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Question

Where is Mount Gerizim, the mountain of blessing?

Mount Gerizim is the mountain on the south side of the pass of Shechem, above the city of Nablus in the West Bank, about 47 km north of Jerusalem in a straight line; Mount Ebal faces it across the narrow valley on the north. The map's points for the two summits are about 3.8 km apart, and the mound of ancient Shechem lies at Gerizim's north-eastern foot, about 1.8 km from its summit. History Globe already answers who the Samaritans were, whose holy mountain it is, and has an article on Gerizim; this answer is about the place and the ceremony of blessing and curse.

Moses tied the two mountains to the entry into the land: “thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal”, and he located them “beside the plains of Moreh”, the oak of Moreh at Shechem where Abraham had camped. Six tribes were to “stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people”, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin, and six on Ebal to curse. Joshua carried it out with “half of them over against mount Gerizim, and half of them over against mount Ebal”, the ark and the Levites in the valley between. Later Jotham “stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried” his fable of the trees to the men of Shechem below.

Askar, usually taken for Sychar, lies at the same foot, about 2.5 km from the summit in a straight line, with Jacob's well nearby, where the Samaritan woman could point up at the mountain: “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain”. Where Joshua's ceremony stood is not marked; the map's year follows the early date for the conquest, about 1406 BC, while many scholars place it in the thirteenth century BC or doubt that it can be dated. In the Samaritan Pentateuch Gerizim, not Ebal, is the mountain of the altar in Deuteronomy 27:4. Today the summit, Jebel et-Tur, rises to 881 m, with the Samaritan village of Kiryat Luza on its slope and the ruins of the Samaritan temple and of Zeno's church at the top.

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Scripture: Deut 11:29–30; Deut 27:12–13; Josh 8:33; Judg 9:7; John 4:20

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