February 14, 2022
This multilayered exploration by Powery (Jesus Reads Scripture), a biblical studies professor at Messiah University, surveys historical interpretations of Jesus’s parable of the good Samaritan, in which a social outcast (the Samaritan) assists a traveler whom robbers have left for dead. Powery examines the story through the perspectives of theologians, writers, and other historical figures such as Saint Augustine, Frederick Douglass, Howard Thurman, and Toni Morrison, noting how social and theological forces shaped their readings. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, interpreted the parable as promoting “a willingness to challenge and renovate the structural, unjust systems” that made the traveler vulnerable to robbery. Saint Augustine, Powery writes, viewed the parable as an allegory, with the traveler standing in for humans, the robbers for the devil, and the Samaritan for God. Powery concludes that the parable is “a story about the kind of community Jesus envisions for the world.” The author’s keen insights into the intersections of history and hermeneutics bring new light to an oft-studied story. This lively treatise will invigorate personal and scholarly inquiry.