Arquivo xx2

jesus and the reduction of intergroup conflict 325
JESUS AND THE REDUCTION OF INTERGROUP

CONFLICT: THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
IN THE LIGHT OF SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY
PHILIP F. ESLER
St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews
Luke 10:25-37, containing the passage at 10:30-37 which is gen-

erally known in English as ‘the parable of the Good Samaritan’,
although more precisely designated by the German ‘das Gleichnis’
or ‘die Erzählung vom Barmherzigen Samariter’, the compassionate
Samaritan, is one of the most well-known and treasured of all New
Testament passages1. The secondary literature on the passage is
immense and it is not my intention to attempt a summary of it
here. 2 Nor do I wish to enter the discussion as to whether it is
best regarded as a parable or example story.3 Many scholars regard
it as a parable by the historical Jesus4 and I will return to this is-
sue later. In this article I will proceed on the assumption that it is
either authentic or that, even if it is a Lucan creation (the view I
prefer), Luke so well understood—and here conveyed— the mes-
sage of Jesus that for most relevant purposes it does not
particularly matter whether it is authentic Jesus material or not.
In this article I will seek to situate Luke 10:25-37 within a new
exegetical framework derived from social-scientific ideas relating
to intergroup conflict and its reduction. The approach taken is
1
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Conference entitled
‘Jesus in New Contexts’, at Tutzing, Bavaria, on Sunday 27th June 1999, at the
Society of New Testament Studies conference in Pretoria on 5th August 1999 (at
a joint session of the Luke-Acts and Socio-Rhetorical Criticism seminars) and at
the St Mary’s College Graduate Seminar on 1st December 1999. I am most
grateful to the participants on all three occasions for helping me to develop my
approach, but especially to Gerd Theissen after Tutzing and to my St Mary’s
colleague Richard Bauckham. Responsibility for the views expressed here,
however, is mine alone.
2
For a spread of views and useful bibliography, see Bauckham 1998, Crossan
1974a, Fitzmyer 1985: 882-90, Jülicher 1910, Lambrecht 1981: 56-84, McDonald
1996, Schneider 1977: 245-49, Wiefel 1987: 206-11 and Zahn 1988: 427-35.
3
See Theissen and Merz 1998: 328; also, for more general issues of form,
see Crossan 1974b, and Funk 1974a and 1974b.
4
Such as Lambrecht 1981: 68-70 and Theissen and Merz 1998: 339. Earlier
in his career John Dominic Crossan argued for the parable’s authenticity (1991:
xxxiii), but now considers this is hard to demonstrate (1991: 449).
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Biblical Interpretation 8, 4

326 philip f. esler
essentially historical, in that my principal aim is to investigate the

message which the passage would have communicated to its initial
recipients who were culturally very remote from us, in a particular
region of the Mediterranean and long ago. Nevertheless, I am
keenly interested in the relevance which my social-scientific
perspective and exegetical results may have for problems of pres-
sing contemporary significance in the area of interethnic relation-
ships, as I will indicate below. I am heartened to see that Gerd
Theissen has also sought to relate the parable of the Good Samari-
tan directly to a modern issue, namely, the current crisis surround-
ing the legitimacy of charitable assistance, which is at present
subject to critiques based on psychological, sociological and evo-
lutionary grounds (Theissen 1990). Yet whereas Theissen’s impor-
tant essay is primarily interested in this contemporary problem and
employs the parable incisively to respond to these various
critiques, my focus lies on its meaning for Luke’s audience, even
though I am concerned with how this meaning makes sense in
the context of modern social theory and may be brought to bear
upon the problem of ethnic strife in our own times.
I will employ two specific areas of social-scientific research to
aid this historical investigation. First, there is the anthropological
research into the broad features of Mediterranean culture which
has been used to generate an invaluable model for investigating
the bedrock social context of biblical texts. This model is now so
well known, especially from Bruce Malina’s book The New Testa-
ment World (1981; rev. edn 1993) and other research (such as Esler
1994: 19-36 and the various essays in Neyrey 1991, Esler 1995,
Malina 1996 and Rohrbaugh 1996) that I will only refer to it briefly
here where relevant. I have recently defended the continuing
usefulness of model-driven biblical research (Esler 1995: 4-8;
2000), in response to criticism by Susan Garrett (1992) and David
Horrell (2000). Secondly, and more specifically, however, I will
utilise a recent branch of social psychology known as social identity
theory—which forms the main theoretical perspective of my 1998
monograph on Galatians (Esler 1998, especially pp. 29-57)—to
assist in exploring the intergroup dynamics arguably present in
the passage. Although most work on social identity has investigated
the ways in which groups differentiate themselves from each other,
more recent research, which I will discuss below, has begun to
develop an interest in the various ways to reduce intergroup strife.
Thus, researchers have advocated using one social category to
cancel out another, bringing members of two categories together

under an inclusive, superordinate one and simply decategorizing
altogether, especially by facilitating contact between members of
rival groups.5
Finally, and as intimated above, in addition to this historical
investigation, I will suggest the pertinence of Jesus’ teaching—
assessed in relation to these social psychological perspectives—to
one of the most disturbing issues of our time, namely, intergroup
conflict of the ethnic type which has recently pitted Hutu against
Tutsi, Serbian against Albanian, Israeli against Palestinian,
Northern Irish Nationalists against Unionists, to name only a few.
Social Identity Theory

Although the phrase ‘social identity’ is one of general applica-
tion used in everyday parlance in English, it also has a technical
social-scientific sense. Social identity theory represents a branch
of social psychology largely developed by Henri Tajfel (and his
colleagues and students) at Bristol University in the 1970s and
1980s (see Tajfel 1969; 1972; 1978; 1981; and Tajfel and Turner
1979 and 1986). Tajfel himself died in 1983 but he has left a flour-
ishing legacy in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, especially in
Europe. 6 The core idea of the theory is that being categorized as
members of certain groups provides an important part of the self
concept of individuals. To an extent, we learn who we are from
the groups to which we belong. Yet social identity theorists do not
suggest that group membership comprises the totality of one’s
sense of self, only a part of it.
The extent to which group membership contributes to a sense
of self varies depending upon the level of group orientation pre-
sent in the ambient culture. In 1980 Dutch social scientist Geert
Hofstede developed (in a book called Culture’s Consequences 7) a
5
The importance of the social identity theory inaugurated by Henri Tajfel
can be seen in the fact that three social psychologists, E. Cairns, S. Dunn and M.
Hewstone have been awarded a major grant by the John Templeton Foundation
in the sum of US $208,000 to undertake—in Northern Ireland—the first exten-
sive and empirical study of intergroup forgiveness and interfaith reconciliation
(personal communication from Miles Hewstone, University of Wales, Cardiff).
6
For an excellent introduction to the field of social identity theory, see Hogg
and Abrams 1988. For coverage of more recent developments in the field, see
the essays and bibliographies in Robinson 1996 and Worchel et al. 1998.
7
For a shorter but updated version see Hofstede 1994.
328 philip f. esler
set of variables used for characterising national cultures, of which

the most important was where each distinct culture lay on a con-
tinuum from pronounced individualism at one end to strong
group orientation at the other, a continuum which does not pre-
clude exceptions to the basic pattern. It turns out that the notably
individualistic cultures of the UK, Northern Europe and North
America (which we are always tempted to assume are universal)
are very unusual in the world, with group orientation being far
more common. Thus, the investigations by social anthropologists
working in the Mediterranean region over the last few decades
that focus on its collectivist nature as one of an ensemble of re-
lated cultural features can be construed as one elaboration of Hof-
stede’s wider theme. The recent application of such findings in
classical studies (Lendon 1997) and biblical research has illus-
trated that the ancient Mediterranean was as least as group orient-
ed as the region is today.8
Moreover, when a specific social identity becomes salient, self
perception and conduct become stereotypical of the ingroup,
while perceptions of members of other groups become outgroup
stereotypical. These phenomena are associated with competition
between groups. Stereotyping refers to the process of treating all
members of an outgroup as if they were the same, usually with
the projection of negative attitudes toward them. Northern Ire-
land, Rwanda and the Balkans continue to provide good illustra-
tions of stereotypical attitudes and behaviour resulting in extremes
of violence, ethnic cleansing and even genocide.
An ingroup which perceives itself to be in conflict with out-
groups can engage in a variety of strategies depending on how it
assesses its power and influence in relation to the other groups
(Esler 1998: 29-57). The dynamics of intergroup categorization
and differentiation are more pronounced in a social setting which
is collective rather than individualist in orientation, as was the
ancient Mediterranean (see Malina 1993: 63-73).
8
None of this is to deny that we are here talking about culture at a fairly
high level of generality, which allows for exceptions and local variations as we
move in to examine data closely, just as a landscape becomes more detailed as
the plane we are travelling in gradually descends for its landing.
Judeans and Samaritans: The History and Nature of the

