Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Samaritans were a people that regular people didn't like. A bit like gypsies. I really like this story, so just for fun: Parable of the Good Samaritan in easy Russian, from some "easy" translation I found:
Thanks very much for posting that, Hanna! I would consider this to be one of Jesus's most important parables -- and also, incidentally, a parable that seems to be original to him (whereas some of the other sayings/parables of Jesus were most likely borrowed from the Jewish rabbinical tradition).

The only problem is that some people nowadays forget that the Samaritans were outsiders that nobody liked, and (at least in English), "Samaritan" is sometimes used as a synonym for "nice person." So, it often makes sense to change the identities of the injured traveler and the helpful stranger, depending on your audience.

E.g., If I were speaking to an audience of conservative evangelical Christians, I might make the injured person a conservative evangelical Christian, while the helpful stranger is a gay drag queen. But speaking to an audience of liberal secularists, I'd make the injured person a gay drag queen and the stranger would be a conservative Evangelical. In other words, the "Samaritan" should be a member of a group that most of the audience will find it difficult to identify with -- that's the whole point of the story.

An Arab cartoonist who works under the name "Abu Mahjoob" clearly understood what the parable is about:



(and, mind you, if you check out his other work, the guy is definitely not very pro-Western!)