this process.

“Intersectionality moves within and across disciplines: Intersectionality moves not only in relation to shifting subjects, but it moves more broadly as a prism linking and engaging scholarly subfields, research methodologies, and topical inquiries” (Carbado et al. 2013, p. 307). In Germany, Helma Lutz introduced the term and initially shaped the intersectionality approach in the field of educational sciences (Lutz and Wenning 2001; Walgenbach 2017, p. 54). The intersectionality approach also found a broad echo in social sciences and was particularly implemented as a quantitative method. Sociologist Gudrun-Axeli Knapp made the intersectionality approach known with her question, “Intersectionality—a new paradigm of gender research?” (Knapp 2005, pp. 68–81; Walgenbach 2017, p. 54), and she presented another draft with the societally-theoretically based model of axes of domination/inequality and the question of where and how axial principles work (Knapp 2012). Although it is not possible to trace the “immigration” of the intersectionality approach into the German-speaking discourse space here, Walgenbach (Walgenbach 2012, pp. 30–40) offers a classification into feminist discourses and women’s movements, which were in close interaction with the political conditions and ever-new political challenges from the 19th to the 21st centuries.

Despite the intersectionality approach being a unifying transnational element tied to feminist discourses and groups, the challenges of its transatlantic journey, especially to Europe, can be summarized as follows: “Yet despite its uptake within feminist discourses, intersectionality frequently has been framed as a North American import that does not reflect the significant differences in the historic context, the disciplinary practices, and discursive traditions between the United States and Europe. One important difference that is often cited in this regard pertains to the relative salience of class over race in Europe, and the minimal traction that analogies to race provide for feminists there” (Carbado et. al. 2013, p. 308).

“Intersectional moves engage Black Women” (Carbado et al. 2013, p. 309): While US discourses focus on the political context of origin and the associated goal of empowerment, in the European discourse, the constructiveness, i.e., the artificial nature of categories, and their complexity are central. Jennifer C. Nash articulates this conflict and the question of the rightful subject for the intersectionality paradigm as follows: “When intersectionality is imagined as feminism’s future, intersectionality sheds black women in a postracial feminism that either presumes that black women need not be the center of intersectional work because intersectionality’s virtue is complexity not identity politics or that intersectionality is an endlessly expansive analytic that can—and should—describe all subjects’ experiences” (Nash 2014, p. 46).

An end to the debates is not in sight (Lutz 2023, p. 83). In particular, the danger of the “dogmatic reduction of the original version” (Said 1983, p. 239) remains the greatest challenge according to Kathy Davis (K. Davis 2023, p. 328). This is also evident in the question of the relationship between intersectionality and diversity studies (Lutz 2023, pp. 83–84).

2. Intersectionality in Biblical Studies—A Survey

In theology, and particularly in biblical exegesis, the intersectionality approach has found strong resonance within feminist exegesis, postcolonial exegesis, minority biblical criticism, and queer exegesis. This section will attempt to sketch the integration of the intersectionality approach into the discipline of biblical exegesis, especially in New Testament exegesis, through significant milestones.

In the realm of New Testament biblical exegesis, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has drawn attention to the multidimensionality of power and oppression structures in the patriarchal society of antiquity, which are part of the New Testament text world, with her model of kyriarchy (Schüssler Fiorenza 2009, pp. 1–23). She also uses the intersectionality paradigm to describe structural and categorical multiple discrimination. Schüssler Fiorenza prefers to use the term “kyriarchy” instead of “hierarchy” for the hierarchical gradient associated with these categories and their inherent binary oppositions in order to take account of a patriarchally structured social order. The anthology Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies (Schüssler Fiorenza 2009), edited by Schüssler Fiorenza and Laura Salah Nasrallah, aims “to further the theoretical discussion on critical race theory and the intersection of race with class, gender, and empire in the study of religion, especially early Christianity in particular” (Schüssler Fiorenza 2009, p. 4). It also reflects on the theoretical framework and methodology, bringing the historical–critical method into conversation with other contextual approaches such as hermeneutics, cultural studies, or ethnicity studies.