Relationship in the Light of Social Identity Theory
Evidence from Outside the New Testament
For centuries Judeans had treated the Samaritans as a despised

outgroup and subjected them to the processes of negative
stereotypification discussed above.9 Judean negative evaluation of
Samaritans began with something as fundamental as their origin.
The Samaritans asserted that they were descended from the
numerous people left in Israel in 722 bce after the Assyrian king
Sargon II destroyed the northern kingdom and deported some of
the population to the east. Accordingly, they preferred to call
themselves Israelites (Anderson 1992: 941). The Judeans offered
a very different view, as set out in 2 Kings 17:24-41. They argued
that their northern neighbours originated in people from Babylon,
Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim whom the king of Assyria
settled in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites who had
been deported. In time they came to worship Yahweh, but they
also continued to worship their own gods as well, for generation
after generation ‘to the present time’. Josephus explains that the
Judeans call them Cutheans, from the fact that some of the initial
settlers came from Cuthah (Ant. 9.290). This is negative stereo-
typification in relation to an alleged place of origin. Josephus also
calls them ‘Samaritans’ (Samareis or Samareitai, for example, at War
2.111; 3.307, 315).
Some evidence suggests that the Samaritans treated the Judeans
9
I am referring to all Ioudaioi as ‘Judeans’ since only this word captures the
first century connection of the Ioudaioi with Ioudaia, with Judea and its city and
temple, which was central to the meaning of Ioudaios, whether in relation to the
people living in Judea itself or in the Diaspora, in the eyes of Judeans themselves
(with Josephus the best example, as in Book 11 of the Jewish Antiquities) and of
Gentiles (e.g., Hecataeus of Abdera writing c.300 bce; Stern 1974: 27-28). A sign
of the close connection perceived to exist between Judea and the Diaspora is
that Philo of Alexandria actually describes Judean communities throughout the
Diaspora as colonies (apoikiai) of Jerusalem (Embassy to Gaius 281). It is no
defence to the traditional translation ‘Jew’ to argue that ‘Judean’ is already used
in English with respect to those people actually living in Judea, since Josephus
(War 2.43) faced exactly the same problem in a context where he had Ioudaioi
coming to Jerusalem from both Diaspora and Judean places in 4 bce and used a
periphrasis to describe the latter: ‘indigenous population of Judea itself (ho gnsios
ex auts Ioudaias laos)’! The (mis)translation ‘Jew’ both fails to convey this core
meaning and also inevitably and anachronisitically imports aspects of the identity
of this people derived from their experiences in subsequent centuries.
330 philip f. esler
in a similarly negative way, in line with the usual processes of social

identity. Friction between Judeans and Samaritans is again evident
in the late sixth and early fifth centuries bce, as seen in the
Samaritan opposition to rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem (Ezra
4:4-5, 24) and the walls around the city (Ezra 4:17-23). A further
indication of group differentiation in the fifth century comes from
the Elephantine papyri, which contain letters of request for help
sent to both Judean and Samaritan priests (Cowley 1923: 108-19
[Doc. 30]; Anderson 1992: 941). At some stage a Samaritan temple
was constructed in the north, although it is uncertain when (in
Ant. 13.256 Josephus dates it to about 330 bce, while 388 bce is
another possibility; Spiro 1951: 312) or, indeed, where (Anderson
1992: 941).10 Alexander destroyed Samaria in 332 bce, and many
of its inhabitants fled to Shechem and rebuilt the city from 331
bce onwards (Wright 1965: 172). The Samaritans also rebuilt
Samaria.
Judean dislike of the Samaritans from around the mid second
century bce surfaces in Sir. 50:25-26, and extends so far as even
to deny them a status as a group at all, since the author says he
hates a nation (ethnos) which is ‘not a nation at all’, namely, ‘the
stupid people living at Shechem’.11
This antipathy climaxed in the campaign which John Hyrcanus
conducted against Samaria in 128 bce, capturing ‘Shechem and
Gerizim and the Cuthean nation (Chouthaiñ genos)’ and destroy-
ing their temple (Ant. 13.255-56). Josephus does not even bother
to specify the motive of Hyrcanus in describing these events, which
occur after his conquest of Syria (13.254-55) and before that of
Idumea (13.257-58). This was simply how one treated an outgroup
like the Cutheans. In 107 bce John Hyrcanus returned and this
time destroyed Samaria itself after a year long siege (Ant. 13.275-
81).
In 63 bce, however, Pompey returned Samaria to its rightful
inhabitants (War 1.156-57). Herod the Great even refounded
Samaria, although now as ‘Sebaste’, possibly in about 27-25 bce
(Ant. 15.296-99). These events, which must have done much to
reinforce a sense of identity among the Samaritans, may have stim-
ulated them to activate the more violent forms of group differen-
tiation against the Judean outgroup. On one occasion during the
10
There is still no certain archaeological evidence of a Samaritan temple.
11
Other signs of Judean hostility to Samaritans from the second and first
centuries bce occur in the allusions to Genesis 34 in Jubilees 30, Judith 9 and
Testament of Levi 5–7.
Feast of Passover in the prefecture of Coponius (6-9 ce) some

Samaritans who had secretly entered Jerusalem scattered human
bones around the porticoes and throughout the temple late at
night (Ant. 18.29-30). This attempt to disrupt the temple cult by
scattering objects of gross impurity around the temple, obviously
a dangerous activity for the Samaritan perpetrators, looks like pure
mischief of the type we would expect to find in a context of ex-
treme group antipathy.
Particularly revealing for the state of Judean/Samaritan rela-
tions, and (as we will see) for Luke’s understanding of them, were
the events of 52 ce. In that year a Galilean, one of a large number
of Judeans travelling to Jerusalem for a festival was murdered in
the Samaritan village of Gema.12 At this a crowd of Galileans col-
lected to make war on the Samaritans, which induced members
of the Samaritan elite to rush to the Roman governor Cumanus
to have him punish the murderers to prevent further violence.
But Cumanus did nothing and when the news reached Jerusalem,
the masses abandoned the festival and rushed off to Samaria.
Some of their number, whom Josephus calls brigands and insur-
rectionists, attacked villages in the region of Acrabatene, southeast
of Shechem, massacring the inhabitants and burning the build-
ings. Cumanus then attacked these men, killing some and cap-
turing others, and the Jerusalem elite persuaded the rest of the
Judeans to disperse, to prevent the wrath of Rome falling on Jeru-
salem. On the way home, however, some of them attacked and
robbed the Samaritans. This led the Samaritan leaders to invoke
the aid of Ummidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria. After he
had ordered the execution of certain Judean prisoners, the mat-
ter ended up before the emperor Claudius in Rome, who found
in favour of the Judeans (War 2.232-46).
Samaritans shared with Judeans, however, the calamity of the
revolt against Rome from 66 ce onwards, especially on an occasion
described by Josephus when the Romans slew 11,600 of them who
had gathered on Mount Gerizim in a single day (War 3.307-15).
New Testament Evidence
This material helps to situate some New Testament references

to the Samaritans. When the Matthean Jesus says in commissioning
12
En-gannim of the Old Testament, cf. Jos. 19:21.
332 philip f. esler
the Twelve in Matt. 10:5, ‘Do not go into the way of the Gentiles,
nor enter a Samaritan town’, he is presumably reflecting the stand-
ard Judean animosity to the Samaritan outgroup, which associates
them closely with Gentiles. Similarly, when, in John 4:9, the Sama-
ritan woman asks, ‘How is that you, a Judean, ask me, a Samaritan
woman, to give you a drink, for Judeans have no dealings with
Samaritans’, she bears witness to the extremes of social differen-
tiation and exclusion which typified the attitude of one group to
the other. Further evidence of negative attitudes to Samaritans
occurs at John 8:48, when the Judeans ask Jesus, ‘Are we not right
in saying that you are a Samaritan and possessed by a demon?’
Even more interesting, however, is that Luke himself is perfectly
aware of the full bitterness of this relationship. In ch. 9 of his
Gospel (vv. 51-56), not long before his Jesus will tell the story of
the compassionate Samaritan, he recounts a remarkable incident
directly on point. Having resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem,
he sent messengers ahead of him who went into a Samaritan vil-
lage to make preparations. But the villagers would not receive him,
because he was going to Jerusalem. This looks rather like a less
serious version of what happened in Gema in 52 ce. Given the
aversion Judeans and Samaritans had for one another and the
enthusiasm of his disciples for their role, nothing could be less
surprising than their response to this rejection: ‘James and John
said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn
them up?”’ And nothing could be more surprising than Jesus’ brief
and forceful reaction: ‘He turned and rebuked them’. Here we
have a revealing indication of his impatience with extreme forms
of group differentiation which will become even clearer in ch. 10.
Analysis of Luke 10:25-37
The Lawyer’s First Question (Luke 10:25-28)
As Theissen has rightly noted, although Luke 10:25-37 is made

up of two separate pericopes, the first being the lawyer’s question
and the second the narrative of the Samaritan, ‘Beide Perikopen
bilden bei Lk eine sinnvolle Einheit’ (1990: 382). Accordingly, to
appreciate the force of the parable at 10:30-37, it is necessary to
examine both parts of this unified composition.
It should be noted at once that although Luke has probably
utilised Mark 12:28-34 in the opening four verses of this passage
(Salo 1991: 107), he has also introduced very significant alterations

