Oddball thoughts from Lileks. Yes, I’d never thought about it before, but he’s right — unless Samaritans are truly notoriously bad people, “good Samaritans” is sort of like “compassionate conservatives.”
7 thoughts on “The Slander Of The Samaritans”
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According to a previous discussion here, apparently the Samaritans were annoying nanny-state do-gooders. One of them helped some guy who had been mugged, and apparently that means God wants the State ti redistribute our wealth. Apparently they were both coercive and illogical (a time-honored one-two punch you can often find in many of the messages posted here.) So I’m not sure any of them deserve the adjective “good.” Maybe they should be called the “Progressive Samaritans.”
apparently the Samaritans were annoying nanny-state do-gooders.
Oh please.
The significance of the good Samaritan story is that Jews and Samaritans barely tolerated each other. Those that should have helped the Jew that was mugged didn’t have any compassion although they were supposed to be his brother. The Samaritan by his actions (rather than moderate sounding words like Obama) proved he had that brotherly affection which really, all humans should have for each other. This country by taken the lead in disaster relief shows that we tend to be good Samaritans. It’s about the hearts of individual people, not some share the wealth program.
I wrote the above before reading the link (I know.) How funny that Lileks used the same expression I did (me in response to Bilwick comment.)
Ken . . . I was being sarcastic.
Ah… ya got me.
There’s a nice discussion of this in Asimov’s Guide to the Bible. (I highly recommend the book, by the way.)
Haven’t read Asimov in the last few decades but loved him as a kid. His discussion of bible topics enlightened me to his use of strawmen however. He uses man’s historical understanding of the world to discredit the bible ignoring other explanations of passages that make sense where his version doesn’t. It did make him seem more human to me. He was an amazing writer.
The Bible doesn’t need that sort of discrediting. There are loathsomely violent and intolerant passages all through it (yes, including the New Testament) and it is also full of logical holes. Starting in Genesis; where did Cain’s wife come from? And in the New Testament, there are two completely different genealogies for Joseph; but in any case why does it matter who Joseph’s ancestors were, as he wasn’t the father of Jesus in any case?
Elijah calling bears to rip little children to pieces for calling him bald (which he probably was) also seems to be approved of – as does Abraham being perfectly willing to kill his own son.
Ugh.