The Special Issue “Cultural Complexity and Intersectionality in the Study of the Jesus Movement” in the journal Biblical Interpretation (Buell et al. 2010) seeks to expand and refine the possibilities of the intersectionality approach as an analytical tool by including categories like body and locality. And identity can be understood as fluid and transcending binary oppositions. The volume explores how images of the historical Jesus shape complex and multidimensional identity constructions in both ancient and contemporary societies.

Despite notable exceptions like Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Gale A. Yee notes that intersectionality has not made a significant impact as a conceptual framework in biblical studies, except among scholars of color (Yee 2020, pp. 8–9).

At this point it is important to highlight the central role of minority biblical criticism. This approach gained significant visibility through the initiation of a program unit by Randall C. Bailey, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Fernando F. Segovia at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. “What the project aimed to do, therefore, at its foundational moment was to bring together critics from the various ethnic–racial movements and discourses to ponder the question of minority criticism as such and to work together toward this end” (Segovia 2022, p. 5). Two anthologies (Bailey et al. 2009; Segovia 2022) now exist, collecting biblical contributions from self-reflective minority perspectives. For the second volume, Fernando F. Segovia describes the primary goal of minority biblical criticism as “to bring about further transformation in the field, both in terms of critical approach and in terms of critical representation. I describe this reason as a quest for voice and inclusion, in resistance to a tradition of silencing and exclusion” (Segovia 2022, p. 6).

The anthology Doing Gender—Doing Religion: Fallstudien zur Intersektionalität im Frühen Judentum, Christentum und Islam (Eisen et al. 2013) introduced the intersectionality approach as a central theoretical analytical tool for biblical studies into German-language scholarly discussion (Jost 2017, p. 13). The anthology aims to introduce and heuristically establish religion as a performatively produced category within the intersectionality approach. At the same time, a problematization of the category of “religion” as a sign system for antiquity and its textual worlds is provided, both on the level of the (actions of the) individual and in the question of its differentiability from the category of ethnos. Additionally, it points to the pluriformity and variability of the category depending on the context of domination, as well as potential liberation-theological possibilities.

For the field of biblical studies in German-speaking countries, it is becoming clear with Walgenbach that interdependent categories (Walgenbach 2012, pp. 23–64) should be considered to avoid the misunderstanding of genuine cores of categories (Eisen et al. 2013, p. 7). The “constructedness” of categories (Fenstermaker and West 2002) through performative ascription and self-effective personal appropriation must be placed alongside their socio–-structural conditioning (on different levels of society). This can be achieved through the multi-level analysis by Nina Degele and Gabriele Winker (Degele and Winker 2015). Their model offers a solution to the question of the selection and weighting of social categories (Walgenbach 2017, p. 77). For the societal structural level, Degele and Winker limit the number of relevant categories to gender, class, ‘race’, and body (age, physical condition, health, and attractiveness). For the identity level, they operate with an openness to other differentiating categories. For the subjects themselves, other dimensions can also have special significance (religion or family forms) (Walgenbach 2017, p. 77). This openness is also found at the symbolic representation level, which relates to norms, discourses, ideologies, and thus symbolic orders.

The introduction to the anthology Vielfalt und Differenz: Intersektionale Perspektiven auf Feminismus und Religion (Jost 2017, pp. 7–17) is based on Winker and Degele’s multi-level analysis (Degele and Winker 2015) with its distinction of the three levels presented. The constructedness of categories, as referenced in the 2013 anthology Doing Gender—Doing Religion, is integrated into the multi-level analysis, along with the context dependence of the doing as hegemonically secured societal and/or academic practice. Through doing gender, feminist exegesis and women’s studies, as well as gender discourses as “Muttertheorien” (Eisen et al. 2013, p. 5), are preserved, but through doing religion, the category of religion is added as another key category.

New Testament exegesis has a close relationship with the intersectionality approach as a conflict-laden concept in motion, as it is aware of the challenges of applying a contemporary paradigm to the text worlds of antiquity. New Testament exegesis self-reflectively moves back and forth on three levels: the level of the text, the level behind the text as the historical reality and socio-cultural environment of the New Testament, and the level of the text’s interpretation and interpretation history.

