The following passage comes from Kenneth E. Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. Bailey lived more than sixty years in the Middle East and has made Middle Eastern culture, as it relates to the Bible, the focus of his study.
Bailey contends that the Rabbis of Jesus' day were steeped in metaphorical theology, drawing on stock stories common to the community and altering them as they saw fit to teach their theological truths. In light of that, Bailey writes the following passage concerning the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Ibn al-Tayyib has a long discussion of whether the parable is built on an historical incident or whether it is fiction. He grants that the message of the parable is the same either way, but at the same time he tells a story he heard from the Jewish community in southern Iraq in the eleventh century. The story is set in the aftermath of 2 Kings 17:24-38. In that txt the King of Assyria brings foreign tribes to live in Samaria who do not “fear the LORD.” The Lord sends lions to eat the people, and the King of Assyria responds by returning “priests whom they had carried away” to teach the people about the “god of the land.” The project was only partially successful. The story told to Ibn al-Tayyib builds on the fall-out of that partial success. It reads:
The children of Israel say: When the priest [of 2 Kings 17:24-38] came and taught the people how to fear the Lord, the lions were cut off from them, but after some time, they returned [to their old ways] and the lions returned. When this happened, the priest and the Levite who was with him fled, escaping it all. At that time there was Jew who worked in the vineyard. That man took his pay and traveled from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he met a group of men from one of the tribes with whom Moses and Joshua, the son of Nun and fought. The group attacked him to exact blood vengeance [thar]. They beat him, took his clothes and left him with barely a breath remaining, that is, as one dead. The priest passed by ignoring him, as did the Levite. The it happened that a Babylonian was traveling from Jerusalem and when he saw him had had mercy on him and felt compassion for him. So he took out some wine and some oil and bound up his wounds. When the wounded man could not move, that is, because he did not have the strength to walk, he placed him on his own riding animal and took him to a hotel in Jericho. There he commended him to the owner of the hotel and gave the wounded man two denars, “When I come back I will give you more.” This story then became a rebuke to the sons of Israel and spread throughout the land and the man who carried out this noble deed was called “Samaritan” because he was from the protectors, that is from the guards [police] of Samaria.
It is curious that Ibn al-Tayyib recounts this as a Jewish story told by the Babylonian Jewish community in Iraq in the eleventh century. He did not hear it as an Iraqi Christian Story told about the Jews. The hero of the story is not a Jew, so it is impossible to imaging that the Jewish community invented the account to make their own people appear noble. Its Jewish connection the account in 2 Kings emphasizes Jewish roots. I can think of no reason for seeing the connection with 2 Kings as a Christian interpolation into the Old Testament record. Ibn al-Tayyib affirms that his story was used as evidence among commentators known to him who insisted that the parable of the good Samaritan was based on a historical incident. Ibn al-Tayyib concluded that whether it is creative fiction or historical incident, the parable has the same meaning. (289-290)
So what do you think? Was Jesus drawing on a familiar story to teach his theology?
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