(Fitzmyer 1985: 877). In Mark a scribe, who has actually been im-
pressed by Jesus’ teaching, asks him which is the most important
of all the commandments (12:28; cf. Matt. 22:34). Jesus answers
the question himself, citing Deut. 6:4-5 first and Lev. 19:18 second
(12:29-31). The scribe then comments favourably on Jesus’ reply
(12:32-33), and finally Jesus tells him he is not far from the
Kingdom of God.
Luke diverges from this, first of all, by situating the exchange
with a framework of conflict. At some point during the course of
the journey of Jesus and his disciples to Jerusalem which began at
Luke 9:51, a lawyer stands up testing (ekpeirazñ) Jesus with the
question ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ (10:25).
This is a ‘challenge’, the opening gambit in the social dynamic of
‘challenge and response’ known to us from Mediterranean cul-
ture (Malina 1993: 34-37), that is, an attempt to enter the social
space of another, roughly one’s social equal,13 with the aim of
winning an award of honour from the audience through success
in the exchange which will ensue. The lawyer hopes that Jesus will
give an unsatisfactory answer to the question, or at least one
inferior to that which he, the lawyer, will be able to produce.
Rather than obligingly answering the question as in Mark, the
Lucan Jesus fires back another question: ‘What stands written in
the Law? How do you read (i.e., interpret it)?’ Jesus employs a
standard tactic in the pattern of challenge-and-response (frequent-
ly seen in his controversies with opponents in all the Gospels)—
of posing a question in reply to a question. But the tone here is
quite sharp and rather dismissive: ‘You’re a lawyer, what do you
think?’ This forces the lawyer to reply, which he does by quoting
first Deut. 6:5 and then Lev. 19:18 (10:27). Jesus now seeks to end
the discussion: ‘You have answered well; do this and you will live’
(10:28). This is a closure with a sting, since it suggests that the
lawyer may not yet be fulfilling these commandments and may not
have life, meaning life in the present, not necessarily the eternal
life of v. 25.14 This agonistic dimension to the discussion and the
13
Bailey (citing Linnemann) notes that the lawyer’s use of the title ‘Teacher’
is ‘an affirmation that Jesus is at least an equal’ (1980: 35).
14
Although commentators ofen assume that ‘you shall live’ in Luke 10:28 is
equivalent to ‘find eternal life’ and thus echoes v. 25 (so Fitzmyer 1985: 28),
Bailey has demonstrated that this is an unjustified assumption (1980: 38): Jesus
is actually saying ‘Do this and you will come alive’. Jesus does not expressly
endorse the view that those who adhere to the Mosaic law will find eternal life—
a point I missed previously (Esler 1987: 115).
334 philip f. esler
fact that it seems so closely tied to the framework of meaning of

this particular interlocutor, with him and not Jesus actually citing
the two halakhic passages, suggests that Luke is presenting Jesus
as rather disengaged from the Mosaic law, especially in compari-
son with Mark 12:28-34.
This impression is strengthened by the second major way in
which Luke diverges (or at least differs) from the Marcan passage:
the lawyer’s question concerns the acquisition of eternal life, not
the identification of the most important commandment. Much the
same question is asked by the rich ruler in Luke 18:18. While it is
likely that Luke is ironically underscoring the hypocrisy of the
question when mouthed by a lawyer, it is probably also necessary
to treat the question here as reflecting Luke’s general position
on the Mosaic law. Luke is simply not interested in entering into
a debate about which provision of halakhah has precedence. Salo
accurately notes:
In the whole Double Work Luke avoids the question of entol pr˜t (Mk)/
megal (Mt). Discussion of the greatest commandment does not exist in the
Third Gospel, and thus Luke does not wish to place one commandment
over another (1991: 109).
To consider why this might be the case would involve a fuller dis-
cussion of Luke’s attitude to the Mosaic law which I have attempt-
ed elsewhere but which is beyond the compass of this article. 15
Suffice it to say that, writing for a mixed audience of Israelite and
Gentile Christ-followers united in the practice of table fellowship
which seemed to other Israelites to be in breach of the Mosaic
law, Luke was concerned to give the impression that his form of
the gospel was in accord with ancestral Israelite tradition, unlike
its Israelite opponents, even though this picture conflicted with
the facts of the case, which at times obtruded as obviously as in
the instruction to Peter in his dream in Acts 10:9-16 to disregard
Levitical food laws by eating forbidden food (Esler 1987: 110-30).
While the Lucan Jesus sometimes respects, sometimes transcends
and sometimes challenges the law (Esler 1987: 114-18), detailed
interest in the respective merits of one part of the Mosaic code
over another is not a feature of Luke-Acts. Similarly, in the parable
which follows, Luke’s Jesus will, if anything, subvert the Mosaic
law and the realities of group differentiation upon which it was
15
See Esler 1987: 110-30. For other discussions of this subject, see Salo 1991,
Jervell 1979: 133-51, Wilson 1983 and Blomberg 1984.
based, rather than engage in a process of halakhic interpreta-

tion.16
The Lawyer’s Second Question—‘Who is My Neighbour?’—In the Context

of Group Differentiation
The lawyer now asks a second question ‘And who is my neigh-
bour?’ (10:29). This is a typical lawyer’s question. It is also a second
challenge to Jesus’ honour. Presumably he is ready with a good
answer himself, compared with whatever Jesus might say, to his
honour and Jesus’ shame, in the agonistic nature of this exchange
announced in the word ekpeirazñ in 10:25 and discussed above.
That the lawyer asks it wishing to justify himself (dikai˜sai heauton)
may also possibly suggest that he will be able to show that he has
properly treated anyone that Jesus does nominate as ‘neighbour’
(Bailey 1980: 39).
Although Fitzmyer correctly notes that the implication in the
lawyer’s question is, ‘Where does one draw the line?’ and that in
reply Jesus extends the answer beyond that given in Leviticus 19
(1985: 886), more needs to be said about it than this. The legal
issue posed is ‘whom are we Judeans obligated to treat as neigh-
bours and whom not?’ It is a boundary question of an exclusionary
type. So put, it enables Judeans to determine those who fall within
the obligation of the law just cited from Lev. 19:18 and those who
do not. Whom does God require us to love as ourselves and whom
not? Or, more specifically, what is the outer limit of the people
we must treat as neighbours? A common answer at this period was
that ‘neighbour’ meant fellow Israelite. After all, Lev. 19:18 the
source of the quoted statement ‘(You must love) your neighbour
as yourself’ at Luke 10:27, forms part of an address Yahweh directs
Moses to give ‘to the whole community of the sons of Israel’ (Lev.
19:1-2). As Fichtner notes, ‘There can be no doubt that the terms
used here, including re’ah, denote fellow-members of the covenant
or the community who share in the election and the covenant’
(1968: 314-15).
The exclusionary nature of the issue emerges in the halakhic
midrashim.17 Thus, the Mekilta on Exod. 21:14 (‘But should a man
16
Accordingly, while agreeing with Richard Bauckham’s view (1998) that is-
sues of halakhic interpretation arise in considering the attitudes of the priest
and Levite to the injured man, I do not consider that the parable as a whole
concerns how the law should be interpreted or that it presents Jesus as caught
up in the process of legal interpretation.
17
For an introductory treatment of the halakhic midrashim, see Strack and
Stemberger 1991: 269-99.
336 philip f. esler
dare to kill his neighbour by treacherous intent, you must take

him even from my altar to be put to death’) brings out clearly the
need for any law to be construed so as to determine the people
or acts falling inside or outside its provisions. Here it is said that
the reference to intention excludes (lhotsya) inadvertent death,
‘man’ excludes a minor yet includes (lhbya) outsiders (hahrym),
while ‘his neighbour’ includes minors but excludes outsiders (my
emphasis; m. Nez. 4.60-64; Lauterbach 3: 37). The exclusions just
cited rely on an important principle of legal construction now
known as unius expressio alterius exclusio: ‘the expression of one
thing means the exclusion of the other’. The Mekilta on Exod.
21:14 relies on this principle to interpret the biblical verse as
meaning that expressly to state that a serious legal consequence,
capital punishment, will flow from killing one’s neighbour (here
clearly an Israelite) necessarily entails that killing a non-Israelite
will not trigger such a result.
Similarly and for the same reason, to say that certain duties are
owed to the non-Israelite who lives among Israelites (Lev. 19:33-
34) means that they are not owed to non-Israelites who might just
be passing through the land. This particular differentiation was
developed during the Mishnaic period so that the injunction in
Lev. 19:33-34 was interpreted as applying to benefit full proselytes
but as excluding other Gentiles (Sifre on Lev. 19).
We may assume that Samaritans would have fallen within the
category non-Israelite in the first century ce, even though they
were circumcised in accordance with the law of Moses. They were
referred to as allogens (Luke 17:18).
Within the context of social identity theory, the lawyer’s
question raises a key indicator for determining who is a member
of the ingroup, and thus deserving to be treated with the warmth
and regard owed to ingroup members, and who is a member of
the outgroup, and thus susceptible of the stereotypical and
negative attitudes and behaviour appropriate in relation to such
a person. The lawyer’s answer, although he never gets to give it,
would presumably have differentiated among various possible
boundaries as ways of filtering—from the perspective of a group-
differentiating Judean— who was and who was not within the
group designated ‘neighbour’ by the law. What collection of
stereotypical features should be employed? Thus, although the
question is a legal one, a perfectly respectable legal one in fact, it
inevitably conveys an invitation to engage in group differentiation
and stereotypification. I have argued elsewhere that this agenda

informs the entirety of the Israelite law, as seen quite graphically
in the Letter of Aristeas, the most developed extrabiblical Israelite
statement on the law extant (Esler 1998: 82-86).
Jesus’ Response: The Parable

