Christianity QA

Question:

CONCEPTS OF WESTERN CIV: THE GOOD SAMARITAN    Concepts Of Western Civilization: The Good Samaritan    One of the dominant concepts which has shaped Western Civilization is    the concept of "The Good Samaritan." If you do not know the basic    story, you cannot pretend to be an educated person. Cultural    illiteracy is one of the many unfortunate consequences of our present    atheistic educational policies.    Here is the story, faithfully translated from the original. This is    the source document, not some professor’s opinion.        LUKE 10:25-37 (RSV)                            The Good Samaritan         25                And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test,                saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal                life?"         26                He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you                read?"         27                And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with                all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your                strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as                yourself."         28                And he said to him, "You have answered right; do this, and                you will live."         29                But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And                who is my neighbor?"         30                Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to                Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and                beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.         31                Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when                he saw him he passed by on the other side.         32                So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw                him, passed by on the other side.         33                But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was;                and when he saw him, he had compassion,         34                and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil                and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him                to an inn, and took care of him.         35                And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to                the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever                more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’         36                Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the                man who fell among the robbers?"         37                He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said                to him, "Go and do likewise."      Bill McGinnis  <<      http://www.patriot.net/users/bmcgin/index.html

Response:

        [...]         To get the intended meaning of that parable, turn the Samaritan into a … (oh no!) libb-buh-ruhl. — Loren Petrich                           Happiness is a fast Macintosh My home page: http://www.petrich.com/home.html

Response:

Most Christians themselves are guilty of cultural illiteracy in their misunderstanding of the story. Who were the Samaritans, do you know? Where did they come from, and what were they doing in Israel? More importantly, what was their relationship with the Jews at that time and earlier? Why does Luke have jesus saying that a priest and a Levite ignored the robbed man, but a Samaritan had mercy?      The Samaritans were originally called the Cutheans. No one knows for sure where they originally camed from. They were brought to southern Israel by the Assyrians, under Sancherib. Sancherib’s idea of controlling conquered peoples was to dislocate them. Bring them in chains to a new country with a new climate and unfamiliar terrain, and they have too many things to worry about to rebel. The Ten Tribes of Israel were relocated somewhere else, no one knows where, and the Cutheans were brought to Israel. So now they’re called the Samaritans.     The Samaritans worshipped their idols. So G-d sent lions to plague them. They sent a message to Sancherib asking what to do. Sancherib asked some Rabbis, who told him that G-d did not allow idol-worship in the Holy Land. Back then, when the world was at ah igher understanding of morality, such things still took place. (Today, if G-d insisted on that level of cause and effect, we’d all die tomorrow, I imagine.)     So Sancherib sent over some Rabbi-priests to teach the Samaritans Judaism. The Samaritans learned some of Judaism, but soon began o backslide into idol-worship again. Around that time, the levels of spiritual providence began to lesson, as I explained above, so the lions did not come back. The Samaritans retained some of Judaism, but mostly they were idol-worshipers as well. That is, they kept both hand in hand.      When Cyrus allowed the Jews to return and rebuild the Holy Temple, the Samaritans wanted to participate. The Jews refused to allow idol-worshipers to help build the Holy Teple. Angered, the Samaritans told the Persian king that the Jews were building the Holy Temple only so that they could rebel against their Persian overlords, and the king ordered the rebuilding stopped.      Meanwhile, the Samaritans discovered idols on Mount Gerizim, so they built a big temple there, and announced that the Jewish Holy Temple was now rebuilt on Mount Gerizim.      Eventually, Darius, the son of Esther and Ahasueraus, agreed to let the Jews continue rebuilding. The Samaritans worked their hardest to get it stopped. They did not succeed, but they kept trying to get the Jews killed.      When Alexander the Great began to take over the world, the Samaritans sent an emmissary to him telling him that the Jews must be wiped out, as they are terrible people and not to be trusted, and that they have repeatedly tried to destroy Alexander and his budding empire. Alexander began to approach Jerusalem, but when he met the leader of the Jews, Simon the Righteous, he knew that the Samaritans were lying.      Alexander was subsequently very kind to the Jews, and in gratitude, the priestly families of that generation named all their firstborn sons after him.      In a nutshell, that is who the Samaritans were. They were not people who did kindness to strangers in the street, and certainly not to Jews.     The story Luke tells was an anti-Semitic lie, never told by the Jewish jesus himself (which is one reason it does not appear in any of the other gospels), but told years later when the Jews had fallen into disfavor by the Christians for not accepting their distortions of Judaism and the Jewish Bible. That was why they made up the lies about the Jews persecuting the Christians, when in fact it happened the other way around. The troubles were so great, that the Rabbis saw fit to compose a prayer that the sect of heretics who constantly denounce the Jews and get them killed should be punished by G-d. That was the way it was, not the way the Christian bible tells it.      Now, perhaps, you understand the parable a little better. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – CONCEPTS OF WESTERN CIV: THE GOOD SAMARITAN    Concepts Of Western Civilization: The Good Samaritan    One of the dominant concepts which has shaped Western Civilization is    the concept of "The Good Samaritan." If you do not know the basic    story, you cannot pretend to be an educated person. Cultural    illiteracy is one of the many unfortunate consequences of our present    atheistic educational policies.    Here is the story, faithfully translated from the original. This is    the source document, not some professor’s opinion.        LUKE 10:25-37 (RSV)                            The Good Samaritan         25                And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test,                saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal                life?"         26                He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you                read?"         27                And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with                all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your                strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as                yourself."         28                And he said to him, "You have answered right; do this, and                you will live."         29                But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And                who is my neighbor?"         30                Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to                Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and                beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.         31                Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when                he saw him he passed by on the other side.         32                So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw                him, passed by on the other side.         33                But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was;                and when he saw him, he had compassion,         34                and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil                and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him                to an inn, and took care of him.         35                And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to                the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever                more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’         36                Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the                man who fell among the robbers?"         37                He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said                to him, "Go and do likewise."      Bill McGinnis  <<      http://www.patriot.net/users/bmcgin/index.html

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