Parable of the Good Samaritan In his essay "Lost in Non-Translation", biochemist and author Isaac Asimov asserts (despite portrayals of many good Samaritans in Luke 17:11-19; Acts 8:5-7; 15:3, as well as John 4:4-42, etc.) that at the time when the parable was included in the gospel, there were no good Samaritans; in his view, this was half the point of the parable. As Asimov put it, we need to think of the story occurring in Alabama in 1950, with a mayor and a preacher ignoring a man who has been beaten and robbed, with the role of the Samaritan being played by a poor
Parable of the Good Samaritan x. 25-37, related to illustrate the meaning of the word "neighbor," possesses a feature which puzzles the student of rabbinical lore. The kind Samaritan who comes to the rescue of the men that had fallen among the robbers, is contrasted with the unkind priest and Levite; whereas the third class of Jews—i.e., the ordinary Israelites who, as a rule, follow the Cohen and the Levite are omitted; and therefore suspicion is aroused regarding the original form of the story. If "Samaritan" has been substituted by the anti-Judean gospel-writer for the original "Israelite," no reflection was intended by Jesus upon Jewish