Annette Merz describes this three-level complex for the category of gender as follows: (1) The actual interactions of historical men and women, (2) their representation in ancient sources, and (3) the gender constructs of the contemporary scholarly literature that refer to both (Merz 2013, p. 599).

Working with religious documents from antiquity thus not only raises debate on how the text inscribes structures but also how these are produced or solidified in the history of interpretation (Eisen et al. 2013, p. 16). Biblical studies thus stand at the crossroads of three different, sometimes conflicting, discursive logics and the power structures inscribed in and represented by them. Due to the multidimensionality of the self-reflection of the discipline of biblical exegesis, an undoing on multiple levels is pursued simultaneously. Intersectionality appears as a heuristically suitable paradigm not only to critically question the interplay between the three discursive logics but also to uncover and develop complex and multidimensional liberation-theological potentials in and through the analysis of this interplay.

3. The Samaritan Woman at the Well of Jacob—A Quick-Witted “Israelite” in John 4?

The following is an application of the intersectionality approach to John 4 and its protagonist, the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. This protagonist appears in three lengthy dialogs in her intersection as a representative of a gender role and sexual orientation, a representative of the Yahweh cult on Mount Gerizim, and a member of the non-people, who are qualified as foolish, in contrast to the Jewish man Jesus. In applying the intersectionality approach, an attempt will be made to critically question power and oppression structures on all three levels: the textual world, the environment of the New Testament, and the world of interpretation history. This strict distinction has not been made until now. Therefore, the application of the intersectionality approach is condensed, like in a magnifying glass, on selected passages that have particularly resonated in interpretation history. My application implies a focus on new aspects of an Undoing of categories at the text level and the multiple discrimination associated with them. However, first, an overview is given of the tendentiously distorted representation of the Samaritans in texts of the Old Testament and early Jewish writings. This is intended to provide insight into the environment of the New Testament, with its textual and conceptual worlds that John 4 is related to.

3.1. Samaritans in the Tendentious Portrayal of the Old Testament

The Samaritans, with their cultic focus on worship at Mount Gerizim, were undoubtedly among the most significant practitioners of Yahweh worship outside of Judah, alongside the Yahweh worshipers in Leontopolis (Hjelm 2000; Pummer 2010, pp. 1–24). The Samaritan Pentateuch—the Pentateuch was alone recognized by the Samaritans as the authoritative scripture—contains different variants regarding the proper worship of Yahweh on Mount Gerizim like in Deuteronomy 27:4–7. These variants include the call for altar construction on Mount Gerizim as the Mountain of Blessing instead of Mount Ebal, which can be dated earlier than the textual variant of the Masoretic Text (MT), and the later insertion of Yahweh worship at Mount Gerizim as the 10th commandment (Exodus 20:17/Deuteronomy 5:22) by the Samaritan redaction (Dexinger 1977, pp. 111–33; Knoppers 2011, pp. 507–31; Purvis [1976] 1992, pp. 408–17).

Here, a brief overview will be given of the (external) Samaritans’ perception in the most important Old Testament and early Jewish texts associated with this temple rivalry (Frey 1999, pp. 171–203).

One of the earliest literary references regarding the term combination “tó éthnos samarítēs” is found in Sirach 50:25–26, which shows significant changes in the Septuagint (LXX) compared to the MT. However, both versions are characterized by the religious defamation of the Samaritans as “foolish” (cf. Deuteronomy 32:21) and by the statement that the Samaritans, referred to as the third nation, are not a nation, being ethnically distinct from the Gentiles (Böhm 1999, pp. 155–59). Nevertheless, they do not constitute a distinct ethnicity, but a settlement group which is localized at Shechem. In Sirach 50:25–26, the reference to Deuteronomy 32:21 is made within the context of the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 31:30–32:44), where Yahweh intends to lead the Israelites to the knowledge of proper Yahweh worship through a people who are not a people, a foolish nation. Israel has provoked Yahweh to jealousy by worshiping foreign, worthless gods. Because Israel is unfaithful to its God, it is also referred to as a foolish people in Deut 32:6. In turn, Yahweh arouses Israel’s jealousy through that foolish non-people.

