Parable of the Good Samaritan Parable of the Good Samaritan The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. It is about a traveller who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Samaritans and Jews despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man. Jesus is described as telling the parable in response to the question from a lawyer, "And who is my neighbour?". In response, Jesus tells the parable,
Parable of the Ten Virgins and that, instead, it is a parable created by the very early church. A large majority of fellows on the Jesus Seminar, for example, designated the parable as merely similar to something Jesus might have said or simply inauthentic ("gray" or "black"). Other scholars believe that this parable has only been lightly edited, and is an excellent example of Jesus' skill in telling parables. The parable occurs in all ancient New Testament manuscripts, with only slight variations in some words. In the Catholic Church, the parable is the Gospel reading for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time in Cycle A;