The Gospel of John tells of the meeting between Jesus and a woman of the Samaritans that takes place at Jacob’s Well in the city of Sychar, while Jesus was travelling from Judea back to the Galilee. He speaks to the Samaritan despite the deep rift between their two peoples, offering everlasting life to the woman – and through her to all the peoples of the world.
Since Early Christian times the location of this event has been placed in the Biblical town Shechem. Known as Jabal Batin in Arabic, it’s more commonly called Nablus by the west, from the name Neapolis, given to it by the Roman Titus in 72 AD. The Byzantines raised a church here in the 4th century, and today a Greek Orthodox monastery stands over the ruins of the church and the well.
Also fascinating to visit are the many traditional crafts workshops. Nablus is famous for the many factories that produce soap from olive oil and soda by methods used for millennia.
*But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 4:14
This page is part of the book The Holy Land of Jesus
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