In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned twelve years, six of them in Tirzah. He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill. 1 Kings 16:23-24 We had another field study on Sunday, this time journeying north into the West Bank to the ancient region known as Samaria. One thing that made the day stand out was that all the sites we visited were new […]