The Traveller Attacked. The precise details of the way Jesus begins
the parable are crucial: ‘A certain man (anthr˜pos tis) was going
down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among bandits who
stripped him and beat him and made off leaving him half-dead’
(10:30). The lawyer would have thought that in this scene-setting
statement Jesus was addressing the question ‘Was this man a
“neighbour?”’ such as to bring provisions of the Mosaic law like
Lev. 19:18 to bear on Israelites. To the lawyer, Jesus would have
seemed to be proceeding in a way congenial to people like him,
since the case posed was within the parameters of halakhic dis-
cussion, even though the details of the situation were obviously
very challenging.
From the lawyer’s perspective, the initial (and fundamental)
question is whether the man was an Israelite or not. Although
critics frequently assert the man was an Israelite,18 this is an er-
ror. Jesus’ failure to specify the man’s ethnicity is absolutely essen-
tial to the situation he establishes and to what transpires thereafter.
Since people of all types frequented Jerusalem, the mere fact that
he was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho did not determine the
issue. But the man had been stripped; as Meggitt notes (1999: 60-
61), clothing was valuable and this explains why thieves would
remove it. Yet this detail was important for two reasons.
First, it meant that an observer had lost the chance to assess
the victim’s ethnicity by what he was wearing. Although this is an
area which would repay further investigation, it seems probable
that Judean and non-Judean inhabitants of Palestine could be
distinguished by their clothing.19 Secondly, and more importantly,
18
So Zahn 1988 [1920]: 432. Wiefel 1981: 210 says he was probably a Judean,
while Marshall 1978: 447 (followed by Bailey 1980: 42) states the man is inten-
tionally left undefined but that a Jewish audience would naturally think he was
a Jew.
19
Bailey argues that Judean and non-Judean clothing could be identified by
sight in first century Palestine (1980: 42-43). He bases this view on three factors:
first, the fact that in Marisa in Palestine (a city destroyed in about 40 bce) wall
paintings have been found which reveal distinctive Hellenistic garb (here he cites
338 philip f. esler
the man’s nakedness enabled an observer to determine whether

he was circumcised or not. If uncircumcised, he was a Gentile and
certainly not a neighbour; if circumcised an Israelite or a Samari-
tan. 20 At this point, therefore, the lawyer would have imagined
that an admittedly formidable case had been posed into which
various Israelites could now be introduced to test the meaning of
Lev. 19:18.
The Priest. The lawyer would also have been comfortable with
the next detail: ‘By chance a certain priest was travelling down
that road and when he saw the man (idñ auton) he crossed to
the other side’ (10:31). Within the legal framework apparently in
play here, the Israelite priest, someone with more than a passing
knowledge of the law, has presumably conducted his own estima-
tion of whether the man was a ‘neighbour’ or not. If the man was
Foerster 1976: 973, who notes: ‘two series of rock-cut tombs yielded fine coloured
wall-paintings in the realist Hellenistic style, incorporating local motifs, among
which were pictures of hunting and musicians in Hellenistic garb’, with a footnote
to Peters and Thiersch 1905); secondly, the distinctive second and third century
clothing styles known from Dura Europus (although these are from the Diaspora
and reflect Greek clothing styles— see Goodenough 1964a and 1964b); and,
thirdly, the different styles of clothing which characterise modern Palestinian
villagers up to recent modern times. On the other hand Shaye Cohen has argued
that Jews in the Diaspora did not wear distinctive clothing (1993: 4-8). Yet while
the evidence Cohen cites offers some support for the notion that Israelites li-
ving in Diaspora cities may have worn much the same clothes as everyone else,
this may simply reflect local styles and a desire to be assimilated to the local popu-
lation in at least this respect and may not have much relevance to the inhabitants
of Palestine, where uniformity of dress (except as among members of the same
town or village perhaps in conformity with the local group as common in
Mediterranean culture) would be more surprising than diversity. Safrai’s state-
ment ‘Jews dressed like the rest of the Hellenistic world, with a tunic and cloak
(talit) above the underwear’ (1976: 797) misses the possibility that even where
overall items of clothing were similar, different colours and decorations could
introduce readily distinguishable styles. It seems likely that the Samaritan woman
in John 4 recognised that Jesus was a Judean by his clothing rather than simply
deducing this from his (presumably Galilean) accent when he said ‘Give me
something to drink’ (John 4:7-9). In any event, even Cohen (1993: 7) notes that
Israelites were distinguishable by their tzitzit (tasselled fringes attached to the
four quarters of their garment) and tefillin (small leather containers strapped to
the head and arm containing excepts from the law, unless these had actually
become borders to garments instead in the first century ce—see Goodenough
1964a: 168-74).
20
Cohen’s view that from ‘the Jewish side circumcision was not a useful
marker of Jewishness’ (1993: 22) is socially unrealistic, both in general terms and
certainly in the context of a naked and half-dead man on the Jerusalem-Jericho
road who is encountered by an Israelite priest and Levite.
uncircumcised, he was certainly not a neighbour and the obliga-

tion of Lev. 19:18 did not come into play; in this case the priest
was justified by the law of Moses as maintaining Israelite ethnic
identity in passing to the other side of the road. Yet even if the
man was circumcised the priest would have been uncertain as to
whether he was Israelite and a ‘neighbour’ or a Samaritan and
not a ‘neighbour’. The priest could have reasoned to himself—
arguably, if rather harshly—that he was not obliged to resolve this
doubt in the man’s favour and therefore crossed to other side of
the road. We should perhaps assume in favour of the priest that
the man’s being ‘half-dead’ meant that he was unconscious and
not able to answer the priest if he had asked him whether, if
circumcised, he was Israelite or Samaritan.
It is also possible, as Duncan Derrett (1970: 208-27) and Richard
Bauckham (1998), independently of Derrett, have argued, that the
priest would have avoided the man because of risk of breaking
Mosaic law relating to corpse impurity. Bauckham’s point is that
the priest was in the difficult position of being subject to two laws,
one to love his neighbour (Lev. 19:18) and the other not to touch
a corpse (Lev. 21:1-4).21 It would be sinful for the priest to infringe
Lev. 21:1-4 even if any impurity which ensued was ritually re-
moved. 22 On the other hand, the priest could presumably rely on
the rituals of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) to cleanse him
of his sin and this consideration might have been regarded as
taking some of the sting out of his dilemma. One could well
imagine, however, that a priest might not want to commit a breach
of God’s law even if reparation would be possible later.
Yet Lev. 21:1-4 only constitutes a prohibition (and one not
specifying any penalty) on a priest incurring corpse impurity from
members of his people (’am in the Masoretic text and ethnos in the
Septuagint), close relatives excepted (Lev. 21:1). Critics (such as
Sanders 1992: 71, 438 and Bauckham) generally pass over this
ethnic limitation and treat Lev. 21:1-4 as applying to any corpse.
21
Bauckham helpfully notes that although the man is described as ‘half-dead’
the priest ran the risk that he would die when he went to his help or that it was
impossible to ascertain whether he was alive or dead without coming so close,
even without actual physical contact, that he would incur corpse impurity if the
man were dead (1998: 477-78).
22
I have clarified this point in discussion with Bauckham and deal with it
below.
340 philip f. esler
Thus Bauckham assumes that the priest is bound by this law (1998,
passim). Perhaps interpretative tradition, or even oral halakhah,
had developed on this point by the first century ce to extend the
prohibition to Gentile corpses, but, if so, such a development
should be documented. In any event, the exchange between Jesus
and the lawyer is expressly restricted to the written law: ‘How do
you read?’ (Luke 10:26).
Accordingly, although Bauckham is right to raise Lev. 21:1-4 as
relevant to the situation as far as the priest was concerned, since
that provision arguably gave him a fairly good reason not to come
to the man’s aid (1998), we need first to recognise that this is only
one of a number of possibilities. Once again the initial issue is
the ethnic identity of the injured man. The conflict of duties stem-
ming from Lev. 19:18 and Lev. 21:1-4 as proposed by Bauckham
only arises if he is an Israelite. If he was uncircumcised, Lev. 21:1-
4 was not binding on the priest. But even if he was circumcised,
the priest would not have known if he was an Israelite or a
Samaritan.
There were also other provisions that anyone who touched a
corpse, either generally (Num. 19:11) or in the open country
(Num. 19:16), was unclean for seven days, although these provi-
sions do not actually prohibit touching a corpse. This law was not
restricted to Israelite corpses. A ritual, described in Numbers 19,
existed for the removal of such corpse impurity, and no doubt
also covered any sustained in breach of Lev. 21:1-4.23 This ritual
involved the admittedly expensive and cumbersome process of
finding a red heifer, reducing it to ashes, then mingling the ashes
with water and sprinkling them on the offender and his property,
the whole process lasting seven days (see Sanders 1992: 217-19).
Since the priest was travelling away from Jerusalem (probably
because his period of officiating at the cult was complete), to
touch a corpse would probably have necessitated his return to
Jerusalem to undertake this ritual and certainly he would have
needed to undertake it before he could next take part in the
temple cult. Nevertheless, since the red heifer ritual for removing
corpse impurity was only a question of time, inconvenience and
23
Bauckham does not mention this ritual in relation to the priest, because
he is concerned with the serious problem of breaching God’s law, whether one
could be ritually purified thereafter or not. He does mention it later, however,
in the context of its being unavailable to the Samaritan (1998: 488).
expense, this factor may not have not been regarded by Luke’s
audience as giving the priest a significant reason not to come to
the man’s aid.
As far as the instance of the priest was concerned, therefore,
the lawyer would have assumed Jesus had raised a very difficult
set of circumstances relating to whether the priest was obliged to
help the injured man or not, but yet one capable of interpretation
within existing halakhic discussion.
The Levite. With the next detail Jesus provides, the lawyer would
have continued to think he was following the plot: ‘Similarly, a
Levite also came upon the place and when he saw him he crossed
to the other side’ (10:32). To the lawyer, the Levite has conducted
much the same calculation as the priest concerning the identity
of the man, possibly without the extra issue of Lev. 21:1-4,24
although with the risk of corpse impurity pursuant to Numbers
19, and has reached the same conclusion. If Levites were not
bound by the law in Lev. 21:1-4 (probably the more likely view),
the Levite would have had less reason not to help the man.
Indeed, it is a difference on this issue which introduces a novel
dimension into the discussion as far as the Levite is concerned.
The Samaritan. At this point the lawyer thinks he is discussing
the question ‘Were these two Israelite men, associated with the
cult and therefore subject to higher legal standards than ordinary
Israelites because of their connection with the cult and no doubt
well versed in the law by virtue of their positions,25 justified in
not treating the man as a neighbour?’ He would have been
expecting that the next person along the road would have been
an ordinary Israelite. For up to this stage in the case the context
certainly seems to be one of halakhic interpretation pursued in a
recognisable case-by-case fashion and, underlying that, fundamen-
tal notions of differentiation between Israelite and non-Israelite
which it was the whole purpose of the Mosaic law to preserve.
But with Jesus’ next statement the ground collapses under the
24
Bauckham notes that it is uncertain if Lev. 21:1-4 also applied to Levites in
this period. Yet the restriction of the rule in Lev. 21:1-4 to the sons of Aaron
seems to make an extension to Levites at any period rather a bold one. Futher-
more, the exposition of the case would not have been furthered if the Levite
had precisely the same reasons not to help the man as the priest.
25
See Sanders 1992: 170-83 for evidence relating to priests and Levites as
expert interpreters of the law.
342 philip f. esler
lawyer’s feet: ‘ But a Samaritan travelling on the road came upon

