– it required me to justly study Ancient Samaria, and truly tell the story of an overlooked world. Ancient Samaria is one of the regions that is often mentioned in scripture. However, it has stayed misunderstood for centuries, but reveals an incredible history once you start digging. I wasn’t just building a character; I was building a culture, a landscape, a political climate, and an entire lived experience behind one of the most iconic encounters in scripture.

The Gospels give us very little about the Samaritan woman. History gives us only glimpses of her world. So a lot of my work became piecing together the fragments we do have, cross-checking them with archaeology and anthropology, and then making creative choices where the record simply doesn’t speak.

And yes — sometimes I stayed very close to the historical record. And other times…I fudged it a little.

Here’s the truth about both.

What I Stayed True To

As well-established in history books, I also pivoted the tension between Samaritans and Judeans in my novel. Josephus has discussed this tension extensively, and the archaeologists also found evidence supporting this divide. There truly was hostility, suspicion, and centuries of fractured relationships.

The household structures, arranged marriages, and exploitation of women are also historically accurate. Marriage in the ancient Near East in those times was nothing about building a ‘life together’, but a form of transaction. Marriage contracts, inheritance laws, and clan-based structures all supported the historical perspectives on women. So Photine’s lack of choice and her vulnerability within those structures isn’t an exaggeration — it’s the norm.

Then there’s daily life. The mills, olive groves, stone houses, clay ovens, shepherding rhythms, market days — all of that comes directly from archaeological reports from Tel Balata (ancient Shechem), plus comparative studies of Iron Age and early Roman-period households. I wanted the practical world to feel solid beneath her feet.

I also relied on historically documented widow practices. While Samaritans had their own version of the Pentateuch, their cultural and religious context around widowhood was the same as in the region. Widows often became properties of a brother’s household. Survival came first; everything else didn’t matter.

And of course, Jacob’s Well itself is a real place — extraordinarily deep, historically attested, and sitting exactly where the story needs it to be.

Where I Gave Myself Creative Freedom

Let’s start with the obvious: we know almost nothing about her actual biography. So everything about her father, her brother, her early experiences, her marriages, her emotional landscape — that’s my imagination, shaped by what was plausible in her world.

I also took liberties in describing the local resistance movements. Samaria absolutely had political unrest, splinter groups, teachers, and prophetic figures, especially during Roman encroachment. Josephus records at least one Samaritan prophet gathering people on Mount Gerizim. But did Photine’s father belong to a resistance group structured exactly as I wrote it? We don’t know. Could he have? Yes. The social tension was real; the individuals are fiction.