That the conflict between different high priests and their legitimacy is reflected in Sirach 50:25–26 as a polemic against the inhabitants of Shechem carries high plausibility. While Sirach 50:25–26 initially appears disjointed between the praise of the high priest Simon and the epilog with information about the author, it becomes clearer that the Samaritans, with their worship at the wrong place and their own high priest, constitute the antithetical model here disparaged to Sirach’s conception focusing on the Jerusalem cult under the high priest Simon the Righteous (Purvis 1965, pp. 88–94; Böhm 1999, p. 156). The reference to Deuteronomy 32:21 is synonymous with the religious profile of the inhabitants of Shechem. This foolish nation is localized in Shechem, their place of residence and settlement, in Sirach 50:25–26 (Böhm 1999, pp. 155–56). Shechem is regarded as the portion of Joseph handed down by Jacob (Genesis 48:22) and as the burial place of Joseph (Joshua 24:32), from whose sons Ephraim and Manasseh the Samaritans trace their lineage as inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom.

3.2. Samaritans in the Tendentious Portrayal by Josephus

Josephus (Josephus 1926–1998) attributes the catalyst for the construction of the Garizim temple/altar to the dissidents of the Jewish people, who, due to intermarriage, are not tolerated and consequently settle in Shechem (Jos Ant 11,302–347 especially 306–307; Cf. the destruction of the sanctuary 13,255–256). Behind this conflict, which becomes apparent in the polemic against the Samaritans as “Jewish defectors” or “apostates” (Jos Ant 11,340–342), as well as in their identification as lawbreakers, lies the reorganization of the priesthood under Nehemiah, pushing back the lower-ranking Zadokites. Josephus depicts the problem through the example of the high priest Manasseh, who marries the daughter of the satrap Sanballat. When he wants to dissolve this marriage to comply with the law, Sanballat promises him the construction of a temple on Mount Gerizim, so that Manasseh could continue to exercise his priesthood despite his marriage to Nikaso. The priests described here as dissidents found no recognition from the strengthened post-exilic Jerusalem priesthood, which was based on the national-religious principles of the Exile and the claim of cult centralization in Jerusalem (Böhm 1999, p. 63). In Josephus’ account of events, Shechem becomes a place where all those accused of transgressions, particularly concerning the non-observance of dietary laws or Sabbath violations, flee (Jos Ant 11,346) (Kippenberg 1971, p. 54).

The following summary can be drawn: The Samaritans were subject to strategies of devaluation and a polemic directed against them, which characterized them as belonging neither clearly to the Gentiles nor to the Jews, hostile towards Israel, and foolish regarding their worship practices and Pentateuch orientation (van der Horst 2003, pp. 25–44; Pummer 2009).

3.3. The Quick-Witted Border Crosser in John 4

The composition of Jn 4:5–42 is structured in three parts: the introduction (Jn 4:5–6), the center of the text (Jn 4:7–38) with three thematical different dialogs between Jesus and the Samaritan woman and a dialog between Jesus and his disciples, and the end (Jn 4:39–42).

Theobald divides the dialog between the Samaritan woman and the Galilean Jesus into three exchanges (1st dialog (V. 7–15), 2nd dialog V. 16–19, and 3rd dialog V. 20–26) (Theobald 2009, p. 303). I will focus on these dialogs between Jesus and the Samaritan woman and on the question of how the narration of this woman works in an intersectional perspective. The dominant categories underlying the text, in addition to the master categories of gender and social status, are also ethnicity/race and, closely related to it, religion. Here, religion refers to religious aspects and concerns questions of purity laws (halacha) and cult or place of worship.

