![]() The parable for them would not have been about looking after a fellow human being, and the parable is not, finally, an answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” It is more provocative than that. ![]() What is not to like about helping the stranger and being charitable toward others? But those are not the messages a first-century Jewish audience would have heard. The various appropriations and interpretations of the parable heard today are generally good news. However, texts also have their own original context. Texts should always take on new meaning as they are encountered by new readers from new cultural contexts. In one respect, this inevitable appropriation is to be appreciated. The parable of the good Samaritan has come to mean whatever we want it to mean. The standard reading is the one in which “we” are the Samaritans “we Samaritans” help “them,” the sick, the poor, foreign nationals and so on. It recognizes the role of the Samaritan as enemy and suggests the possibility of interpreter identification with the wounded man rather than the Samaritan who gives aid. Although I do not think that this reading is quite the original import of the parable, it at least highlights two important points. In the 1970s, I heard a citizen of Sierra Leone interpret the parable as proclaiming that one should take aid from whoever would offer it, even the enemy, and thus Jesus gave warrant for his country’s acceptance of aid from the Soviet Union. Bush invoked the parable in his first inaugural address: “I can pledge our nation to a goal: when we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.” For President Bush, the parable is about taking care of nations in distress. The parable of the good Samaritan is so well known for its message of aiding the stranger that it has become a staple of political discourse. Australia has the Good Samaritan Donkey Sanctuary, which does exactly what its name suggests. Hospitals with the name “Samaritan” appear throughout the United States, from Medstar Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Throughout the English-speaking world the term “good Samaritan” is synonymous with charitable do-gooders.
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