If you ask the average “man on the street” where the story of the good Samaritan comes from they will have no idea. Biblical literacy among non-Christians is pretty much near zero in our completely secularized society. Then inform him, or her, that it’s a story from the Bible, and it proves the Bible is true. That will give you a very strange look in response. I use the word “prove” provocatively because the story doesn’t actually prove it in the technical sense, but it and the two other stories of Jesus related to Samaritans are powerful evidence that it is. I was reminded of this as I was reading through Luke and came across one of those I’d completely forgotten about. Chapter 17 relates a story of Jesus healing ten men who had leprosy, a perfect example of the power of the uninvented argument:

11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

In addition to the parable of the good Samaritan, and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, this one makes it a perfect Uninvented trifecta! If you haven’t read the book, you might not know why these are evidence for the veracity of the gospel accounts specifically because they happened in a Jewish context.

The Jewish Nature of Jesus’ World
Understanding the Jewish nature of Jesus and the world into which he was born, lived, and ministered is critical to the main contention of Uninvented. You might think it too obvious, hardly worth mentioning, to need to be told Jesus was a Jew; but for the first 150 years of critical biblical scholarship, this fact was mostly overlooked. Critical scholars generally admitted that some of what we read in the gospels was historical but argued the full-blown story we read in our Bibles was primarily a development of Greek and Pagan influences over a long period of time. Such a Jesus, however, entirely distorts the New Testament witness and has nothing to do with the Jesus who actually lived. Since the 1970s, biblical scholars have come to accept the thoroughly Jewish context of the gospels, which is the only way to really understand the Jesus of the New Testament. It would be much easier to make up a non-Jewish Jesus than a Jewish one. When coming to the gospels we must grasp this salient point: First century Jews could not conceive of a Messiah like Jesus, let alone invent one. In speaking of the Messiah’s birth to come, Alfred Edersheim in his magisterial work, Jesus the Messiah, agrees:

But of this whole narrative it may be said, that such inception of the Messianic appearance, such an announcement of it, and such manner of his coming, could never have been invented by contemporary Judaism; indeed, ran directly counter to all its preconceptions.

Being aware of the first century Jewish context of the New Testament is critical to knowing why we can have confidence in the historicity of the gospel record. 

A Samaritan Would Never be a Jewish Hero
What we know today as “a good Samaritan” as someone who helps others would have been an oxymoron to Jews during the time of Jesus. There was a long and contentious history between the Jews and Samaritans. So much so that they despised one another, each thinking they practiced Israel’s true religion. So, when Jesus tells a parable about a “good Samaritan,” such a phrase was a contradiction in terms to a Jew, and offensive. A Jew would never have considered making a Samaritan the hero of a story, especially to teach a moral lesson on how to treat our neighbor, that is if he wanted to attract a following among Jews.

Jesus responds to a question from an expert of the law about how to inherit eternal life. His answer is to fulfill the greatest commandment: loving God, self, and neighbor. Because the man wants to justify himself, he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replies with a story. A Jewish man is going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho when he’s overtaken by robbers, and severely beaten. The beauty of the story is that two Jews, a priest and Levite no less, avoid the battered man and refuse to help him; but a Samaritan passing by stops to help. That Samaritan, the expert of the law must admit, truly acted as the injured man’s neighbor, and not the priest or Levite. We can imagine the Jews who heard Jesus tell the parable incredulously asking, “Who does this Jesus think he is, making Jewish religious leaders look bad, and a Samaritan look good!” Exactly.

Jesus Embraces a Samaritan Village
The women at the well might have been even more offensive to Jews because it wasn’t a parable, but Jesus actually interacting with and accepting Samaritans in a way no other Jew would have done at the time.

 Jesus is resting by a well in a Samaritan town called Sychar in the middle of the day, and a woman came to draw water. He asked her for a drink, and she was shocked because Jews just don’t talk to Samaritans like that, let alone a woman. Jews and Samaritans were hated enemies, so such an encounter would have been considered scandalous. When the disciples came back from the town with food, their response indicated as much:

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

 Again, Jesus was doing the unexpected and the counter-cultural in the extreme. Isn’t it funny and telling, that Jesus had something about him so intimidating to people even his disciples wouldn’t ask, “What in the world are you doing talking to a Samaritan woman! Really, Jesus?” And not only that, but this is the first person to whom he reveals he is Israel’s Messiah, and that to a woman who Jews saw as less than human. There are many other details in this story that sound authentic, that have verisimilitude in spades. Jesus and his disciples end up spending two days with the Samaritans, and many believed because of the woman’s testimony, and because of Jesus’ words “many more became believers.” Compare this with his own hometown of Galilee. Not only did those who knew him best take offense at him (Matt. 13:53-58), Luke tells us after he appeared in a synagogue the people were so furious they drove him out of down and tried to throw him off a cliff! Yet the Samaritans in this city, the Jews hated enemies trust him as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. You just don’t make that stuff up!

The Grateful Samaritan
Then to add insult to first century Jewish injury, we have the leper who was healed, and unlike the nine other Jewish men, he came back to thank Jesus. Reading the text of the story as Luke tells it, we might think Jesus was the only one involved in this incident. Given Jesus’ fame and reputation for healing, however, he rarely travelled alone. Crowds followed him at times, I’m sure bigger or smaller depending on the situation. I’m inclined to think, though, there were quite a few people who witnessed this healing and Jesus using it to teach about the power of gratitude and faith. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, likely for the Passover. In chapter 19 we read of his triumphal entry, so it’s likely crowds of pilgrims were on the way to Jerusalem for the festival. The men calling out knew who Jesus was and stood at a distance because they were lepers. People were terrified of them. So they have to call out “in a loud voice” to be heard which mean masses of people likely witnessed the event.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t heal them right there in front of everybody, but sends them away to show themselves to the priests. Because they trusted Jesus the healer, they obeyed his command and on their way they were healed. Jesus calls the Samaritan a “foreigner” to contrast him to the nine others who were Jews; he is the only one who returns to thank Jesus. While the crowd didn’t witness the actual healing, they certainly witnessed the Samaritan “praising God in a loud voice.” Not only that, but he also throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him, obviously no longer a leper. Luke writes with a bit of dramatic flair—”and he was a Samaritan.” As a rebuke to the Jews, Jesus asks where the other nine were, how come they didn’t also come back and give thanks. Many of those in the crowd would have been none too happy that the Samaritan was the hero yet again, even after having witnessed a miracle. We can have confidence that Jews do not make up this story, or the other two, and they do not make up Jesus. He was truly uninvented.

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