When Was the First Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim Built?

According to Flavius Josephus, the first Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim was constructed around the time of Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BCE , when Sanballat switched his allegiance from the Persian king to Alexander. Yitzhak Magen’s 1983–2006 excavations at the site uncovered the Samaritan temple and sacred precinct as well as large parts of the Hellenistic city and structures dating to the Roman and Byzantine periods. Magen claims that the finds from his excavations date the construction of the first phase of the temple to the mid-fifth century BCE , not to the time of Alexander’s conquest. However, an analysis of the archaeological data published by Magen indicates that the stratified finds do not support a mid-fifth century BCE construction date for the first Samaritan temple and therefore cannot be cited as evidence disproving Josephus’s testimony.