3.3.1. How Is It That… (John 4: 9)

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink”. ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for some water with the imperative: “Give me a drink”! The answer of the Samaritan woman is a question: “How is it that You, though You are a Jew, are asking me for a drink, though I am a Samaritan woman?” This question is accompanied and explained by a narrator’s comment. However, in exegetical research, there is a question whether συγχρῶνται implies a general “have no dealings/contact” or a more specific “do not use/utilize” common things. The translation of the NRSVUE already clarifies this. In the latter case, different purity concepts are at play. The idea of impurity, which is recalled, refers, according to Daube, to the woman’s body and the notion represented in mNid 4,1 that Samaritan women are impure because they menstruate from cradle and are therefore inherently considered ritually impure. Because of this, all the vessels they use are also impure, and the Samaritan woman is not allowed to give Jesus something to drink from a Jewish perspective. According to Daube, the verb primarily carries the semantic meaning of using/utilizing (Daube 1950, pp. 137–47; Williams 2022, p. 350). If one translates the dative Σαμαρίταις as a dative of community (Böhm 1999, p. 142), then Jews do not use/utilize things together with Samaritans. This can result either from attributing differences in menstruation as reflected in mNid 4,1 or generally from different dietary laws (Böhm 1999, p. 142). With Jürgen Zangenberg, it can be stated that this may be an indication that there is already a growing tendency in NT times to restrict the interaction between Samaritans and Jews through elements of purity halakha (Zangenberg 1998, p. 115). According to Frey, through the astonishing utterance of the woman, not only gender aspects are touched upon, but also the religious–ethnic distance between Jews and Samaritans (Frey 2012, p. 224). In the background, if one chooses mNid 4,1 as a dependable context of tradition, there would be a halachically justified discrimination against the woman as a Samaritan. The status of the cult community, and thus that of the Samaritans as a sui generis entity, is therefore negotiated through the body of the woman and her purity status.

On the level of the textual world, there is an undoing by the woman herself. The Galilean male Jew Jesus is often identified as the literary hero in John 4, who, following patriarchal patterns of courtship (Gen. 24:1–67; 29:1–30; Exod. 2:15–21; McWhirter 2006; Zimmermann1998; Williams 2022, p. 352), enters into a dialog with an unknown woman, asking her for water. In the tradition of the historical Jesus, he especially engages with the unclean and sinners, thus also blurring the boundaries between Jews and Samaritans at this point. However, the secret heroine of this first dialog is the Samaritan woman, who points out Jesus’ misconduct, disrupting the bridal courtship and reminding Jesus of the halachic-based boundary between Jews and Samaritans in interaction. Thus, the Samaritan woman comment on the behavior of the Galilean man, demonstrating her familiarity with different cultic contexts or at least an understanding of the stereotype of impurity ascribed by the Jews. As a Samaritan woman, she also takes responsibility for the purity status of the Galilean man!

3.3.2. For You Have Had Five Husbands… (John 4:18)

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back”. ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband”. Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’, ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet”.

A prominent and frequently represented interpretation variant (McHugh 2009, pp. 281–82; Schnelle 2016, p. 122–24; Theobald 2009, pp. 317–18; Thyen 2015, pp. 252–54; Williams 2022, pp. 354–55) sees a metaphorical reference to 2 Kings 17:24–41 with the five men, where the settlement of colonists from Persia and southern Babylon in Samaria after the Assyrian deportation of the upper class of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th/7th century BCE is described. Other interpretive traditions prefer an alternative metaphorical interpretation or a literal understanding (Barrett 1990, p. 253; Beasley-Murray 1999, p. 61; Brown 1966, p. 171; Bultmann 1986, p. 138; Morris 1995, p. 235; Schnackenburg 1992, p. 468; Wengst 2019, pp. 140–41).

If one follows the first interpretation direction, then the five men of the Samaritan woman are identified with the cults of five different gods, which are the expression of the syncretism of the settled people of Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim after the Assyrian deportation. In the background is 2 Kings 17:30–31, whose version is clarified by Josephus in Antiquities 9,277–282.288–291 as the worship of five foreign deities. Once again, the religious integrity of the Samaritan woman is called into question, and her knowledge as a Samaritan about the correct worship of YHWH is denied to her based on a stereotype, if one follows this interpretation of the five men as representing the idol worship of the settled peoples. Thus, it is suggested in V. 22 that the Samaritans worship YHWH on Mount Gerizim and thus the wrong location of worship, which they do not know.

