Read The Jewish Annotated New Testament Online
Authors: Amy-Jill Levine
37
On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
38
Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.
39
Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he
*
shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.
40
I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”
41
Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”
42
While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.
43
And all were astounded at the greatness of God.
While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, he said to his disciples,
44
“Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.”
45
But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
46
An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest.
47
But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side,
48
and said to them, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.”
49
John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.”
50
But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.”
51
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
52
And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;
53
but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
54
When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
*
55
But he turned and rebuked them.
56
Then
*
they went on to another village.
57
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
59
To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60
But Jesus
*
said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61
Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”
62
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
10
After this the Lord appointed seventy
*
others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.
2
He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
3
Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.
4
Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.
5
Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’
6
And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.
7
Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.
8
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you;
9
cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
*
10
But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say,
11
‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’
*
12
I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.
13
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
14
But at the judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
15
And you, Capernaum,
will you be exalted to heaven?
No, you will be brought down to Hades.
16
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
17
The seventy
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returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”
18
He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.
19
See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.
20
Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN (LK 10.25–37)
The account opens with a “lawyer” (
nomikos
) “testing” Jesus and thus depicting the lawyer not as a neutral questioner, but as another of Jesus’ opponents. The term “test [or trial],” also translated “tempt,” appears in 11.4: “Do not bring us to the test.” Further, by testing Jesus, the lawyer takes Satan’s role (4.12). His question is also misguided. “Eternal life” is not a commodity gained by a limited action; it is a gift freely given.
Jesus responds with a question of his own: “What is written in the law?” The lawyer responds by combining verses of the Torah known to all Jews of his time. Deuteronomy 6.5, on love of God, is still is recited in Judaism’s daily liturgy. Leviticus 19.18, on love of neighbor, is, according to R. Akiva, Torah’s greatest teaching (
Sifra Kedoshim
[ch 4] on Lev 19.18). Deuteronomy 6 and Lev 19 had already been combined in Jewish thought (
T. Iss
. 5.2;
T. Dan
5.3), and the same combination appears in different contexts in Mt 22.37 and Mk 12.29–31.
For Judaism, everyone must be treated as a neighbor. It is necessary to read Lev 19.18 in the context of the statement further in the same chapter. For Lev 19.33–34, the neighbor whom one is to love is the
ger
, the “stranger” whom “you shall love … as yourself.” The LXX translates
ger
as
prosēlytos
, “one who has come,” i.e., “stranger,” but also “proselyte”; viewing the “stranger” as a “proselyte” is a tradition also found in rabbinic literature. In Lev 25.47 the
ger
is also the
toshav
, the “sojourner,” the resident alien (the LXX reads respectively
proselytos
, stranger, proselyte, and
paroikos
, which can mean “neighbor” but also “alien”). More striking, in Hebrew the words “neighbor” (
re‘a
, “one who dwells nearby, fellow-citizen,” as in Lev 19.18) and “enemy/evil [one]” (
ra‘
, as in 1 Sam 30.22,
’ish-ra‘
, “evil person”) share the same consonants (
resh
and
ayin
); they differ only in the vowels, which are not included in the text. When Jesus asks the lawyer, “What do you
read
there?” he is asking, “Are you able to see, in Torah’s words, the command to love both neighbor (narrowly defined) and those you would see as enemies?” (See “The Concept of Neighbor,” p.
540
.)
Regarding the robbers, some commentators depict them as Jewish Robin Hoods displaced from their land by over-taxation and urbanization, and who protest their socio-economic disenfranchisement by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. The text does not suggest this, and the word for “robber,”
lēstēs
(compare rabbinic Hebrew
listim
), connotes violent criminal.
Nor, contrary to one popular view, do the priest and the Levite bypass the injured man because of ritual purity concerns. Numbers 19.10b–13 prescribes ritual ablutions after contacting a corpse, but this law does not prohibit saving a life or burying a corpse. Tobit (1.16–20) and Josephus (
Ag. Ap
. 2.30.211) demonstrate the strong Jewish concern for the respectful treatment of the dead. While Lev 21 forbids priests,
but not Levites
, from touching corpses,
m. Naz
. 7.1, insists even “A high priest or a Nazirite [a person under utmost purity] … may contract uncleanness because of a neglected corpse” (see also
b
.
Naz
. 43b;
y. Naz
. 56a). Levites are not forbidden from contact with corpses, and the priest is not going up to Jerusalem, where his impurity would have prevented him from participating in the Temple service, but “down from” (Gk
katabainō
; 10.31) the city. To import questions of purity into the parable is to misread it.
Priest and Levite indicate not an interest in purity but a point about community. Jews generally then, and now, fit into one of three groups: priests (
kohanim
) descended from Aaron; Levites (
levi’im
) descended from other children of Levi, and Israelites, descended from children of Jacob other than Levi. The citation of the first two anticipates the mention of the third. The parable shocks by making the third person not the expected Israelite but the unexpected Samaritan, the enemy of the Jews. It thus evokes 2 Chr 28.8–15, wherein enemy Samaritans care for Jewish victims, even as it reframes the lawyer’s question. The issue is not “who is my neighbor?” but “can we recognize that the enemy might be our neighbor and can we accept this disruption of our stereotypes?
21
At that same hour Jesus
*
rejoiced in the Holy Spirit
*
and said, “I thank
*
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
*
22
All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”