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What’s
Happening in the Story? Bernard Brandon Scott
Hearer/Reader Response in the Parable From Jerusalem to Jericho The story of the Good Samaritan changes according to the hearer’s point of view. Luke’s implied audience (Gentile Christians), and Jesus’ Jewish listeners (Galilean peasants) would each hear it differently. The parable serves as an example story for Luke’s Gentile audience. The Samaritan depicts how one should show mercy to others. For the original Jewish listeners, however, the story works quite differently. Their hostility with Samaritans prevents the parable from functioning as an example. Jewish hearers would not have identified with its Samaritan hero. The Jewish hearer must either reject the story as unrealistic or identify with the half-dead man. Neither group escapes the parable completely at ease. For the Jew, the story erases the boundary between "them and us." Luke’s Gentile audience is also challenged to redefine "other and self." Luke follows the lawyer’s recitation of the two great commandments (10.27) with balanced stories about loving one’s neighbor and loving God as oneself.
Social location and point of view are all-important in the Good Samaritan parable because the story changes according to the hearer’s perspective. Luke’s implied audience (Gentile Christians), and Jesus’ Jewish auditors (mostly Galilean peasants like himself) would each hear a different parable. Luke’s version of the parable serves as an example story for his Gentile audience. The Samaritan depicts how one should show mercy to others. For the parable’s original Jewish peasant audience, however, the story works quite differently. Their hostility with Samaritans prevents the parable from serving as an example. Jewish hearers would not have identified with its Samaritan hero. The parable’s first verse sets the scene. The seventeen-mile desert road covering the rocky hill country between Jerusalem and Jericho was a notorious hideout for bandits. Therefore, the opening act of violence comes as no surprise. At this point Jewish and Gentile hearers alike await a hero’s arrival. Both audiences assume that this must be a hero story. In a hero story, the hearer/reader identifies with the hero. The ancient hearer would not identify with the victim. The story continues with the ignoring actions of the priest and the Levite. Following folktale convention, both Jewish and Gentile hearers now expect a third passerby to give the correct response. The Jewish audience assumes that the third character, the hero, will be an Israelite. "Priest, Levite, and Israelite" (meaning lay person) is a conventional pattern. But instead of the expected Israelite, a Samaritan appears--the Israelite’s proverbial enemy. The arrival of the Samaritan surprises Jewish listeners because he disrupts their common hero image. Indeed, the Samaritan acts contrary to his image and shows compassion. Jewish hearers must now decide where they fit in the story. Identifying with the Samaritan would require the violation of basic ethnic taboos. The listener would have to cast aside centuries of enmity and opposition. The Jewish hearer must either reject the story as unrealistic or identify with the half-dead man. On the other hand, the Samaritan’s arrival presents no particular problem for Gentile hearers, whose expectations of a hero are fulfilled by the end of the verse. The Samaritan adequately fulfills Gentile expectations of a hero, as the traditional title "Good Samaritan" clearly shows. Why does this parable have such an long ending after the story's climax is reached with the Samaritan having compassion? In the other Jesus parables, as well as in most rabbinic parables, the climax comes in the final sentence. The long conclusion gives an audience the opportunity to reorder its world according to the parable’s shocking vision. It gives hearers time to make the shift, giving up their wish to identify with the unlikely hero. This lengthened ending is a formal clue that the story was supposed to be an anti-hero story. No hearer escapes the parable completely at ease. For the Jew, the story erases the boundary between them and us. Nor does Luke’s Gentile audience escape the challenge to redefine other and self. Luke follows the lawyer’s quoting of the two great commandments (10.27) with balanced stories about loving one’s neighbor and loving God as oneself.
