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beneficiaries be is the provocative question. No doubt many
queries about covenantal status may be raised here regarding Jesus‘
exposition of the Shema‗. But what should not be missed is that,
according to this parable, the children of the Shema‗ or the
members of the covenant transcend race and cult. 155 To name the
Samaritan as the faithful son of the covenant amounts to
challenging the received understanding on who the true members
of the covenant community are. One can hardly find in the Jewish
literature of the second temple period a parallel to Jesus‘
deployment of the Shema‗ for such a purpose. Indeed, while there
is evidence for the concept of a Jewish remnant within Israel, there
is none for that which says that the Samaritans form part of the true
community of Yahweh. This amounts to nothing less than a
redefinition of the covenant community, at least, from the
standpoint of Jesus‘ contemporaries. Who then belongs to the
family of Yahweh if Jewish descent does not guarantee that?
We can therefore see many lines of convergence between this
parable and many other traditions relating to Jesus of Nazareth.
There are pericopes which speak of the displacement of many in
Israel in favour of people who were not regarded as belonging to it
when the eschaton comes. Here, we may think of passages such as
Matthew 8.11-12||Luke 13.28-30 and Luke 4.24-7. Although some
NT scholars regard these as being composed in the post-Easter
period 156 such a thesis is not cogent in the light of our
interpretation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
155 Viewing the parable as dealing with the connection between a true confession
of the Shema and a community‘s boundaries (i.e., monotheism and election) is
scarcely done in the history of scholarship. The most recent contribution, which
gives what is typical, that is, ‗an exemplary behaviour story‘, is made by
Hultgren, Parables of Jesus, pp. 93-101. But see Wright, Victory of God, pp.
305-7, which in many ways is similar to what is argued here.
156 The typical arguments are found in Funk and Hoover (eds.), Five Gospels, pp.
348, 280. On the difficulties connected with the interpretation of the former
passage, see D.C. Allison and W.D. Davies, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew II, Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1991, pp. 27-9. For the latter, see J.A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to
Luke, Vol. 1, New York: Doubleday, 1981, p. 526; for a more confident
assessment see Marshall, Gospel of Luke, p. 180. See, on the theme of judgment