In the textual variants of 2 Kings 17:24–41, there are significant differences between the Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint (LXX), and the version described by Josephus. The MT portrays the inhabitants in the cities of Samaria as ethnically descended from the foreign colonists, and at present, nothing more counts for them in religious terms (Böhm 1999, p. 122). The text implies in V. 34 an abandonment of the worship of YHWH and adherence to former customs.

²⁴ The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria and settled in its cities. […] ²⁷ Then, the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him go and live there and teach them the law of the god of the land”. ²⁸ So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord.

²⁹ But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived; ³⁰ the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima; ³¹ the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. ³² They also worshiped the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. ³³ So they worshiped the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. ³⁴ To this day they continue to practice their former customs. They do not worship the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. ³⁵ The Lord had made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not worship other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, ³⁶ but you shall worship the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm; you shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. ³⁷ The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to observe. You shall not worship other gods; ³⁸ you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not worship other gods, ³⁹ but you shall worship the Lord your God; he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies”. ⁴⁰ They would not listen, however, but continued to practice their former custom.

⁴¹ So these nations worshiped the Lord but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children’s children continue to do as their ancestors did.

The Septuagint version of the text (NETS) offers a somewhat different variant, especially in 17:34, which also reflects the syncretistic practice of the colonists but does not accuse them of adhering to their local pagan cults:

³⁴ To this day they were acting according to their judgment. They fear, and they act according to their statutes and according to their judgment and according to the law and according to the commandment that the Lord commanded the sons of Iakob, him whose name he made Israel.

In the LXX version, the colonists are depicted as God-fearing syncretists (Böhm 1999, p. 122).

Both variants give the impression that the inhabitants of Samaria consisted solely of representatives of this syncretistic worship of YHWH. Historically, the term “Samaritans” referred to the Israelites of the northern kingdom from the rural population, while the foreign colonists formed the new upper class. The Israelites may also have been open to syncretistic practices (Böhm 1999, p. 111–12).

In Josephus, his version of 2 Kings 17:24–41 is based on the background that presents all the inhabitants of Samaria as deported, describing only the resettlement of the Kuthaeans. For the Kuthaeans, Josephus describes the worship of their own gods, but then reports their conversion to the worship of YHWH up to the present day. The Kuthaeans are described by Josephus as faithful to YHWH in terms of religion and categorized as proselytes, but ethnically declared as of foreign descent (Böhm 1999, p. 131). In Josephus, the term “Samaritans” is related to the colonists, who are also referred to as Kuthaeans (Böhm 1999, p. 131).

The editing of the text and the resulting different text variants demonstrate that the text was handled and adapted for defining the relationship between Samaritans and Jews. The fact that Josephus creates another version based on his source indicates that this was still necessary and possible in New Testament times, although certain stereotypes against the northern Israelites had already solidified. Therefore, in New Testament times, elements of the image of the northern Israelites conveyed in these textual traditions could be influential in attributing (negative) stereotypes to the Samaritans.

If one follows the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan woman would be referred on the level of the textual world to her “foolishness” and the necessity of instruction in the laws of the land deity YHWH and the correct worship of YHWH (cf. 2 Kings 17:27–28). In the background would be an ethnically and cultically grounded multiple discrimination of the Samaritan woman. This is narratively negotiated by the questioning of the woman’s relationship status and the naming of the number of men she has had in the past, thus using the categories of gender and sexuality.

An undoing occurs within the textual world of the Gospel of John itself. Here, a similar mutual identification takes place as in the dialog between Nathanael and Jesus in John 1:45–51. Just as Nathanael is identified by Jesus as an Israelite without deceit, the woman is characterized as speaking truthfully. In return, Nathanael confesses Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel. Similarly, the woman describes her recognition (seeing/blindness is always associated with knowledge/ignorance in the Gospel of John) of Jesus as a prophet. This is ambiguously formulated because the coming of a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18) represents the center of eschatological expectations for the Samaritan community, so it is expressed in a thoroughly Samaritan manner. At the same time, this aligns with its structure of reasoning in the broader biblical tradition of the miraculous foreknowledge of a prophet which is mediated by God. The woman is thus on equal footing with the Israelite Nathanael. The Samaritans understood themselves as Israelites (Bourgel 2018, pp. 41–42); this is also expressed in John 4 through the reference to the patriarch Jacob and his giving of the well in 4:12–13. (Förster 2015, pp. 201–18). This is related to the fact that Jesus, in accordance with their self-perception, does not deny the Samaritans their connection to Jacob and thus understands them as belonging to Israel (Bourgel 2018, pp. 41–42).