him and when he saw him he was moved with compassion’
(esplangchnisth; 10:33). At a stroke, Jesus springs his trap and
simply knocks away the implied framework of the discussion
hitherto—whether various Israelites could reasonably consider
they were or were not under an obligation to regard the man as
a neighbour within the Mosaic law. Yet it is not simply a case of
the introduction of a Samaritan meaning that we are no longer
dealing with an Israelite ingroup legal discussion. That a repre-
sentative of one of the hated outgroups is brought along that road
challenges the whole structure of group differentiation which the
law functioned to maintain. 26 Jesus has jerked the issue from the
meaning of particular Israelite laws to one concerning far more
fundamental notions of group differentiation and social identity.
One aspect of the genius of this move is its simplicity; for there is
nothing artificial in posing a case where the next person to pass
by was a non-Israelite. That is what we might expect in life. And
yet so natural a possibility brings complete chaos to the conceptual
and social framework implied in the lawyer’s question and in the
parable itself right up to the arrival of the Samaritan.
The reaction of the Samaritan only serves to compound this
challenge to group oriented ways of dealing with other human
beings. As the member of a group which also acknowledged the
law of Moses as torah within the general context of group differen-
tiation and stereotypification already discussed and which included
Lev. 19:18,27 the Samaritan could have conducted the same type
26
Theissen has made the interesting suggestion that possibly underlying the
choice of the Samaritan is a tradition of altruistic help among this people (1990:
388-89). Yet the evidence he cites for this is rather limited and the proposal seems
to clash with the very unflattering way that the Samaritans are treated shortly
before this, at Luke 9:51-56. His intriguing answer to this latter point, that 9:51-
56 perhaps shows ‘wie Samaritaner an ihrem eigenen “Ideal” scheitern’, seems
less likely than that Luke relied on this incident of Samaritan lack of hospitality
as typical of Samaritan/Judean relations during this period, as documented
above, and as a foil against which the behaviour of the compassionate Samaritan,
described soon after, would seem all the more extraordinary. Even though Luke
will later recount in Acts the warm reception given by Samaritans to Philip’s
proclamation of the Word (Acts 8:4-8), he expressly states that this was because
they heard what Philip said or saw the miracles he worked (Acts 8:6); there is no
sign in Acts 8 of any pre-existing Samaritan inclination to be hospitable to
strangers.
27
Although the Samaritans used a text-form of the Pentateuch slightly diffe-
rent from Judeans, there is no difference between them as far as loving one’s
neighbour in Lev. 19:18 is concerned, see Sadaqa and Sadaqa 1964: 27.
of legal calculation as the priest and Levite. He could have asked

himself, weighing up the visual clues available from the man’s
nakedness and situation, ‘Is he a Samaritan—and therefore my
neighbour such as to activate the obligation of Lev. 19:18—or
not?’ Yet the text makes it quite plain that he did no such thing.
The position taken by the priest and the Levite, however defen-
sible legally, is simply not part of his moral universe. There is no
sign at all in the text that the Samaritan’s response represented
an embodiment of what Lev. 19:18 requires. The whole issue of
the obligation imposed by that part of the Mosaic law was simply
immaterial to him, as the way in which Jesus will go on to encap-
sulate for the lawyer the effect of the parable in v. 36 confirms.
For the Samaritan there was only one response, an immediate
one—when he saw the man ‘he was moved with compassion’
(esplangchnisth; 10:33). It was, moreover, a compassion with few
limits, as shown in the rich and loving detail which Jesus now
supplies:
When he had come up, he bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine onto
them. Then he put him on his own mount, took him to an inn and cared
for him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the inn
keeper with the instruction, ‘Look after him, and I will repay you any extra
expense you incur when I return’ (10:34-35).
The force of this case drives one to conclude that compassion

which transcends legally sanctioned ethnic boundaries and discri-
minations when faced with real human need is a superior form of
human behaviour than continuing to live within their limits. At
this point the worldview of the lawyer has been seriously under-
mined and he has been shamed. Yet Jesus is not quite finished
with him or the situation.
Jesus’ Final Words with the Lawyer. For Jesus then continues by
choosing a particular question to encapsulate its effect: ‘Which of
these three men seems to you to have been a neighbour to the
man who fell among the bandits?’ (10:36). Even at this point the
gravely discomfited lawyer, imagining that Jesus might still be
interested in his question ‘Who is my neighbour?”’, could have
supposed that Jesus was going to ask something like ‘Given the
response of the Samaritan, were the priest and Levite justified in
not treating the man as a neighbour?’ If the Lucan Jesus really
was interested in presenting this narrative as illustrating how one
aspect of the law, namely the commandment to love one’s neigh-
344 philip f. esler
bour, should take precedence over others, such as those relating

to corpse impurity and so forth (as Bauckham, for example, has
suggested), this is the question Jesus would have asked. But this is
not his question.
Most contemporary critics notice that Jesus seems to have
shifted the goal posts here, by moving from ‘neighbour’ as the
recipient of love to ‘neighbour’ as its agent (Creed 1930: 151;
Manson 1957: 263; Fitzmyer 1985: 884), although usually without
realising that this result had been achieved, implicitly at least, as
soon as he introduced the Samaritan. While this type of obser-
vation is valuable, a social identity approach, in the light of our
exegesis of the passage, allows a much more focused discussion
of what Jesus is seeking to accomplish.
In the body of the parable Jesus has refused to engage in the
processes of group differentiation and stereotypification, indeed
he has positively subverted them. Rather than accept an invitation
to add to the way in which the Israelite ingroup maintains and
develops its social identity in the face of negatively regarded
outgroups by formulating more tightly a critical indicator of
membership, Jesus exposes this discussion as completely inade-
quate and morally inferior in the face of the particular human
need he has set out.
Yet in his question, ‘Which of these three men seems to you to
have been a neighbour to the man who fell among the bandits?’,
Jesus begins to make a fundamental transition from the facts of
this particular case to the level of general principle, a principle
which represents a major divergence from the Mosaic law, not just
a novel way of interpreting it. He does this, firstly, by drastically
reworking the concept of ‘neighbour’ itself. Whereas previously
this word had been a way of referring to the passive site of the
group categorisation process, Jesus now reapplies it to designate
a person who acts properly to assist someone in need. Thus Jesus
gives a word from the Mosaic law an entirely fresh meaning, so
that it henceforth functions to establish a norm governing our own
behaviour to others, rather than serving to differentiate for the
purpose of the satisfaction of a juridical requirement whom we
must love as ourselves and whom not.
The articulation of this new principle is completed in the words
which follow. Once the lawyer, who is apparently unable even to
utter the word ‘Samaritan’ and replies to Jesus’ question as to who
had proved himself a neighbour with the words ‘The one who
showed pity to him’, Jesus gives him the peremptory direction:

