Parables Taught by a Rabbi

 Sadly, this semester's blog posts are going to be very different from last semester. This is mostly due to my not being in the Physical Settings class that has a field study every other weekend. Instead, I'm just having a lot of class time, a lot of reading, and a field study here and there to emphasis what we're learning in class. All that being said, I've had four field studies over the last week and a half – three of them just since this Thursday. I didn't go see anything too new or eye opening, but I am taking a lot of Jewish based classes this semester and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was fascinating and vastly different from Western thought.

So, about a week ago, my Parables class went to “The Inn of the Good Samaritan”. I was in no way excited about the field study. I've been sick off and on since the semester started, I had plenty of other more productive things to do on campus, and I didn't feel like I had any need to visit the site of a fictional story. I mean to say that I know Jesus told the story – I do believe that – but it's just a parable. It's not like it really happened. However, when Jesus told the parable, it's likely that he was referring to an actual inn along the Ascent of Adumim (remember me posting about that a few months ago? If you don't, look up the Ascent of Annihilation post) that his audience would have known. The Ascent of Adumim was an often traveled path from Jericho to Jerusalem, so it's plausible that there was an inn along the highway. Of course, when we got to the museum, it was full of mosaics from the Byzantine period and, if you've seen one mosaic, you've seen them all, in my opinion. So, that was about as uninteresting as I expected it to be. After looking in the mini museum of boredom, our professor, Rabbi Moshe Silbershien, had us sit outside, around him, while we talked about the parable – the sitting outside is very reminiscent of typical Rabbincal teaching. And that was far more interesting (no idea why we had to go to the museum to talk about it, when it could have been done in the classroom).

Um.... the structure of this blog may be a little strange. I'm going to structure in Rabbinic style, which will probably seem a little all over the place. The way that Rabbis teach and write is that they begin with one subject and, every time they read something that makes them think of something else, they talk about that something else and eventually come back to their original point. I have to deal with it in 3 out of my 5 classes, so I'm going to subject all of you to it :) It may not bother most people, but for us OCD structured folks it's a night mare. So, I bring to you the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37):

Luke 10:25 - On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

While some Christian commentaries try to make this “expert in the law” a very negative pronouncement, it really wasn't. Jews test each other all the time! That's basically what their Talmud is. The books that keep the interpretation of the Torah are lists of Rabbis that had differing opinions. They're always debating scripture. We tend to read this and think, “How dare that man confront Jesus with such an attitude!” But... that's not how it is at all. The unfortunate thing about reading as opposed to being there, is that it is very difficult to connote tone in text.

Luke 10:26 - “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you red it?”

This man asks Jesus, a Rabbi, a question and Jesus replies with a question. This is a very Socratic and a very Rabbinic way of teaching.

Luke 10:27 – He answered: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

So, Jesus asks him what the greatest commandment is and he replies with two commandments. Why is this? Well, there are only two commandments in all of the Torah that begin with “and you shall love,” and it's very common in Judaic thought to bring verses together via word association. These commandments are possibly listed together, therefore, because it was a traditional Rabbinic teaching, or because Jesus was the first Rabbi to bring these two verses together and the man is sucking up to Jesus by repeating Jesus' teaching. It can't really be proved, either way.

Luke 10:28-29 - “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

The question here is, why did the man need to justify himself? In fact, why did the man even ask Jesus the question about the greatest commandment if he already knew the correct answer? Well, maybe it's because he wanted to justify why he asked the question, or maybe he wanted to show off and find holes within the commandments. Maybe he asked Jesus the question to set him up for this next question so that the man could give his own knowledge of Torah and look good in front of the crowd.

Luke 10:30 – In reply, Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

Jesus immediately starts replying to the man, with a parable. Which, again, is very typical of Rabbinical teaching.

So, here Jesus illustrates a man that is walking down the Ascent of Adumim. It's possible that Jesus has in mind II Chronicles 28:8-15, in which the Judahites were taken captive by the people of Samaria and they were reminded of their common ancestry. So the Samaritans then clothed the people of Judah, healed them, and brought them to Jericho, where they presumably walked back to Judah. And here, Jesus is talking about a Judaic man who is naked and beaten on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. I don't think this is just a coincidence. I think that Jesus is pretty blatantly referring to the verses in Chronicles. Remember, everything in Judaic commentary and teaching is based on association.

Luke 10:31-32 – A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

These two men were walking down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Meaning, they were walking from the temple in Jerusalem to Jericho. Some people have said that the Priest and the Levite avoided the man because they thought him to be dead, and it would have made them unclean to touch him. But this is nonsense. If they just came from the temple, then they were done with work and would no longer have to worry about being clean! Plus, it was Jewish law that if you saw a dead man and there was no one to take care of the body than you had to bury it right there – even if you were a priest. Bodies had to be buried within 24 hours of their death, or it was considered highly shameful and disrespectful. When we take that into context, then it seems that they were avoiding responsibility of taking care of him. I mean, they so wanted to avoid the man that they were walking on the other side of the road. I've been down that road... and to be on the other side would mean to be across a small canyon/dry riverbed. It's not like walking on the other side of a sidewalk to allow someone to walk by.

