TheCuthites is a name describing a people said by theHebrew Bible and by the 1st-century historianJosephus to be living inSamaria around 500 BCE. The name comes from the Assyrian city ofKutha in line with the claim that theSamaritans were descendants of settlers placed in Israel by theNeo-Assyrian Empire after the destruction of the northernKingdom of Israel around 720 BCE. The label "Cuthites" was a pejorative name for Samaritans in laterrabbinic literature.[1]
The modern scholarly view is thatYahweh-worshippers in the north ofAncient Israel outnumbered post-722 BCE Assyrian settlers, who assimilated into the existing Yahwist population.[2] The "Cuthites", therefore, were not a foreign population in Israel but instead "a branch ofYahwistic Israel in the same sense as the Jews."[3]
According to the books ofEzra and Nehemiah, the Cuthites were to blame for the postponing of the construction of theSecond Temple, during the reign ofCyrus the Great. They did this after theJewish people returned fromBabylonian exile, and first agreed to help them, but after the Jews refused, they lied to king Cyrus who postponed the building process.[citation needed]
The Cuthites are mentioned in Josephus,Antiquities Book 11, Chapter 4, as "Cutheans", naming them as those who were brought from Media and Persia and "planted" in Samaria by the king ofAssyria after he had conquered theTen Tribes of Israel.
Cuth (or Cuthah) is mentioned in the2 Kings 17:30 in reference to the gods or idols made and worshiped by different tribes, which took place in the former holy places of exiled Israelites (King James Bible trans.): "And the men of Babylon made Succothbenoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima."[4]
There is aminor tractate of the Talmud called Kutim that deals with the laws around forbidden and permitted interactions with Samaritans.[5]
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