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History of Interpretation
Linda McKinnish Bridges

Scholars have wrestled with the meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Allegory was the method used from the earliest days of the Christian Church. Every element in the parable was seen to have a symbolic meaning.

During the Enlightenment, the parable came under a more scientific analysis. Scholars first saw it as an exemplary story, a form of moral instruction. Later study tried to understand its historical context.

Twentieth century scholarship took a literary focus, seeing the parable as a language event in which the reader becomes part of the story. Some recent scholars have seen it as a story of reversal, illustrating how God is reversing the status quo.

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Scholars throughout the history of the church have provided a legacy of diverse ways to interpret scripture. A brief sketch of the various ways of reading the parable of the Good Samaritan will show the history of its interpretation

Allegory was the first method used in interpreting the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the earliest days of the Christian Church until the Middle Ages, this method provided much grist for the mills of preachers and teachers.

Origen (185-254 A.D.) gave every element in the parable of the Good Samaritan a symbolic meaning: Jerusalem represents heaven; the robbers are the devil and his charges; the Good Samaritan is Christ, et cetera.

Ambrose (339-430 A.D.) used allegory to make racial judgments and encourage anti-semitic sentiments. Noting that it was the Levite and priest (Jews) who did not pour healing oil upon the wounded man, Jew and Gentile were seen as those who do not have oil and those who do. This parable became a tool for judgment of Jews by the church, fueling a history of devastating effects on the world.

The Reformers still saw this parable as an allegory. Martin Luther used the parable to contrast law and grace. For John Calvin, the Samaritan was Christ.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the rise of analytical thinking, the parable of the Good Samaritan lost its mysterious symbolic quality and gained a more scientific, historical setting.

Adolf Julicher (1888) contended that parables could have only one original point. He understood the parable of the Good Samaritan as a realistic story with a single educational function--to tell of the Kingdom of God. For Julicher, the parable is an exemplary story, an instance of moral instruction for the church.

In the twentieth century, C. H. Dodd and Joachim Jeremias interpreted the parable with special attention to its "setting in life." With a lifetime of research on Palestine and Judaism, Jeremias attempted to set the parables within the historical context of Jesus.

More recent scholars such as Robert Funk and Dominic Crossan represent another transition, taking a more literary focus. The parable is seen as a language event where Jesus expresses an understanding of existence that is available to all hearers of the parable.

For Funk, the reader becomes an important part of the story, actually drawn into the parable as a participant. According to Funk, this parable "does not suggest that one behave as a good neighbor like the Samaritan, but that one become the victim in the ditch who is helped by an enemy."

Crossan concludes that the parable challenges the hearer to put together two impossible and contradictory words - Samaritan and neighbor. The story, therefore, is a story of reversal because when good clerics and bad Samaritans become bad clerics and good Samaritans, the world is being challenged and the status quo reversed in dramatic fashion.

Allegory, exemplary story, historical context, language event, and story of reversal are some of the ways Christians have understood this parable.

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Interpretation of Scripture does not occur in isolation, nor does it remain static. Interpreters and receptors of interpretation read within individual locations and within larger social structures. Throughout the history of the church, interpreters have given us a fine legacy of various ways to interpret Scripture. To interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan, therefore, is to acknowledge that we stand in a long, steady stream of interpreters, who at various places and times through almost 2,000 years of reading have wrestled with the meaning of this parable and then presented their labors to the church. A brief sketch of several ways of interpreting the parable of the Good Samaritan will show the effects of various cultural locations and the multiple possibilities of reading this powerful parable, as well as the stable consistency of interpreting a dynamic piece of communication from God to God’s people.

Early Church and the Middle Ages

Allegory, the means of presenting a story by focusing on hidden or symbolic meaning rather than on literal meaning, was the earliest method used in interpreting the parable of the Good Samaritan. As an acceptable and favorite methodological form, the allegorical interpretation of the Good Samaritan parable provided much grist for homiletical mills during the early centuries of the church. Used in Greek literature to interpret Homer, the form was older than Plato and represented a fashionable way to read to find the "under meaning" (hyponoia) of Greek texts. It is not surprising to see the acceptance of such a method in early Christian scholarship, because in the writings of the New Testament we can see that allegory is widely used. Note how parables are interpreted allegorically in Mark 4.1–20 and Matthew 13.24–30, 36–43. Paul also used allegory in his letters ( 1 Cor 5. 6–8; 9.8–10; 10.1–11; Gal 4.21–31) and he even used the word allegory in Galatians 4.24.

Irenaeus (130–200) interpreted the parable of the Good Samaritan by using allegory. He saw the two coins used to pay the innkeeper as representing two members of the Trinity—Father and Son. Irenaeus said that "the Lord commending to the Holy Spirit His own man, who had fallen among thieves, whom He Himself compassionated, and bound up his wounds, giving two royal denaria; so that we, receiving by the Spirit the image and superscription of the Father and the Son, might cause the denarium entrusted to us to be fruitful, counting out the increase thereof to the Lord" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, p. 445). A broad leap from two coins pressed in the hands of a lowly innkeeper, but oh, the homiletical power of allegory! And a little goes a long way!