Luke 10:33-34 – But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.

So, side note, when we arrived at the museum we were handed these nifty little pamphlets with illustrations and stories about the place. But I have to tell you, the people that wrote the pamphlet have got to be idiots. I'll rewrite what they said so that you can pick out what's wrong with it before I tell you what's wrong with it:

“It was undoubtedly Jesus's intention to reproach the Jews' religious leaders – the priests and Levites who presided over the Temple – in the framework of his general opposition to the clerical establishment. But why did he choose to contrast a Samaritan with a priest and Levite, as if there were no decent ordinary Jews who would perform a benevolent deed? What necessitated his choice of a Samartian to voice his opposition to the religious authorities? It should be noted that when he traversed Samaria the Samaritans refused to offer him hospitality (Luke 9:51-53). This suggests that the parable, at least in its Hebrew original did not mention a Samaritan.”

Here are some of the problems that I find with that. First of all, we don't even know if there was an original Hebrew copy of Luke. It's likely it was originally written in Greek. Second of all, the purpose of a parable is to shock people. It's to make them think outside the box.

So let's give some background knowledge. In the Old Testament, Samaritans were just people from the area of Samaria (2 Kings 17:29). But, of course, those Samaritans were uprooted and exiled during the Assyrian conquest of Israel – which included Samaria. The New Testament Samaritan origin began during the Hellenistic period (4^th century BC), when Shechem was rebuilt after it's long period of desolation. There isn't a whole lot of knowledge on why Shechem was rebuilt. Some people think that, with Alexander the Great's influence on the rest of the land, a group of religious zealots decided to make a fresh start in an untouched area. Which makes sense, as a temple was erected on Mount Gerizim, right above Shechem. The people that built it – Samaritans – likely saw this to be a true temple, as Jerusalem was being overrun with secular practices and would have seemed impure to them. On the other hand, the Jews would have felt that their temple could be the only true one because the Torah names it as the only one. Coincidentally, the Samaritan Bible is made up of the five books of Moses (the first five books of the Bible) but the mountain for the temple is changed from Mount Zion to Mount Gerizim. Either way, John Hyrcanus destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim in 128 BC. But tensions did not stop here. The Samaritans continued to attempt to desecrate Jewish holy places and festivals and disrupt their life as much as possible. It's no wonder, by the time we get to the second temple period of Jesus' time, that tensions are running quite high between the two groups. In fact, they hated each other so much that often Jews would travel around Samaria, rather than through it, when traveling.

All that to say, if parables are supposed to be shocking statements that make you think outside of the box, wouldn't it be extremely shocking for Jesus to use a Samaritan in light of good things while speaking to a group of Jews? I think so. It would have been like saying a modern day Palestinian saved the life of an Israeli Jew.

Another question the Rabbi asked us is: What is the importance of the trinity of Priest, Levite, and Samaritan? The person that wrote the pamphlet was convinced that it read Priest, Levite, and Israelite in the “original Hebrew”. But that isn't seen anywhere in scripture. If you know anything about Jews, you know that they can't talk about anything without referencing scripture. If that's the case, then were else is Priest, Levite, and Samaritan written to which Jesus may have been referring to?Rabbi Moshe pointed us to Psalms 115:9-11 and 118:2-4, which both list the House of Aaron, Israel, and those who fear God. Well, the priests come from the house of Aaron, but no Levites are mentioned and there is no direct reference to Samaritans. How about in Psalms 135:19-21? Here, the house of Aaron, the Levites, and those who fear the Lord. Who are these God fearers? Could these be Samaritans? From what we know about them, they worship the God of the Jews but have some different theological opinions. Also, often Gentiles in the area wished to worship God but didn't want to go through the rituals of becoming a Jew, and they were often called God fearers. So it's possible that Jesus is referring to these psalms when telling the parable of the good Samaritan and his audience, a group of practicing Jews, would have known these psalms while he was telling the story.

Also, this verse within the parable, specifically, is very reminiscent of the story in Chronicles, where the Samaritans bandage the wounds of the Judeans and put them on donkeys for their way home.

Luke 10:35-36 – The next day he took out two silver coins (the equivalent of two day's wages) and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

Again, Jesus opens with a question, tells the parable, and ends with a question. I find it interesting that Jesus is illustrating what a neighbor when the export of the law asked who is a neighbor.

Luke 10:37 – The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him” Jesus told him, “go and do likewise.”

I also found it interesting that instead of saying, “The Samaritan” the man says “the one...”, and Jesus uses this as a way to show the man how to be a neighbor instead of nit-picking about who a neighbor is.

Um... I have no answer to what the parable is about or what it all means. Why are there references to II Chronicles? Why did Jesus use the Priest, Levite, and “God-fearers” trinity? I think when we bring these things in, there is a much deeper meaning beyond the Golden Rule of treat others as you wish to be treated. I don't know... I'm still working on what I think about it.