Whose Story? Social location and point of view are all-important in the parable "Jerusalem to Jericho" because the story changes according to the hearer’s perspective. The parable’s various hearers, Luke’s fictional audience (the lawyer), Luke’s implied audience (Gentile Christians), Jesus’ Jewish auditors (mostly Galilean peasants like himself), and contemporary listeners, hear a different parable depending on their social location. Luke: Who is my Neighbor? Jerusalem to Jericho surely goes back to the historical Jesus, but its presentation in the Gospel bears clear marks of Luke’s editorial hand. Although the extent of Luke’s redaction is not universally agreed, there are compelling reasons to attribute to Luke the parable’s narrative context, Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer about the meaning of "neighbor," and the concluding question. Parallels in Mark ( 12.28–34) and
Matthew Moreover, the parable’s structure suggests the separate integrity of the parable ( 10.30–35) and its frame story, Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer ( 10.25–37). The exchange with the lawyer falls into two parallel parts. Each contains a question from the lawyer ( 10.25 and 10.29), Jesus’ counterquestion ( 10.26 and 10.36), the lawyer’s answer ( 10.27 and 10.37), and Jesus’ command ( 10.28 and 10.37). Between these two parallel sections lies the parable itself ( 10.30–35), internally unified by lexical, grammatical, and syntactical parallels. The parable is built on a repeated formula that includes the identification of a character (a certain man, a certain priest, a Levite, a certain Samaritan), a form of katabain denoting motion or arrival, a participle denoting seeing, and a form of elthon, "come/go" (apelthon, "departed"; antiparelthon, "passed by on the other side"; elthon, "came"; proselthon, "went to"). This type of structure is characteristic of oral storytelling. Jesus: Who Proved Neighbor? The parable and its narrative context function at cross-purposes because its impact shifts when situated within Luke’s frame. In 10.27–29 "neighbor" means one to whom the listener must show love; love’s object, not its subject. But in 10.36 "neighbor" changes meaning. With the lawyer’s answer to Jesus’ final counterquestion in 10.36, "neighbor" comes to mean one who shows mercy, the giver rather than the receiver. In Luke’s frame the parable functions as an example story for his implied Gentile audience. The Samaritan illustrates how one should show mercy to others. The listener identifies with the neighbor as a subject, as one who does mercy (although paradoxically, the implied interpretation dominant in the tradition is that we should do likewise, i.e., take care of Samaritans). For the parable’s original Jewish peasant audience, however, the story functions quite differently. Their enmity with Samaritans prevents the parable from functioning as an example, because Jewish hearers would not have identified with its Samaritan hero. In its original setting the story delivers a fundamental challenge to basic social and ethnic boundaries. It erodes the line that separates "them" and "us." What’s Happening in the Story? The parable’s first verse sets the scene. Because the seventeen-mile desert road covering the rocky hill country between Jerusalem and Jericho was a notorious hideout for bandits, the opening act of violence comes as no surprise. At this point Jewish and Gentile hearers alike await a hero’s arrival, which signals the story’s type: a hero story. The power of hero stories derives from their ability to enable the hearer/reader to identify with the hero and thus triumph over the vicissitudes of life. The ancient hearer would not identify with the victim, just as modern readers of Luke do not. Restoration of the victim is the narrative goal of a hero story. The coincidental appearances of the priest and Levite shape the audience’s expectations. The priest passes by without stopping, and the Levite merely repeats the priest’s behavior. Their response is clearly wrong, but the parable neither vilifies, absolves, nor shows any real interest in their motives. Following the rule of three, it builds the audience’s expectation that the next passerby will break the pattern and act as hero. The priest and Levite represent the upper-class Jewish religious-political establishment, a position unlikely to earn the sympathy of either Jewish peasant or Gentile. These characters ignore the victim for no apparent reason. Concern for ritual purity may be involved, but the victim’s anonymous status and location on the road would have permitted the clerics’ contact, according to traditions later recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud (Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 195–97). Even so, such legal details would have held little interest for a Gentile hearer, and they would have left unmoved the sympathies of the anticlerical Jewish peasantry. Pharisee listeners could have interpreted the priest and Levite’s failure to stop as proof of the superiority of their traditions over the more restrictive Levitical law. Adhering