Origen (185–254) believed that just as persons were made of no less than three senses—the body, soul, spirit—so could Scripture manifest three meanings—literal, moral, and spiritual. Origen gave to every element in the parable of the Good Samaritan a particular meaning. For example, Jerusalem represents heaven and Jericho is the world to which the traveler journeyed. The robbers are enemies, the devil and his charges. The priest represents the Law, and the Levite, the prophets. The Good Samaritan is Christ. The beast is Christ’s body that bears the fallen Adam. The inn is the church. And the Samaritan’s promise to come again is Christ’s Second Advent. Origen’s interpretation contained vivid images with lots of color, but as A. M. Hunter says: ce n’est pas l’histoire (Interpreting the Parables, p. 26). It was not intended to be historical but spiritual. It would be the late 1800s before history became a central focus in parable interpretation. Until then, allegory continued to reign.

Augustine (354–430), 150 years later, followed the same allegorical method of interpretation as Origen, although with some modifications. The wounded traveler is fallen man, half-alive in his knowledge of God and half-dead as a slave to sin. The binding of his wounds represents Christ’s restraint of sin, and the pouring of the oil and wine are seen as the comfort of good hope. The innkeeper is the Apostle Paul, and the two denarii are the two commandments of love.

Ambrose (339–397), perhaps working in the shadows of church leaders Augustine and Origen, likewise used allegory to make his points about the parable of the Good Samaritan. The oil belongs to the church in order to tend to the wounds of her children "so that the wound may not harden and spread deep" (Library of Christian Classics, vol. 5, p. 246). As a single statement this allegorical point seems harmless, but viewed in a wider context, Ambrose used allegory to make racial judgments and encourage anti-Semitic sentiments. In the passage preceding the comment on the oil of the church, Ambrose stated that the Jew has no oil, because if he had oil, "he would surely by now have softened his own neck…they cannot apply ointment or oil or bandage…and the Lord told how the Levite and the priest passed by, and neither of them poured oil or wine upon the wounds of the man who had been beaten by robbers. They had nothing to pour. If they had had any oil, they would have poured it upon their own wounds."

Particularly with the writings of Ambrose we begin to see how this parable was used to widen the line of demarcation between Jew and Gentile. The parable now becomes a tool used by the church for judgment of Jews, which we know from history would later have devastating effects on the world. The allegorical treatment of oil is used to divide Jews and Gentiles between those who have oil and those who don’t. This is ironic in light of contemporary readings of the passage by Crossan, Scott, and others, because this parable is now understood to have the opposite effect. Its purpose is to challenge and correct xenophobia and to foster neighborliness between all peoples rather than to make lines of racial distinctions.

Peter Lombard (1100–1160) also treated the passage in allegorical fashion, but without anti-Semitic commentary. He wrote, "The Samaritan, approaching the wounded man, used the bands of the sacraments to heal him, since God instituted the remedies of sacraments against the wounds of original and actual sin" (Library of Christian Classics, vol. 10, p. 238). For Lombard, the oil belonging to the Samaritan does not represent superior status but symbolizes the sacraments given by God as a visible sign of invisible grace.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), using the same method of allegory, interpreted the parable as a discussion on the effects of sin. A certain man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho (that is, incurring the defect of sin) was stripped of his raiment and wounded in his natural powers. It follows that sin diminishes the good of nature (Library of Christian Classics, vol. 11, p. 126).

The possibility of the parabolic power of the Good Samaritan story increased tenfold during the early centuries of the church. The writers of the Reformation, although advocating new understandings of the church, did not loosen the grip of allegory on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Reformation Era

Martin Luther used the parable to contrast law and grace. The Samaritan, said Luther, "was not only healed but he was at the same time picked up and cared for, while the Levite and the priest, ministers of the law, saw him but did not help him. To revert to what I said, the law makes sin known, but Christ heals through faith and restores a man to the grace of God" (Library of Christian Classics, vol. 16, p. 352). The law is symbolized by the prophet and priest who notice sin but cannot help; and grace is seen as the Samaritan who not only saw the "sin" but gave assistance for healing.

John Calvin followed the lead of earlier church writers and established that Christ "showed in the person of the Samaritan who took pity on an unknown man and showed him human kindness when he had been neglected by a Judean, and even by a Levite" (Library of Christian Classics, vol. 23, p. 331). The Samaritan is Christ. Calvin, however, used the parable to show the importance of caring for the foreigner. In a paragraph that discusses how God takes care of the foreigner, Calvin also admonished the reader to love outsiders and the foreign-born as themselves. "Hence it is clear," Calvin noted, "that the term neighbor is not restricted to those of the same blood or to those who are the same sort of people, among whom the need of love is more obvious. Neighbor includes the whole of mankind…"

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

The allegorical method of interpreting the Good Samaritan parable was put to rest during these two centuries of enlightened thought. With the rise of the scientific method, the parable of the Good Samaritan lost its mysterious homiletic quality and gained a more scientific, historical setting. In this era, scholars like A. A. Bruce (1882) and Adolf Julicher (1888) sounded the death knell to allegorizing parables.

