[Uncle Miltie]

There are still 860 Samaritans in Israel, about half in Nablus at their ancestral temple mount of Gerizim, a competitor to Jerusalem. They have an essentially complete and identical Torah, celebrate most of the same holidays, use an ancient hebrew script, have strong Cohain DNA, and historically (~2,000 years ago) intermarried substantially with Southern Israelites from Judea.

I’m stunned, and studying.

[Cronos]

I would recommend reading

Heirs to forgotten kingdoms - by Gerard Russell

The Samaritans actually had a series of Samaritan revolts against Roman rule from 484 to 573 AD -- and as an aside note that Jews were STILL living in Judea in 573 AD and were quite numerous. They were living there into 640 AD and when

1. the Persians conquered Jerusalem they were aided by Jews and set up a vassal Jewish state (very short lived)

2. the Arabs conquered Jerusalem, they were aided by Jews who took violent actions against the Christians in Jerusalem later and that was stopped by the Arabs (I specifically say "Arabs" as I am of the historical opinion (as shared by Tom Holland and Robert Spencer) that Islam as a distinct religion arose only in the 750s and the Arabs who conquered initially were a version of Christian heresy until the "Muhammed" in the quran was made into a real character (like Robin Hood)

Anyway, so genetic studies show that the Samaritans have the "Cohen gene" i.e. descended from Levites

And Many of the Arabs, Samaritans, Druze and Jews all share common ancestry - the ancient Israelite descendants have different identities today

[SunkenCiv]

:^)