‘Go, and do the same yourself’ (10:37). In other words, in this
conclusion to the conversation Jesus is really formulating a new
principle altogether: ‘Act as a neighbour (in the compassionate
style of the Samaritan) to people in need’. Moreover, ‘neighbour’
understood in this sense is someone who ignores group boun-
daries—of the sort erected by the law of Moses—to assist anyone
who has need. Jesus thus calls for a movement from a group-
oriented ethic to a universal one—and at the level of principle.
The Lucan Jesus, a person who teaches with authority (Luke 4:32),
thus establishes a rationale for moral obligation which is inde-
pendent of the Mosaic law. In the context of the group-oriented
ethics of first-century Palestine this was indeed a radical step.
Jesus’ Approach in the Light of Social Identity Theory
As already noted, recent developments in social identity theory

have articulated in some detail ways in which the extremes of
negative differentiation leading to conflict between groups can be
reduced or even eliminated. In this last major section of this article
I will now explore the attitude the Lucan Jesus reveals in the
parable of the Good Samaritan in relation to these developments.
Crossed Categorizations
This approach to the reduction of intergroup conflict was first

properly formalised in social psychological terms by W. Doise in
1976, and has since been further explored by many other writers.28
The core of this approach is quickly summarised. In many social
situations there is more than one possible categorisation which
the people present may employ. They may be classifiable on the
basis of ethnicity, age, class, gender or any other available crite-
ria, including those relating to the particular situation in which
they find themselves. 29 In cases of crossed categorisation, people
sharing different category membership in one respect, which
28
For example, see Deschamps and Doise 1978; Brown and Turner 1979;
Brewer et al. 1987; Diehl 1990; Hagendoorn and Henke 1991; Vanbeselaere 1991;
Hewstone et al. 1993; Brown 1996; and Migdal et al. 1998.
29
In the literature, situational categories are less common than those which
pre-existed the social interaction in question, but they do occur, as in the expe-
riment conducted by Deschamps and Doise (1978) where the two categorisations
consisted of gender and the allocation to the subjects of the experiment of a
blue or red pen.
346 philip f. esler
typically leads to outgroup stereotypification and bias, find

themselves in the same category in another respect, so that this
commonality works against the initial differentiation. In other
words, Doise realised that where category systems ‘are orthogonal
then the accentuation and assimilation associated with one should
effectively cancel out the same processes associated with the other’
(Brown 1996: 171). This should lead to the lessening or abolition
of bias and intergroup conflict likely to be associated with the
initial categorisation.
An example will clarify this. Doise (1976) discovered among a
subject group of boys and girls that an initial tendency for children
of the same gender to rate their performance more highly than
those of the other gender could be counteracted by allocating half
the boys and half the girls to a blue colour group and half to a
red colour group. Thereafter, being a blue or a red radically alter-
ed the children’s estimation of themselves and the previous ten-
dency to assess performance on the basis of gender disappeared.
Nor was it simply the case that one criterion for evaluation just
replaced the other, since children sharing the same gender and
colour rated those of the opposite gender and in the other colour
just as favourably as themselves.
Subsequent research has tended to confirm that in some cases
bias against those who share at least one category membership is
virtually eliminated (Brown and Turner 1979; Vanbeselaere 1991).
This result has the potential for public policies aimed at reducing
intergroup bias and strife, for example in places such as Northern
Ireland, since it suggests that persistent prejudice between groups
will be reduced if we arrange situations so that two categorical
dimensions cut across one another. Crossed categorisation should
be borne in mind by all those seeking to reconcile warring groups.
On the other hand, such happy results do not always follow. After
all, there was a major war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s even
though the participants shared a common Islamic religious affilia-
tion.
The parable of the Good Samaritan may be interpreted within
this perspective, although I will suggest that crossed categorization
is not as apt for the purpose as some other areas of the theory.
Two relevant categories may be distinguished which apply to all
of four main actors in the narrative (I will omit the bandits and
the inn keeper for this purpose). The first category is ethnicity,
with the first character, the man attacked, being of unspecified
ethnicity, the next two characters— the priest and the Levite—
being Judean, while the fourth is a Samaritan. The second category
is their status as persons travelling alone on a dangerous road,
which covers all four of them. As for the Samaritan, his member-
ship of a particular ethnic category (Samaritan, not Judean), which
would normally result in hostility and prejudice toward the half-
dead man if he knew he was the member of an outgroup (or
possibly even if he just suspected he might be), is orthogonal to
and is arguably cancelled out by the category he shares with him—
they are both individual travellers on a dangerous road. And yet
it is clear that crossed categorization is hardly a powerful factor
here. For two other people who may have acted upon it to help
the man fail to do so! One out of three is not an impressive experi-
mental result!
Moreover, although, analysing the parable in this perspective
does have the advantage of highlighting the shared status of the
characters as solitary travellers on this particular road, there is
another reason against making too much of it. After all, the text
tells us that the Samaritan was motivated by compassion (esplangch-
nisth; Luke 10:33). That is to say, the notion of crossed classifi-
cation, which is certainly a reasonable etic one from the viewpoint
of social identity theory, does not quite match the main emic
concept being employed, even if there is no sharp rift between
these conceptualities. In other words, while it is possible that the
Samaritan’s sense of facing the same dangers as the injured man
played a role in his response, the author chooses to characterise
it as motivated by compassion, something lacking in the priest and
the Levite even though they also were in the same category of
solitary travellers on a dangerous road.
Recategorization
The second means whereby categorization processes can assist
in the reduction of bias is recategorization, which refers to the
redefinition of a situation of conflict so that those who are cur-
rently perceived as members of the outgroup can be subsumed
into a new and larger category and thereby be seen as ingroup
members’ (Brown 1996: 173; also see Turner 1981). Unlike
crossed categorization, where there are two categorizations in
operation which have the effect of cancelling each other out, we
are dealing here with a sense of belonging (at least for some
purposes) to a third group. This phenomenon is reasonably well
348 philip f. esler
attested. In his classic 1952 study, for example, R.D. Minard

showed that black and white miners who were usually in conflict
with one another on the surface left such animosity behind when
they were underground when their common category membership
as coal miners became salient. The usefulness of persuading
members of previously competing groups that they now belong
to a single superordinate group has also been empirically demon-
strated by Gaertner et al. (1993). Although these results are
encouraging, the real difficulty with them is that it seems unlikely
that an attitude change will necessarily carry over from the
members of the two groups who are brought together in this way
to members of the outgroup not yet encountered (Brown 1996:
174-75).
When in his letter to the Galatians Paul turns from his stereo-
typing attack on the Israelite outgroup (see Esler 1998) to charac-
terise the unity of his congregations, he often engages in recate-
gorization. Prominent examples include:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There
is neither Judean nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither
male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (3:27-28).
and:
For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a
new creation (6:15).
But it is less clear that this strategy is a good way to characterise

the attitude of the Lucan Jesus in the parable of the Good Samari-
tan. The most prominent common or superordinate categori-
zation shared by all the actors in the drama is that of human being.
If Jesus had devised a parable in answer to the lawyer’s question
which served to illustrate the point that ‘neighbour’ simply means
human being, such an approach would represent recategorization.
It would also constitute a direct response to the lawyer, even if
one with which he would strongly disagree.
Yet this is not the route Jesus actually does take. First of all, the
point of the story is not that the Samaritan, alone of the three
passers by, recognises the injured man as the member of some
superordinate category and treats him accordingly. Rather, the
Samaritan simply disregards the whole issue of which of the three
possible categories (Gentile, Judean, Samaritan) encompasses the
injured man. Secondly, Jesus transforms the whole concept of
‘neighbour’ from the recipient of compassion to the agent of such
compassion. Perhaps at a deep level of the narrative we might

concede that there lurks some notion of our common human sta-
tus as making us eligible to receive acts of kindness, but Luke
certainly does not articulate such a notion here.
Decategorization
A third approach to reducing intergroup strife is to reduce the
emphasis on categoric judgment by dissolving the problematic
category boundaries altogether. If this occurs, the participants of
social interactions will be less attentive to group-based, that is, ste-
reotypic, information about others and will be more interested in
the idiosyncratic features of each individual (Brown 1996: 175-76).
On this view, repeated person to person contact is likely to dis-
confirm negative stereotypes of the outgroup. That is to say, the
information we obtain from particular members of an outgroup
by actually meeting them and dealing with them can sometimes
(but not always!) undermine the usefulness of our pre-existing
stereotypical attitudes to such persons. This can lead to permanent
change in our attitude to members of the outgroup (Brewer and
Miller 1984: 288-99; Bettencourt et al. 1992; Miller et al. 1985;
Brewer et al. 1987).
While there is much to recommend this work, and it is sup-
ported by the theoretically and empirically sophisticated research
of Cook (1962; 1978), some doubt attends the extent to which
positive attitudes to some outgroup members derived in this way
will extend to the general membership of the outgroup. Cook
thought that some type of ‘supplementary influence’ might be
needed to promote the generalization of new found positive
regard to other members of the group from which the individual
comes (1978: 103).
At this point it is worth mentioning one other approach to
reducing intergroup conflict which is closely related to decate-
gorization—the contact hypothesis (Brown 1996: 181-83). Initially
set out by Allport (1954), but extensively developed by Tajfel and
other researchers in the social identity field (Cook 1978; Hewstone
and Brown 1986; Hewstone 1996), its premise is that the best way
to reduce tension and hostility between groups is to have them
come into contact with one another under appropriate condi-
tions.30 This literature on the contact hypothesis also reveals the
30
The four main conditions are: (a) there should be social and institutional
350 philip f. esler
difficulty of generalizing change of attitudes and abolition of ste-