In the narrative characterization of the woman through the analogy to Nathanael, the previously demonstrated interaction of religious–ethnic categories and the category of gender (and sexuality) for the establishment of a hierarchical difference between the Galilean man and the Samaritan woman is nullified.

At the level of the history of interpretation, this text passage is again associated with evaluations of the social status of women, as the number of their husbands is often morally judged (Brown 1966, p. 171; Bultmann 1986, p. 138; Morris 1995, p. 234; Schnackenburg 1992, p. 468; definition as slut shaming: Asikainen 2018, p. 188; Warren 2022; Williams 2022, p. 353). Ulrich Kellermann has convincingly presented various legitimate possibilities for the woman’s five men (Kellermann 2015, pp. 222–24). These different possibilities also entail different conclusions regarding her social status. Even if an illegitimate form of connection underlies having the sixth man, it remains to be emphasized that an undoing of all evaluations of the woman in the history of interpretation is suggested within the text itself. The male relationships are described in John 4:16–19 from the perspective of the woman: she has had the men and is the subject of the verb ἔχω (Kellermann 2015, p. 227).

3.3.3. You Worship What You Do Not Know (John 4:22)

²⁰ “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem”. ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth”. ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us”. ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you”.

Unfortunately, a commonly accepted interpretation of this passage sees a hierarchy of the Jewish cult over the Samaritans (Beasley-Murray 1999, p. 62; Morris 1995, p. 238; Schnackenburg 1992, p. 470; Schnelle 2016, p. 125; Theobald 2009, pp. 320–23; Thyen 2015, p. 256; Zumstein 2016, pp. 181–82; Williams 2022, pp. 355–59). “The Jews worship what they know” is followed by the caveat “salvation is from the Jews” (V. 22), which seems to refer to V. 25: the Jewish expectation of the coming of the Messiah. The Samaritan woman appears to be well-versed in cross-cultic matters here as well. Verse 25 is often regarded as the first confession of Christ by a woman, who then acts as the first missionary to her city. The Samaritan woman and adulteress was “missionized” by the Jewish man and Messiah. In contrast to the Messianic expectation reflected in John 1 (and its fulfillment through Jesus’ identification as the Messiah), in V. 25, Μεσσίας is used without the article (Theobald 2009, p. 329).

One last undoing at the level of the textual world needs to be noted here: 4:25 is also ambiguous in its formulation of the expectation “he will proclaim all things to us” and can reflect both the Samaritan prophetic expectation of a revealer of truth (Bourgel 2018, p. 56; Theobald sees Deut 18:18 in the background Theobald 2009, p. 329) as well as the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. The Samaritan woman remains a questioner in V. 29: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” It is interesting in this context that Jesus responds to the Samaritan woman’s expectation of a Prophet/Messiah with ἐγώ εἰμι. The Samaritan woman, who had already proven herself to be on equal footing with the Israelite Nathanael, receives confirmation of her self-identification, whether as a Samaritan or as an Israelite.

4. Conclusions

In the encounter between the Samaritan woman and the Galilean man Jesus at Jacob’s well, the Samaritan woman breaks through the stigma of being a woman and a Samaritan, considered unreliable in matters of ritual purity, by observing the rules of purity out of care for the Jewish man.

Within the framework of the marriage proposal schema, she terminates the marriage proposal by truthfully answering, in the presence of the truth witness, Jesus, regarding her relationship status. In doing so, she achieves equality with the exemplary Israelite Nathanael. Simultaneously, the interaction of a gender-based stigma (having had five men) and a religious stigma (Samaritans’ idol worship) is overcome.

She receives affirmation for her openly maintained self-identification as either a Samaritan or an Israelite from Jesus and his “I am” in V. 26.