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The View from the Ditch — and Other Angles: Interpreting the Parable of the Good Samaritan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

J. I. H. McDonald
J. I. H. McDonald
Affiliation:
23 Ravelston House Road Edinburgh EH4 3LP
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Extract

It has long been recognised that there are significant parallels between the folk tale and the parable. The folk tale presents a single perspective. Only the necessary persons appear; only two persons speak or act at any one time. Contrasts are developed; inessentials avoided. Even feelings or motives are not mentioned unless they shed light on the plot. Repetition is part of the technique — for example, three characters come down the same road and meet the same woman begging by the roadside. Structuralists such as Propp and Lévi-Strauss look for the deep structures underlying all such stories and evident in the function of actants or characters and the resolution of oppositions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 21 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1996

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References

2 Cf. Bultmann, R., The History of the Synoptic Tradition, Eng.tr. Oxford, 1968, pp. 188–192, 204Google Scholar. cf. Wilder, A. N., ‘Story and Story-World’, in The Bible and the Literary Critic Minneapolis 1991, pp. 132–148Google Scholar.

3 Cf. Stibbe, M. W. G., ‘Structuralism’, in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. Houlden, Cogginsand), London and Philadelphia 1990, pp. 650–655Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Gadamer, Habermas and Levinas, who as modern philosophers give tradition a central place.

5 Cf. Gerhardsson, B., ‘The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels’, New Testament Studies 34.3. 1988, pp. 339–363Google Scholar.

6 Cf. Goulder, M., Midrash and Lection in Matthew, London 1974, pp. 47–69Google Scholar.

7 Cf. Judges 9.7–15; 2 Sam. 12.1–4; 2 Kings 14.9; Is. 5.1–6; 28.23–29; Ezek. 17.3–10; 34 passim.

8 Westermann, G., The Parables of Jesus in the Light of the Old Testament, Eng. tr. Edinburgh 1990Google Scholar.

9 Westermann, p. 151.

10 Westermann, pp. 2, 151.

11 Cf. Westermann, pp. 168–69.

12 Conversely, various types of indicative parable which use comparison to disclose some aspect of God's activity, are also implicitly imperatival: cf. Luke 7.41–43, 11.5–8 and 18.1–8.

13 Cf. Gerhardsson, B., The Good Samaritan – The Good Shepherd, Lund, Copenhagen 1958, pp. 11–22Google Scholar. The Fathers consistently followed the indicative motif in their interpretation of the parable.

14 MCf. Jūlicher, A., Die Gleichnisreden Jesu I–II, Tübingen 1888–1910Google Scholar; and see Westermann's discussion of Eicholz, G., Gleichnisse der Evangelien, 1971–1979, in The Parables of Jems, pp. 160–161Google Scholar.

15 Cf. Jeremias, J., The Parables of Jesus, Eng. tr. London 1954, pp. 89–99Google Scholar.

16 Cf. Chilton, B. and McDonald, J. I. H., Jesus and the Ethics of the Kingdom, London 1987, pp. 16–17, 19–20, 29–31, etcGoogle Scholar.

17 Wilder, A., Early Christian Rhetoric, London 1964, p. 92Google Scholar.

18 Perrin, N., Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom, London 1976, p. 96Google Scholar.

19 Jeremias, p. 33.

20 Jeremias, p. 34.

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22 Josephus, , Antiquities xx. 5, 4Google Scholar.

23 Jeremias, p. 35.

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25 Jeremias, p. 32.

26 cf. Belo, F.A Materialist Reading of the Gospel of Mark, Eng. tr., Maryknoll, , New York 1981Google Scholar; Stegemann, W., God of the Lowly: A Socio-Historical Interpretation of the Bible, Maryknoll 1984Google Scholar; others include Machovec, Pixley and Clevenot; cf. also McDonald, J. I. H., Biblical Interpretation and Christian Ethics, Cambridge 1993, pp. 175–186CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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29 Funk, , ‘The Good Samaritan as Metaphor’, Semeia 2, 1974, p. 77Google Scholar.

30 cf. the Mishna, ‘He that eats the bread of Samaritans is like one that eats the flesh of swine.’

31 Funk, , Semeia 2, p. 79Google Scholar.

32 Crossan, J. D., ‘The Good Samaritan. Towards a Generic Definition of Parable’, Semeia 2, p. 98Google Scholar.

33 Bultmann, , Jesus and the Word, Eng. tr. London, Glasgow 1958, p. 30Google Scholar.

34 Metaphor comes to the centre of the stage, for example in the work of E. Jüngel, R. W. Funk and C. Westerman.

35 Sanders, J. T., Ethics in the New Testament, London 1975, pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

36 Sanders, p. 8.

37 Ibid.

38 Sanders, p. 9.

39 Cf. Niebuhr, R., An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, London 1937, pp. 113–145Google Scholar.

40 Zahrnt, H., The Question of God, Eng. tr., London, 1969, p. 174Google Scholar.

41 This theme is currently being examined by Graham Blount, parish minister and research student at Edinburgh, to whom I express my indebtedness.

42 Hayek, F. A., Law, Legislation and Liberty. Vol. 2, The Mirage of Social Justice, London, Melbourne and Henley, 1982, p. 145Google Scholar.

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46 Ruether, R., Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism, New York 1974, p. 84Google Scholar.

47 Hauerwas, S., A Community of Character, Notre Dame, London, 1981, esp. pp. 9–71Google Scholar.

48 cf. Forrester, D. B., Beliefs, Values and Policies: Conviction Politics in a Secular Age Oxford, 1989, pp. 3, 78–81Google Scholar; Borsch, F. H., God's Parable, London 1975, p. 70Google Scholar.