reotypes from the participants in the specific contact situation to
other situations. While various strategies have been proposed for
achieving this which are worth careful consideration by anyone
interested in reducing intergroup conflict, the area remains a very
difficult one (Brown 1996: 182-85).
As far as the parable of the Good Samaritan is concerned, how-
ever, it is enough to note that the Lucan Jesus is concerned with
this very issue of how a process of decategorization effected
through a single event of interpersonal contact can be generalized
beyond those caught up in its dynamics. In part, this is achieved,
as already noted, by moving the focus from ‘neighbour’ as the
passive site of the group categorisation process to ‘neighbour’ as
a person who acts properly (and compassionately) to assist
someone in need (Luke 10:36). This redefinition of the issue away
from the group-oriented consideration of whether someone fits,
or does not fit, within a certain social category to the active need
to offer help to whomever needs it, plainly promotes a vision of
human agency which extends beyond the boundaries of this
narrative. But even more significant is the exchange which follows
Jesus’ question to the lawyer of who proved a neighbour to the
man:
But he said, ‘The one who showed mercy to him’. Jesus replied, ‘Go your-
self, then, and do likewise’ (10:37).
Whereas Jesus could have broken off the conversation with the
lawyer’s answer, the fact that he continues with this injunction
suggests a concern with doing more to generalize the behaviour
of the Samaritan beyond the facts of that particular story. As
already noted, Jesus utilises the story of the Samaritan’s
compassion to generate a new principle of moral behaviour.
Conclusion
Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz have gently suggested that the
Parable of the Good Samaritan is authentic (1998: 339). They
argue that it shows an Israelite perspective to the Samaritans as
support for the contact; (b) meaningful relationships should be capable of being
developed because the contact is sufficiently frequent and of reasonable duration
and closeness; (c) the contact should take place between participants of equal
status; and, (d) the contact should involve co-operation over goals which have
been mutually agreed (Brown 1996: 181).
aliens which is unlikely to have come from the evangelist. While I

would prefer to believe that the parable is authentic, I doubt that
this can be demonstrated. Luke elsewhere reveals such interest in
the Samaritans, both in the special material in his Gospel (9:51-
56; 17:11-19) and in Acts (8:4-25), that it is hard to avoid the
conclusion that he is taking up cognate issues in this parable. But
more than this, something very like the message I have argued is
found in the parable also appears elsewhere in his double work.
Thus, there is a close parallel to the dissolution of social categories
evident in the behaviour of the Samaritan in the attitude which
Peter attributes to God in Acts 10:34-35:
Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one
who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
In other words, the Lucan advocacy of breaking down divisions

between Judeans and Gentiles (especially through joint table
fellowship; Esler 1987: 71-109) is so similar to what the Parable of
the Good Samaritan teaches about reducing divisions between
Judeans and Samaritans that it is rather difficult to run a strong
argument for authenticity.
In the end, though, I am not sure that this really matters. May
we not just say that Luke so well understood the message of Jesus
as it revealed itself most particularly in his undoubtedly historical
practice of breaking down other forms of social categorization by,
for example, dining with sinners and tax-collectors that this is the
sort of parable Jesus would have been happy to proclaim even if,
in fact, he did not?
Certainly there is no denying that in our own world, modern
yet still riven by the murderous consequences of ethnic division,
the brilliant solution the parable proposed to much the same
problem in the ancient Mediterranean suggests that this Jesus
(Lucan or not) may continue to speak to us with considerable
power. There is perhaps no better proof of this than the ease with
which the strategy of the parable so easily accommodates itself to
the best social-scientific research.
Abstract
This article explores the Parable of the Good Samaritan in its immediate
context (Luke 10:25-37), a central New Testament passage, both to assess its
meaning for Luke’s audience and also to suggest its pertinence to contemporary
interest in reducing intergroup tension and conflict, especially between ethnic
352 philip f. esler
groups. The article first discusses social identity theory, which was developed by
Henri Tajfel et al. and which deals with how groups provide their members a
valued sense of identity through (often violent) differentiation from other
groups. After next describing the violent history of the intergroup relationship
between Judeans and Samaritans, as reflected in New Testament passages such
as Luke 9:51-55, the article then presents an analysis of Luke 10:15-37 aimed at
determining how Jesus uses the parable to subvert the connection between
Judean group identity and the Mosaic law and to propose a new approach to
moral behaviour. These exegetical results are then analysed in the light of three
approaches to reducing intergroup conflict (crossed categorization, recategori-
zation and decategorization) and the latter is found to be most analogous to the
approach taken by the Lucan Jesus. The conclusion suggests the relevance of the
parable to contemporary efforts to eliminate intergroup conflict.
Bibliography
Allport, Floyd
1924 Social Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin).
Anderson, Robert A.
1992 ‘Samaritans’, in ABD 5: 940-47.
Bailey, Kenneth J.
1980 Through Peasant Eyes: More Lucan Parables, Their Culture and Style
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Bauckham, Richard
1998 ‘The Scrupulous Priest and the Good Samaritan: Jesus’ Parabolic In-
terpretation of the Law of Moses’, NTS 44: 475-89.
Bettencourt, B.A., M.B. Brewer, M.R. Croak and N. Miller
1992 ‘Cooperation and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias: The Role of Re-
ward Structure and Social Orientation’, Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology 28: 301-309.
Blomberg, C.L.
1984 ‘The Law in Luke-Acts’, JSNT 22: 53-80.
Brewer, M.B., and N. Miller
1984 ‘Beyond the Contact Hypothesis: Theoretical Perspectives on De-
segregation’, in N. Miller and M.B. Brewer (eds.), Groups in Contact:
The Psychology of Desegregation (New York: Academic Press).
Brewer, M.B., H.-K. Ho, J.-Y. Lee and N. Miller
1987 ‘Social Identity and Social Distance Among Hong Kong Schoolchil-
dren’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 13: 156-65.
Brown, Rupert
1996 ‘Tajfel’s Contribution to the Reduction of Intergroup Conflict’, in
Robinson 1996: 169-89.
Brown, R.J. and J.C. Turner
1979 ‘The Criss-Cross Categorization Effect in Intergroup Discrimination’,
British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 18: 371-83.
Cohen, Shaye J.D.
1993 ‘“Those Who Say They are Jews and Are Not”: How Do You Know a
Jew in Antiquity When You See One’, in Shaye J.D. Cohen and Ernest
S. Frerichs, (eds.) Diasporas in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies 288,
Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press): 1-45.
Cook, S.W.
1962 ‘The Systematic Analysis of Socially Significant Events’, Journal of
Social Isssues 18: 66-84.
1978 ‘Interpersonal and Attitudinal Outcomes in Cooperating Significant

Events’, Journal of Research and Development in Education 12: 97-113.
Cowley, A.E.
1923 Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Creed, John Martin
1930 The Gospel according to St Luke (Macmillan New Testament Commen-
tary, 3; London: Macmillan).
Crossan, John Dominic, (ed.)
1974a The Good Samaritan (Semeia, 2; Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press).
1974b ‘The Good Samaritan: Towards a Generic Definition of Parable’, in
Crossan 1974a: 82-112.
1991 The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New
York: HarperSanFranciso).
Derrett, J. Duncan M.
1970 Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman and Todd).
Deschamps, J.-C., and W. Doise
1978 ‘Crossed Category Memberships in Intergroup Relations’, in Tajfel,
Henri, (ed.) (1978) Differentiatio n Between Social Groups (London:
Academic Press).
Diehl, M.
1990 ‘The Minimal Group Paradigm: Theoretical Explanations and Em-
pirical Findings’, in W. Stroebe and M. Hewstone (eds.), European
Review of Social Psychology, Volume 1 (Chichester: Wiley).
Doise, W.
1976 L’articulation psychosociologique et les relations entre groupes. (Brussels:
de Boeck). [ET (1978) Groups and Individuals: Explanations in Social
Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)].
Esler, Philip F.
1987 Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations
of Lucan Theology (SNTSMS, 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
1994 The First Christians in Their Social Worlds: Social-Scientific Approaches to
New Testament Interpretation (London: Routledge).
1995 (ed.) Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testa-
ment in Its Context (London: Routledge).
1998 Galatians (London: Routledge).
2000 ‘Models in New Testament Interpretation: A Reply to David Horrell’,
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 78:107-13.
Fichtner, Johannes
1968 ‘Plsion in the LXX and the OT’, in TDNT 6: 312-15.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A.
1985 The Gospel According to Luke (X-XXIV) (AB, 28A; New York: Double-
day).
Foerster, G.
1976 ‘Art and Architecture in Palestine’, in Safrai and Stern 1976: 971-
1006.
Funk, Robert
1974a ‘Structure in the Narrative Parables of Jesus’, in Crossan 1974a: 51-
73.
1974b ‘The Good Samaritan as Metaphor’, in Crossan 1974a: 74-81.
Gaertner, S., J.F. Dovidio, P.A. Anastasio, B.A. Bachevan and M.C. Rust
1993 ‘The Common Ingroup Identity Model: Recategorization and the
Reduction of Intergroup Bias’, in W. Stroebe and M. Hewstone
354 philip f. esler
(eds.), European Review of Social Psychology. Volume 4 (Chichester:

