Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 10:25-37, The Samaritan on the Jericho road
A lawyer asks what he must do to inherit eternal life and then who his neighbor is. Jesus tells of a man left half dead on the road to Jericho, passed by a priest and a Levite and rescued by a Samaritan.
Luke 10:25-37, in every translation this tool compares.
A legal expert tries to test Jesus and agrees that the law comes down to loving God and loving your neighbor, then asks where the boundary of neighbor lies. Jesus answers with a story about a traveller on the desert road from Jerusalem to Jericho who is robbed, beaten and left near death. A priest and then a Levite avoid him, but a Samaritan, one of a people Jews despised, cares for his wounds, brings him to an inn and covers the bill; Jesus asks who acted as a neighbor and tells the lawyer to live the same way.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/priestly-courses\/","n":"Priests on duty: the twenty-four courses","s":"Israel's ordinary priests were divided into twenty-four courses that took turns at the temple, a week at a time. Most lived in the country and came up to Jerusalem when their turn came round.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/unclean-by-touch\/","n":"Unclean by touch","s":"Under the law, skin disease, bleeding, corpses, tombs and certain animals made a person ritually unclean, and touch could pass it on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/samaritans\/","n":"The Samaritans","s":"The people of the hill country between Judea and Galilee worshiped Israel's God on Mount Gerizim, not in Jerusalem. Jews and Samaritans each claimed to be the true heirs of Israel, and centuries of hostility lay between them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hospitality\/","n":"Hospitality to travelers","s":"Taking in travelers was one of the great virtues of the ancient Mediterranean, above all among Jews. Messengers could travel light because they expected to be housed.","r":""}
Neighbor usually meant a fellow Israelite, though Leviticus 19:34 extends the command to the foreigner living in the land (Keener); Sirach names among the nations he detests "the foolish people that live in Shechem," the Samaritans (Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary). The road drops more than three thousand feet over about seventeen miles of desert, with plenty of places for robbers (the CSB Study Bible). Bailey says the story "explodes in the faces of its listeners," because the third man is a hated outsider, not the Jewish layman a series of priest and Levite leads them to expect. Why the priest and Levite passed by is debated: Keener's notes and Bailey point to the impurity of touching what might be a corpse; the CSB Study Bible thinks fear of the robbers or not wanting the bother more likely; Strauss calls impurity a poor excuse for a priest going down, away from Jerusalem, and since many priests were aristocrats who kept apart from commoners, hearers may have expected snobbery. The Samaritan's promise to pay on his return was the usual wording for standing surety for a debt (Keener). Wright reads the parable as redrawing the boundary of the covenant people.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 10:26, 10:29, 10:30 and 10:31-32
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 10:26, 10:29 and 10:34-35
- CSB Study Bible, note on Luke 10:30-32
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 22, The Parable of the Good Samaritan
- N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, ch. 7, section (v) The Great Commandment and the Good Samaritan
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 10:25, 10:29, 10:30, 10:31-32, 10:34 and 10:35
