Mt. Gerizim Sanctuary, Its History and Enigma of Origin

The remains of the sanctuary of Yahweh, which probably existed in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, have been discovered on Mt. Gerizim and are already well known among historians of antiquity. In the first and second parts of the article, we summarize the history of the sanctuary from the 5th to the 2nd centuries B.C.E. In the third part, we evoke some questions related to the origin of the sanctuary that emerge when we confront the archaeological evidence with some biblical texts.