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Viewed from such a vantage point, it may be argued that the
sum duty of what covenantal responsibilities entailed may be found
essentially in the Shema‘. Properly understanding the Shema‘ and
properly undertaking its primary praxis will lead one to inherit the life
of the age to come. As the commandments are linked to Israel’s basic
creed, they become the identity markers for Israel, to demarcate her
as the people in covenant relation to Yahweh.
The upshot of all this is that the lawyer knows his scriptures
and theology very well. The reply of Jesus confirms this (v. 28) and
the lawyer will gain the life of the age to come if he authentically
performed what he has just enunciated. As it was mentioned earlier,
the second question of the lawyer about who one’s neighbour was (v.
29) might be interpreted as a genuine attempt on the lawyer’s part to
be faithful to Israel’s creed. Who is the neighbour in question in order
that he might be loved so that the life of the age to come is obtained?
It was this second question which prompted the telling of the parable
but the first question must also be kept in view.
Richard Bauckham has suggested in an erudite and wellargued
article that the parable was told to resolve potential
conflicts in the injunctions of Torah in order to highlight that the
love command should take precedence over purity laws. 139 Jesus‘
interpretation of Torah would then become the real focus of the
parable. That, in my opinion, is only partially correct.
If the whole parable wishes to establish a halakhic point, we
should expect it to make very clear the victim‘s death and not
describing his condition with the ambiguous (v. 30). This
word occurs only once in the NT and the evidence from other
Greek literature is not clear: it could refer either to someone who is
about to die or someone who appears dead but upon closer
inspection actually is not. 140 Contracting impurity which
139 R.J. Bauckham, ‗The Scrupulous Priest and the Good Samaritan: Jesus‘
Parabolic Interpretation of the Law of Moses, NTS 44 (1998), pp. 475-89.
140 Cf. Hultgren, Parables of Jesus, p. 96; Nolland, Luke 9:21 – 18:34, p. 593.
See also the philological discussion in T. Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah: