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NASB | Luke 10:30 Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Luke 10:30 Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers, who stripped him of his clothes [and belongings], beat him, and went their way [unconcerned], leaving him half dead. |
Subject: Why identify the cities and not the man? |
Bible Note: Hi, Momma... how are you? I don't think your analogy stretches things too far. In fact, John Gill (from way back in the 1700's) made some similar observations. Of course, we need to keep in mind the primary question that the parable was intended to answer: Who is my neighbor? That was what Christ was answering and he used terms with which His audience would identify. The story of the Good Samaritan is what Biblical scholars call a "true parable" (as opposed to parables that are called similitudes or epigrams) -- i.e., a story. Fee and Stuart in "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth" state that parables should be studied as follows: (1) read it over and over, (2) identify the points of reference intended by Jesus that would have been picked up by the original hearers, and (3) try to determine how the original hearers would have identified with the story. Christ was indirectly answering the question of the expert in the Law, but He was more directly unveiling the smug, self-righteousness of the Jews. Remember the two that pass by: they represented the religious order of the day. They taught that almsgiving was the way in which love was shown to your neighbor. By choosing a Samaritan as the one who actually shows compassion, Christ was picking one of the most loathed of people by the Jews. Think of it this way to get the feel for it: What if instead of a priest it was a modern evangelist? What if instead of a Levite, it was a professor from a prominent evangelical seminary? What if instead of a Samaritan, it was an atheism activist. Do you start to get the sense of the impact of this story? We can speculate... and we ought to speculate... and we ought to see patterns. We just need to recognize these things are one step removed from scripture itself, consequently having less authority. The Bible says no more and no less than what was originally meant by the author (or, in this case, the speaker) in the passage in question. In Him, Doc |