Category:Sanballats (subject)
The Sanballats were an influential Samaritan family who played an important political, economic and religious role as governors of the province of Samaria during the Persian Period.
- This page is edited by Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan
Overview
Among those who in 445-444 BCE tried to "intimidate" Nehemiah and sabotage the reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem, Sanballat the Horonite is mentioned along with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian. They were the heads of the families that had arose to power in the Land of Israel during the Babylonian Exile and therefore felt more directly threatened by the rise of the Zadokites in Jerusalem and the arrival of Nehemiah as the new governor of Judah.
In the Persian Period, Sanballat served as an official of the Achaemenid Empire and the governor of Samaria. His major goal was to maintain his dominant position in the region and to prevent the emergence of a rival power in Jerusalem. Sanballat was unsuccessful in his attempt to stop Nehemiah from reconstructing the walls of Jerusalem and imposing the Zadokite order in Judea. He was able however to keep Samaria independent and strong. When all his efforts to gain control of the Jerusalem Temple failed, he managed to establish an alternative Temple of Mount Gerizim with a legitimate "Zadokite" priesthood. Toward the end of the 5th cent. BCE, a member of the Zadokite family married a daughter of Sanballat's and accepted to move to Samaria. The Samaritan Schism separated definitively the Jewish and the Samaritan community, who shared the belief of the same God and the acceptance of the Mosaic Torah, but were now organized around competitive temples.
The authority of the Sanballat family on religious matters is confirmed by the Elephantine Papyri. When the Jewish Temple of Elephantine was damaged or destroyed by rioters, the Jewish colonists asked specifically for the help of Sanballat's sons in 407 BCE, after their plea to the Zadokite authorities of Jerusalem in 410 BCE got unanswered.
Members of the Sanballat family are recorded in papyri and bullae as governors of Samaria during the entire Persian Period. A possible reconstruction provides the following series:
- Sanballat the Horonite (born ca. 485 BCE)
- Delaiah (born ca. 460 BCE), son of Sanballat the Horonite
- Sanballat II (born 435 BCE), son of Delaiah
- [Yesh]ua` (born ca. 410 BCE), son of Sanballat II
- Hananiah (born ca. 410 BCE), brother of [Yesh]ua`"
- Sanballat III (ca. 385 - 332 BCE), son of Hananiah
The coming of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Greek Period meant the demise of the Sanballat dynasty. The appointment of the Greek Andromachus as the new governor of Samaria caused a major rebellion. His brutal assassination by the insurgents led to the ruthless retaliation by the Greeks.
Select Bibliography (articles)
- / [[]] / In: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), dictionary, 1312-1313
- / [[]] / In: The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992 Freedman), dictionary,
External links
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