Wiley): 1-26.
Garrett, Susan
1992 ‘Sociology of Early Christianity’, in ABD 6: 89-99.
Goodenough, Erwin R.
1964a Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. Volume 9. Symbolism in the
Dura Synagogue Text (Bollingen Series, 37; New York: Bollingen Foun-
dation).
1964b Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. Volume 11. Symbolism in the
Dura Synagogue. Illustrations (Bollingen Series, 37; New York: Bol-
lingen Foundation).
Hagendoorn, L. and R. Henke
1991 ‘The Effect of Multiple Category Membership on Intergroup
Evaluations in a North-Indian Context: Class, Caste, and Religion’,
British Journal of Social Psychology 30: 247-60.
Hewstone, M.
1996 ‘Contact and Categorization: Social-Psychological Interventions to
Change Intergroup Relations’, in Macrae et al. 1996: 323-68.
Hewstone, M. & R. Brown (eds.)
1986 Culture and Conflict in Intergroup Encounters (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
Hewstone, M., M.R. Islam and C.M. Judd
1993 ‘Models of Crossed Categorization and Integroup Relations’, Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology 64: 779-93.
Hofstede, Geert
1980 Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values
(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications).
1994 Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation
and Its Importance for Survival (London: Harper Collins).
Hogg, Michael A., and Dominic Abrams
1988 Social Identifications: A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group
Processes (London: Routledge).
Horrell, David G.
2000 ‘Models and Methods in Social- Scientific Interpretation: A Response
to Philip Esler’, JNTS (forthcoming).
Jervell, J.
1979 Luke and the People of God (Minneapolis: Augusburg Press).
Jülicher, D. Adolf
1910 Die Gleichnissen Jesu. Erster Teil. Die Gleichnissen Jesu im Allegemeinen.
Zweite, Neu Bearbeitete Auflage. Zweiter, Unveränderter Abdruck (Tübin-
gen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]).
Lambrecht, Jan
1981 Once More Astonished: The Parables of Jesus (New York: Crossroad).
Lauterbach, Jacob Z.
1933-35 Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael: A Critical Edition on the Basis of the
Manuscripts and Early Editions with an English Translation, Introduction
and Notes. (3 vols; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of
America).
Lendon, Jon E.
1997 The Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World
(Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Macrae, C.N., C. Stangor and M. Hewstone (eds.)
1996 Stereotypes and Stereotyping (New York: Guildford).
Malina, Bruce J.
1993 [1981] The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology Press.
(rev. edn; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press).
1996 The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels (London: Routledge).
Manson, Thomas Walter
1957 [1937] The Sayings of Jesus: As Recorded in the Gospels According to St.
Matthew and St. Luke (London: SCM Press).
Marshall, I. Howard
1978 The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (New International
Greek Testament Commentary; Exeter: Paternoster Press).
McDonald, J.I.H.
1996 ‘The View from the Ditch—and Other Angles: Interpreting the
Parable of the Good Samaritan’, SJT 49: 21-37.
Meggitt, Justin J.
1998 Paul, Poverty and Survival (Edinburgh: T & T Clark).
Migdal, M.J., M. Hewstone and B. Mullen
1998 ‘The Effects of Crossed Categorization on Intergroup Evaluations:
A Meta-Analysis’, British Journal of Social Psychology 37: 303-24.
Miller, N., M.B. Brewer and K. Edwards
1985 ‘Cooperative Interaction in Desegrated Settings: A Laboratory
Analogue’, Journal of Social Issues 41: 63-79.
Minard, R.D.
1952 ‘Race Relationships in the Pocahontas Coal Field’, Journal of Social
Sciences 8: 29-44.
Neyrey, Jerome H., (ed.)
1991 The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (Peabody, MA:
Hendrikson).
Peters, J.P., and H. Thiersch
1905 Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marisa. (London: Committee of the
Palestine Exploration Fund) (Non vidi)
Robinson, Peter (ed.)
1996 Social Groups and Identities: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel
(Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann).
Rohrbaugh, Richard L. (ed.)
1996 The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hen-
drickson).
Sadaqa, Avraham and Sadaqa, Ratson (eds.)
1964 Jewish and Samaritan Versions of the Pentateuch: Leviticus (Jerusalem:
Rubin Mass).
Safrai, S.
1976 ‘Religion in Everyday Life’, in Safrai and Stern 1976: 793-833.
Safrai, S. and M. Stern (eds.)
1976 The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political
History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions. Volume 2
(Assen: Van Gorcum).
Salo, Kalervo
1991 Luke’s Treatment of the Law: A Redaction-Critical Investigation (Annales
Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae Dissertationes Humanarum Littera-
rum, 57; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia).
Sanders, E.P.
1992 Judaism: Practice and Belief: 63 BCE - 66CE (London/Philadelphia: SCM
Press, Trinity Press).
356 philip f. esler
Schneider, Gerhard
1977 Das Evangelium nach Lukas: Kapitel 1-10 (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn/
Echter Verlag).
Spiro, A.
1951 ‘Samaritans, Tobiads and Judahites in Pseudo-Philo’, PAAJR 20: 279-
355.
Stern, Menahem (ed.)
1974 Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Volume One. From Hero-
dotus to Plutarch (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humani-
ties).
Strack, H. L. and G. Stemberger
1991 Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (trans. Marcus Bockmuel);
original Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch (Edinburgh: T & T Clark).
Tajfel, Henri
1969 ‘Cognitive Aspects of Prejudice’, Journal of Social Issues 25: 79-97.
1972 ‘La catégorisation sociale’, in S. Moscovici (ed.) Introduction à la Psy-
chologie Sociale. Volume 1 (Paris: Larousse): 272-302.
1978 Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of
Intergroup Relations (London: Academic Press).
1981 ‘Social Stereotypes and Social Groups’, in H. Tajfel, Human Groups
and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press).
Tajfel, Henri and J.C. Turner
1979 ‘An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict’, in W.G. Austin and
S. Worchel (eds.) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Mon-
terey, CA: Brooks-Cole): 33-47.
1986 ‘The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Conflict’ in S. Worchel
and W.G. Austin (eds.) Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Chicago:
Nelson-Hall) 7-24.
Theissen, Gerd
1990 ‘Die Bibel diakonisch lesen: Die Legitimitätskrise des Helfens und
der barmherzige Samariter’, in Gerhard K. Schäfer and Theodor
Strohm (eds.), Diakonie—biblische Grundlagen und Orientierung: Ein
Arabeitsbuch zur theologischen Verständigung über den diakonischen Auftrag
(Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlich en Instituts an der
Universität Heidelberg; Heidelberg: Heidelberger Verlagsanstalt):
376-401.
Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz
1998 The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM Press).
Turner, J.C.
1981 ‘The Experimental Social Psychology of Intergroup Behaviour’, in
J.C. Turner and H. Giles (eds.), Intergroup Behaviour (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell).
Vanbeselaere, N.
1991 ‘The Different Effects of Simple and Crossed Categorizations: A
Result of the Category Differentiation Process or Differential Cate-
gory Salience’, in W. Stroebe and M. Hewstone (eds.), European Re-
view of Social Psychology. Volume 2 (Chichester: Wiley): 247-78.
Wiefel, Wolfgang
1987 Das Evangelium nach Lukas (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt).
Wilson, S.G.
1983 Luke and the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Worchel, Stephen, J. Francisco Morales, Darío Páez and Jean-Claude Deschamps

(eds.)
1998 Social Identity: International Perspectives (London: Sage Publications).
Wright, G. Ernest
1965 Shechem: the biography of a Biblical City (London: Gerald Duckworth).
Zahn, Theodor
1988 [1920] Das Evangelium des Lukas. Mit einem Geleitwort von Martin Hengel
(Wuppertal: R. Brockhaus Verlag).

Arquivo xx2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Arquivo xx2

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Arquivo xx2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

jesus and the reduction of intergroup conflict 325

JESUS AND THE REDUCTION OF INTERGROUP

Luke 10:25-37, containing the passage at 10:30-37 which is gen-

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Biblical Interpretation 8, 4

essentially historical, in that my principal aim is to investigate the

cancel out another, bringing members of two categories together

Social Identity Theory

set of variables used for characterising national cultures, of which

Judeans and Samaritans: The History and Nature of the

Evidence from Outside the New Testament

For centuries Judeans had treated the Samaritans as a despised

in a similarly negative way, in line with the usual processes of social

Feast of Passover in the prefecture of Coponius (6-9 ce) some

New Testament Evidence

This material helps to situate some New Testament references

Analysis of Luke 10:25-37

The Lawyer’s First Question (Luke 10:25-28)

As Theissen has rightly noted, although Luke 10:25-37 is made

(Salo 1991: 107), he has also introduced very significant alterations

fact that it seems so closely tied to the framework of meaning of

based, rather than engage in a process of halakhic interpreta-

The Lawyer’s Second Question—‘Who is My Neighbour?’—In the Context

dare to kill his neighbour by treacherous intent, you must take

and stereotypification. I have argued elsewhere that this agenda

Jesus’ Response: The Parable

the man’s nakedness enabled an observer to determine whether

uncircumcised, he was certainly not a neighbour and the obliga-

lawyer’s feet: ‘ But a Samaritan travelling on the road came upon

of legal calculation as the priest and Levite. He could have asked

The force of this case drives one to conclude that compassion

bour, should take precedence over others, such as those relating

showed pity to him’, Jesus gives him the peremptory direction:

Jesus’ Approach in the Light of Social Identity Theory

As already noted, recent developments in social identity theory

This approach to the reduction of intergroup conflict was first

typically leads to outgroup stereotypification and bias, find

attested. In his classic 1952 study, for example, R.D. Minard

But it is less clear that this strategy is a good way to characterise

compassion. Perhaps at a deep level of the narrative we might

difficulty of generalizing change of attitudes and abolition of ste-

aliens which is unlikely to have come from the evangelist. While I

In other words, the Lucan advocacy of breaking down divisions

1978 ‘Interpersonal and Attitudinal Outcomes in Cooperating Significant

(eds.), European Review of Social Psychology. Volume 4 (Chichester:

Worchel, Stephen, J. Francisco Morales, Darío Páez and Jean-Claude Deschamps

You might also like