Julicher contended that parables could have only one original point. He understood the parable of the Good Samaritan as a realistic story of oil, wine, and robbers, with a single pedagogical function—to tell of the Kingdom of God. Julicher did not make much of the contrast between priest and Levite, as earlier writers of the church had done, but he contended that Jesus did not intend to extol the Samaritan as being better than the Jew, because that would be a contradiction of the concern Jesus had for maintaining the religious integrity of Judaism. Julicher suggested instead that Jesus lauds even a Samaritan who acts in love toward another person just as he extols penitent tax collectors and harlots over unrepentant high priests and elders. The Kingdom manifests the idea of neighbor where the self-sacrificial act is of highest value. For Julicher the parable of the Good Samaritan is an exemplary story, an instance of moral instruction for the church. Surrounded by nineteenth-century liberalism, the church began to read this parable as a broad, general, moral principle for living.

Twentieth Century

C. H. Dodd and J. Jeremias followed the anti-allegory movement with great concern for placing the parable of the Good Samaritan in its original historical setting. They interpreted the parable with special attention to its setting in life. Dodd emphasized the realism of the parable of the Good Samaritan as well as its linguistic quality. Concerned with the function of metaphor in the parable, Dodd said that it is this metaphorical quality of the parable that teases the mind into active thought rather than its exemplary form. Dodd initiated concern for the linguistic features of parables that later scholars such as Wilder, Funk, Via, Crossan, Scott, and others would continue to fashion.

Jeremias was particularly intent on tracing the early transmissional process of the parable. Following methods of form redactional analysis, he was helpful in identifying the original setting of the Good Samaritan parable. Jeremias established that it is the redactional setting that both makes the parable an exemplary story and illustrates the principles of neighborliness. This setting, according to Jeremias, has been supplied as an act of interpretation; it is not integral to the parable itself.

With his focus on the task of identifying accrued layers of text and interpretations of text, Jeremias became concerned with searching for the original layer, the parable as Jesus said it and not as the church had interpreted it. With a lifetime of research on Palestine and Judaism, Jeremias attempted to set the parables in context of the ministry of Jesus.

Jeremias advocated the authenticity of the setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan, focusing on the realism of the journey, the road, and the robbers. He suggested that the motivations of the Levite and priest may not have been related to ritual observances but to purely personal considerations of safety. Jeremias stated that this clear example of the failure of the ministers of God, as compared with the unselfishness of the hated Samaritans, should lead hearers of the parable to be able "to measure the absolute and unlimited nature of the duty of love" (Hunter, p. 107). No human being is beyond the range of charity, even the despised half-breed.

A shift in the methods of interpreting parables occurred in the middle of the century. The move was from historical concerns about the setting of the parable to a more literary focus. Scholars such as Amos Wilder, Dan Via, Robert Funk, Norman Perrin, Dominic Crossan, Brandon Scott, and others represented the important transition. One remove from allegory and a step away from exemplary story, the parable now suggests surprise and invites the reader to participate in the story in unlikely fashion.

For Funk the reader becomes an important part of the story, because the parable draws the reader into the parable as a participant. He contends that the account compels the hearers to put themselves in the place of that nameless fellow traveling along the wild and dangerous road. Straightway he finds himself the object of a murderous attack that leaves him stripped, beaten, and half-dead. While lying helpless in the ditch… (Parables and Presence, p. 30-34). For Funk, the parable is temporally open-ended, cast into a plurality of situations and a diversity of audiences, with the consequence that it refuses crystallization. The hearer hears it in his or her own way and responds accordingly. According to Funk, this parable "does not suggest that one behave as a good neighbor like the Samaritan, but that one become the victim in the ditch who is helped by an enemy" (Parables and Presence, p. 34).

The parable of the Good Samaritan is seen as a language event where Jesus expresses an understanding of existence that is available to all hearers of the parable. What happens in the mind of the reader is also significant to the interpretation. Interpretation of the parable rests in the reader’s understanding. Readers’ worlds are turned upside down, according to Crossan, when the parable of the Good Samaritan, the parable of reversal, is read. Crossan, careful like Jeremias to separate the layers of tradition, concludes that only Luke 10.30–35 is to be interpreted as the original parable tradition (all else is interpretation). From that point, Crossan analyzes the parable and concludes that the story challenges the hearer to put together two impossible and contradictory words—Samaritan and neighbor. The story, therefore, is a story of reversal because in a world where good clerics and bad Samaritans become bad clerics and good Samaritans, the world is being challenged and the status quo reversed in dramatic fashion.

Allegory, history, language of metaphor, reader response, and reversal of readers’ worlds are all valid options for understanding the polyvalent power of the parable from Jerusalem to Jericho. What becomes instructive for our project, however, is the realization that the video translation will be yet another interpretation in the long line of interpreters of this parable. May our work be as fruitful as those whose paths we follow.