<P> According to historian Lawrence Schiffman, throughout the Persian Period, Judeans and Samaritans fought periodically with one another . The Samaritans were a blend of all kinds of people--made up of Israelites who were not exiled when the Northern Kingdom was destroyed in 722 BCE--of various different nationalities whom the Assyrians had resettled in the area . The Assyrians did this as an attempt to ensure that Israel's national dream could not come true . </P> <P> According to the Jewish version of events, when the Judean exile ended in 539 BCE and the exiles began returning home from Babylon, Samaritans found their former homeland of the north populated by other people who claimed the land as their own and Jerusalem, their former glorious capital, in ruins . The inhabitants worshiped the Pagan gods, but when the then - sparsely populated areas became infested with dangerous wild beasts, they appealed to the king of Assyria for Israelite priests to instruct them on how to worship the "God of that country ." The result was a syncretistic religion, in which national groups worshiped the Israelite God, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought . </P> <P> According to Chronicles 36: 22--23, the Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great (reigned 559--530 BCE), permitted the return of the exiles to their homeland and ordered the rebuilding of the Temple (Zion). The prophet Isaiah identified Cyrus as "the Lord's Messiah". The word "Messiah" refers to an anointed individual, such as a king or priest . </P> <P> During the First Temple, it was possible for foreigners to help the Jewish people in an informal way until tension grew between the Samaritans and Judeans . This meant that foreigners could physically move into Judean land and abide by its laws and religion . </P>

Where did the samaritans have their own temple