After briefly rehearsing the first-century debate over Samaritan Israelism (SI), including favourable Tannaitic views, this paper shows that Jesus in the Samaritan parable teaches that covenantally loyal Samaritans are Israelites eligible...
moreAfter briefly rehearsing the first-century debate over Samaritan Israelism (SI), including favourable Tannaitic views, this paper shows that Jesus in the Samaritan parable teaches that covenantally loyal Samaritans are Israelites eligible for inclusion in his coming messianic age. Several points reveal this position.
The parabolic teaching occurs within the Lukan thematic context of fulfilling prophesied messianic reunification (MR), reuniting both northern and southern Israelite kingdoms under a scion of David. The immediately preceding co-text of the parable relates eschatological kingdom proclamation in Samaria and an announcement by the royal Son of God (Luke 10:22; cf. 1:32–35, etc.) of the arrival of that which “many prophets and kings” awaited (10:24), which includes MR into kingdom unity (Isa 11:1; Jer 23:5–6; 33:14–17; 2 Chr 30; 35, etc.). The parable evidences a description of the word “neighbour,” which, within this context of Lev 19:17–18, is defined as a “fellow Israelite”; thus, when Jesus describes the one who proved to be a Torah-obedient neighbour of the Judaean victim as a Samaritan, he is portraying a reuniting of Israelites divided across national, ethnic, and sectarian boundaries. The form of the parable adopts the well-known triadic structure of “Priest-Levite-Israelite,” and Jesus places the Samaritan in the position of the Israelite. Jesus endorses the Chronicler’s pan-Israelite ideology embracing SI, reflecting the Lukan eschatological MR theme, in his intertextual use of 2 Chr 28:15 as a source for 10:33–34. Use of the tripartite collocation ποιεῖν + ἔλεος + μετά (from the Hebrew עשׂה חסד עמ) in 10:37a defines the Samaritan as one who observes covenantally loyal ḥesedism, not generic humanistic mercy.
This recognition of Jesus’s position in the parable coheres with later representation of the northern kingdom by its Samaritan inheritors in the 2-stage resurrection of Israel (Acts 2 and 8) fulfilling Ezek 37. The parable’s SI and MR also produce a more comprehensively coherent reading of the rebuilding of the σκηνὴν Δαυὶδ (Acts 15:16) than the influential Bauckham, “James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13-21)” (1996).
When properly recognizing the Ḥesedic Samaritan’s parabolic teaching, it becomes clear that Luke-Acts views Samaritans as representatives of the northern kingdom inheriting the covenant promises of messianic renewal along with southern Israelite Judaeans.
