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 Workers in the Vineyard the King James Version of this parable is the denarius, a silver coin which was the usual day's wage for a laborer. The hours here are measured starting at about 6:00 AM, so that the eleventh hour is between about 4:00 and 5:00 PM. The workers are poor men working as temporary farmhands during the harvest season, and the employer realizes that they would all need a full day's pay to feed their families. The payment at evening follows Old Testament guidelines: In contrast to Rabbinic parables with a similar theme, this parable stresses God's unmerited grace, rather than any