# What was samarian culture like **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 13, 2004, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185 "2004-06-13T22:03:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/1 "2004-06-13T22:03:36Z")
I remember about 10 years ago reading the booklet that the PC game “age of empires” came with. it described all the different cultures in the game (assyrian, greek, sumerian, etc). The sumerian culture seemed respectable. they would let slaves earn their freedom, and i think they gave more rights to others. Also im all but certain the phrase ‘good samaritan’ comes from the sumarian culture. So was sumerian culture humane in an inhumane world or is this an exaggeration? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/2 "2004-06-13T22:24:27Z")
This is [Samaria](http://www.crystalinks.com/samaria.html) whence came the Good Samaritan. And this is [Sumeria](http://ragz-international.com/sumeria.htm) . ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/3 "2004-06-13T22:54:58Z")
And is _very_ different from “Cimmerian”. [http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/hyborian.htm](http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/hyborian.htm) > [@](#): > > Cimmeria:—a nation of barbarian tribes situated north of Aquilonia and separated from it by a narrow strip of the Bossonian Marches and Gunderland. The Pictish Wilderness lay to the west of Cimmeria. The high Eiglophian Mountains walled off the country from Vanaheim and Asgard on the north. Cimmeria, birthplace of Conan, was an unremittingly somber land, “all of hills, darkly wooded, under skies nearly always gray, with winds moaning drearily down the valleys”. The people were the direct descendants of vanished Atlanteans. They were tall and powerful, with dark hair and blue or gray eyes. Cimmerian tribes existed contemporaneously with Atlantis, intermarrying with Atlantean colonists on the Thurian continent prior to the Cataclysm. Cimmerians of Conan’s time were apparently still in a hunting and gathering culture, living in villages deep in the humid forests. The people used iron weapons and had borrowed other elements from the higher cultures to the south. The Cimmerian’s chief god was Crom, who took little interest in human affairs. Conan was a maverick Cimmerian, one of the few to venture out of the sopping woodlands. The Saga mentions no other Cimmerians living among the advanced nations. Five hundred years after the Age of Conan, the Cimmerians were still ensconced in their ancient homeland. Hyrkanian invaders exploded into other Hyborian kingdoms; but their thrust fizzled out amid the ferociously defended Cimmerian hills. Only the great Nordheimr surge in advance of the glaciers finally displaced the black-haired barbarians. Many ousted Cimmerians then moved eastward, all the way to the southwestern shore of the Vilayet. GO CONAN!! 😃🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/4 "2004-06-13T23:19:10Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > Also im all but certain the phrase ‘good samaritan’ comes from the sumarian culture. > > So was sumerian culture humane in an inhumane world or is this an exaggeration? Ignoring the Samaritan/Sumerian mixup that aldi corrected, you’re misinterpretting the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good person in the story wasn’t a Samaritan because the Samaritans were (or were believed to be) a particularly good people. Quite the opposite - he was a Samaritan, because the people being told the story would assume the worst of the Samaritans. But the Samaritan, unlike the priest and Levite who passed the injured man earlier, went out of his way to help an unidentified man (who would be assumed to be a Jew, and thus the Samaritan assumed to be hostile to him, whereas he was of the same people as the priest and Levite.) - illustrating the point of the parable: ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ applies not just to your own tribesmen, but to everyone - even those your people are usually hostile towards. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/5 "2004-06-13T23:20:12Z")
And don’t confuse the Samaritans with the Sarmatians either. ---
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/6 "2004-06-14T01:26:04Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > I remember about 10 years ago reading the booklet that the PC game “age of empires” came with. it described all the different cultures in the game (assyrian, greek, sumerian, etc). > > The sumerian culture seemed respectable. they would let slaves earn their freedom, and i think they gave more rights to others. > > Also im all but certain the phrase ‘good samaritan’ comes from the sumarian culture. > > So was sumerian culture humane in an inhumane world or is this an exaggeration? Samaritan is a citizen of the ancient nation of Samaria. According to Tanach, fighting that started with Shlomo (Solomon)'s sons led to a split of Israel into two kingdoms: Israel and Judah. Israel was also called Samaria. The Judeans kept to a more traditional observance of Judaism, and since they had the Temple in Jerusalem they were considered “good.” According to Tanach, the Samarians wandered off into various unapproved religious practices. The Assyrians attacked the Samarians, defeated them, and carried off most of who remained as slaves. Samaria had taken territories traditionally associated with 10 of the “tribes of Israel”, while Judah took the other two (Judah and Benjamin). When the Assyrians carried off the Samarians, the legend of the “10 Lost Tribes” grew up. Actually they were never “lost”, they just disappeared into Assyrian culture. By the time of Jesus, what the Romans called Palestine was mostly in southern Israel, while the Syrians had migrated into Northern and coastal Israel. Judaism was still predominant. Perhaps the parable should be renamed “The Good Unbeliever”. Tanach (especially the two Books of Kings) tears apart the Samarians, depicting them as base, evil, unbelieving, etc. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/7 "2004-06-14T02:07:23Z")
More to the point than the stories of the Prophetic books of the Old Testament, which, while they do condemn the sins of the Kings and Kingdom of Israel that had its power base in Samaria, the “Samaritan” referred to in the “Good Samaritan” story refers to non-Jews who were forcibly relocated to Samaria by the Babylonians. I believe they are referred to in the book of Nehemia (chapter 4) as enemies of the Jews, and it is in this context that the goodness of the Samaritan is considered surprising. ---
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-samarian-culture-like/250185/8 "2004-06-14T02:53:20Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > More to the point than the stories of the Prophetic books of the Old Testament, which, while they do condemn the sins of the Kings and Kingdom of Israel that had its power base in Samaria, the “Samaritan” referred to in the “Good Samaritan” story refers to non-Jews who were forcibly relocated to Samaria by the Babylonians. I believe they are referred to in the book of Nehemia (chapter 4) as enemies of the Jews, and it is in this context that the goodness of the Samaritan is considered surprising. I willingly admit that I don’t know anything about the New Testament, so this meaning of Samaritan escapes me. As for Nehemia, that I’ve read, but it refers to Samaria only once. Good catch!