Am I losing my mind?

[max-greece]

OK - this is really bugging me and I can't explain it. Any input greatly appreciated. As follows:

Some years ago I was having a discussion on another forum (not related) and the subject of the Samaritans came up.

I realized I didn't have a clue who the Samaritans actually were so I went to look them up - on Wikipedia as I recall. What I remember reading (clearly) bears no relation to what I saw yesterday after Drich made reference to them in a post on here.

This is what I remember reading:

The Samaritans were an itinerant tribe that settled in Palestine. They had a bad time of it with crop failures and so on. Their King decided this was all happening because they didn't worship the local god so he sent out emissaries who met the Jews and then established temples to God. This was in addition to their existing Gods / temples.

Presumably this worked.

I particularly remember the end of the story which read (as I recall) that there are no Samaritans anymore. They are believed to have inter-bred with the Jewish population eventually and died out as a belief.

The reason this struck me and stuck in my memory is that I had never heard of any story of a group assimilating INTO the Jewish population.

Anyway - yesterday, after Drich's mention I went to look them up again and the version I now find on Wikipedia is completely different from the above story - entirely backing Drich's version.

So, am I losing my mind?
Could I have accidentally looked up the wrong tribe? (if so who?)
Could the Wikipedia entry have changed that dramatically?
Have I stumbled across a change in History that somehow didn't make it into my brain?

WTF?????

[downbeatplumb]

There are still a few Samaritans around.

http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/modern-samaritans/

They are Torah bible literalists, the jewish equivalent of Drich, which was why other jews shunned them. Fundies have always been annoying.

http://www.dangoor.com/70029.html

[Angrboda]

Wikipedia entries can and do come under the influence of partisan groups and authors. The pages on smoking cessation, for example, are heavily biased towards the "cold turkey only" camp.

[Aractus]

OK - this is really bugging me and I can't explain it. Any input greatly appreciated. As follows:

Some years ago I was having a discussion on another forum (not related) and the subject of the Samaritans came up.

I realized I didn't have a clue who the Samaritans actually were so I went to look them up - on Wikipedia as I recall. What I remember reading (clearly) bears no relation to what I saw yesterday after Drich made reference to them in a post on here.

Samaritans were a Jewish sect of sorts that were hated and despised by the Palestinian Jews. They had their own version of the Pentateuch, the Samaritan Pentateuch which still exists in its entirety today. They refused to accept the Writings or the Prophets as scripture, and at some point in antiquity they had introduced a handful of changes to their version of the Pentateuch (partly why the Palestinian Jews hated them so). They Samaritans were residents of Palestine (as a minority).

Just a note that besides the obvious changes made by the Samaritans, the text is overwhelmingly identical to what is found in the Masoretic Text, and the consensus among scholars is that the SP represents a completely separate textual tradition from antiquity c. 1000 BC or so. It is used as an example to show that the ancient Hebrew scriptures were never deliberately altered, as is often the claim made by atheists.

[Polaris]

Most Samaritans converted to Islam during the Moslem occupation of Palestine if I recall correctly. A few families still exist as Samaritans and I believe they view the Bible as false since it was written in a foreign land whereas the Samaritan Bible was written by those who were not taken into captivity.