The term “Samaritans” first appeared in Scripture after the conquest of the ten-tribe kingdom of Samaria in 740 B.C.E.; it was applied to those who lived in the northern kingdom before that conquest as distinct from the foreigners later brought in from other parts of the Assyrian Empire. (2Ki 17:29) It appears that the Assyrians did not remove all the Israelite inhabitants, for the account at 2 Chronicles 34:6-9 (compare 2Ki 23:19, 20) implies that during King Josiah’s reign there were Israelites still in the land. In time, “Samaritans” came to mean the descendants of those left in Samaria and those brought in by the Assyrians. Therefore some were undoubtedly the products of mixed marriages. At a still later period, the name carried more of a religious, rather than a racial or political, connotation. “Samaritan” referred to one who belonged to the religious sect that flourished in the vicinity of ancient Shechem and Samaria and who held to certain tenets distinctly different from Judaism.​—Joh 4:9.

The erection of the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, perhaps in the fourth century B.C.E., in competition to the one in Jerusalem is considered by some to mark the final separation of the Jews and Samaritans, although some think the severance in relations came more than a century later. When Jesus began his ministry, the breach between the two had not been healed, although the Gerizim temple had been destroyed about a century and a half earlier. (Joh 4:9) The Samaritans were still worshiping on Mount Gerizim (Joh 4:20-23), and the Jews had little respect for them. (Joh 8:48) This existing scornful attitude permitted Jesus to make a strong point in his illustration of the neighborly Samaritan.​—Lu 10:29-37.