to folk-tale convention, both Jewish and Gentile hearers now expect a third passerby to give the correct response. While formally a Jewish and Gentile audience would respond in the same way, the use of priest and Levite sets up a specific expectation on the part of the Jewish audience that the third character, the hero, will be an Israelite. Priest, Levite, and Israelite (meaning layperson) is a conventional pattern (Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 198). As Montefiore remarked, the triad in this parable "is no less queer and impossible than ‘Priest, Deacon, and Frenchman’ would be to us today." The next verse fulfills the hearer’s expectation of a hero. Jewish hearers expect the third member of the triad, an Israelite who will save the half-dead man. Instead of the expected Israelite a Samaritan appears, the Israelite’s logical contrary and proverbial enemy. This jolt to the hearer’s expectations is evident even at a linguistic level. Unlike the introductions of the priest and the Levite, the word Samaritan receives grammatical emphasis in the verse by its placement at the beginning of the Greek sentence. The arrival of the Samaritan surprises Jewish listeners because the Samaritan disrupts the conventional triad of priest, Levite, Israelite, threatening a tragic turn in the story in which the Samaritan through some nefarious deed might outstrip the bandits’ cruelty. Instead, the Samaritan acts contrary to type and responds with compassion. Jewish hearers must now decide where to locate themselves in the story. Besides being in the wrong social class for most of Jesus’ typical audience, the priest and Levite have already been dismissed as aloof and uncompassionate, undeserving of the audience’s sympathy. Identifying with the Samaritan would require the violation of basic ethnic taboos and summarily casting aside centuries of enmity and opposition. The Jewish hearer must either reject the story and its narrative logic as unrealistic or identify with the half-dead man. Having expected to be the hero, the audience now becomes the victim. To remain the hero, one must leave the story and forfeit the kingdom. On the other hand, the Samaritan’s arrival presents no particular problem for Gentile hearers, whose expectations of a hero are fulfilled by the end of the verse. Gentile and Jewish auditors part company here because their divergent expectations prompt different responses. The Samaritan adequately fulfills Gentile expectations of a hero, as the traditional title "Good Samaritan" clearly indicates. 10.34-35 Why does this parable have such an extensive ending after its narrative climax is reached with the Samaritan having compassion? In the other Jesus parables, as well as in most rabbinic parables, the climax comes in the final sentence. The parable details the Samaritan’s treatment of the man’s injuries, transportation to the inn, and arrangements with the innkeeper for the man’s continued care. Again, the shift in narrative pattern begins at the linguistic level. Descriptions of each passerby imply a similar formula, including the character’s identification, a form of kata, the participle id n, and a form of elthon. The formula for the Samaritan includes all these elements, but it places elthon before instead of after the participle id n and then employs an elthon compound that denotes approach (proselthon) rather than departure (antiparelthon). These devices prolong and emphasize the Samaritan’s positive response. As the parable fulfills its narrative goal, the restoration of the beaten man, it amplifies the image of the good Samaritan, an oxymoron for a first-century Jew. The protracted conclusion gives an audience the opportunity to reorder its world according to the parable’s shocking vision. It gives hearers time to make the shift, relinquishing their hope to identify with the hero and suffering compassion of an arch-enemy. This protracted ending is a formal clue that the story was intended to be an anti-hero story. In the Gentile reading of the story, there is no formal reason for the protracted ending. Love your Neighbor as Yourself A story that must have created intense conflict for its original audience becomes domesticated in Luke’s narrative frame as an example story of neighborliness, reverting to type and becoming a simple hero story. Still, no hearer escapes the parable completely at ease. For the Jewish hearer, the story erases the boundary between them and us. Ultimately, therefore, it challenges self-definition based upon distinguishing oneself from a rival group. Nor does Luke’s Gentile audience escape the challenge to redefine other and self. Luke follows the lawyer’s recitation of the two great commandments ( 10.27) with balanced stories about loving one’s neighbor and loving God as oneself. If his Gentile hearers readily accept their Samaritan hero, they also learn in the following episode about Mary and Martha ( 10.38–42) that charity is insufficient and is superseded by the single-minded love of God. Together the stories balance each other and prevent the confusion of either image of goodness with the ideal. |