Once the Samaritan woman recognizes Jesus as a prophet, she raises a question that divided her community from the Jews: 'Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.'
The mountain visible in the Samaritan setting is Mount Gerizim.
Samaritans accepted the Torah as their foundational Scripture and regarded Mount Gerizim near Shechem as the divinely chosen sanctuary. A Samaritan temple had existed there before its destruction by the Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus in the late second century BC. Jewish worship, by contrast, centered on the Jerusalem Temple.
Jesus acknowledges the historical Jewish place in salvation history but announces an hour in which true worship will not be defined by either mountain as its controlling location.
The historical dispute shows that the woman's question is not a diversion into an abstract theological puzzle. She is asking about one of the defining disagreements between two related religious communities.
Jesus' answer is therefore radical in context: the coming worship of the Father in spirit and truth transcends the geographic rivalry while arising within the salvation history entrusted to Israel.