More Scholarship on the Neighbor and the Good Samaritan

Mark A. Proctor wrote an interesting article for JBL that discusses the parable of the Good Samaritan within the context of Luke, specifically identifying Luke's interchanging terms like "brother," "friend." "neighbor (one who is close)," "parent," "partner," "relative," etc. The article is entitled, "'Who Is My Neighbor?' Recontextualizing Luke's Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) and appears in volume 138.1 (2019) 203-219.

Proctor's conclusions are both my own and not my own, as I think that he takes it in a direction that creates a non sequitur, but the information and observations he provides in his article support what I have been arguing for some time. Namely, that "not just any person may count as 'neighbor', but only those with whom one shares a covenantlike relationship of mutual entitlement" (213). He quotes Diane G. Chen (Luke: A New Covenant Commentary, 151) as stating that the very designation of someone as a "neighbor" "presupposes the existence of a non-neighbor, since a boundary simultaneously excludes as well as includes" (ibid., fn. 30). 

Likewise,  he argues:

Since Jesus' conversation with the lawyer takes the meaning of Lev 19:18b LXX as its starting point, it seems reasonable to begin the attempt to assess Luke's implied understanding of πλησίον there.
     According to Johannes Fichtner, the command of Lev 19:18b "applies unequivocally towards the members of the covenant of Yahweh and not self-evidently towards all men. That πλησίον can carry such a covenantal nuance finds confirmation in LXX passages such as Gen 26:26-33, Ruth 4:1-12, Pss 14:1-5, and 23:1-10, all of which use the term to speak about participants in social contracts . . . Each of these four contexts thus deploys πλησίον to designate parties involved in mutually beneficial and binding agreements, the purpose of which is to secure fair and equitable treatment for both parties. The material surrounding Lev 19:18b, moreover, makes it abundantly clear that this exhortation likewise concerns covenantal responsibilities; this section of Leviticus enumerates laws that aim to secure the shared interests of YHWH's followers by prescribing and proscribing reciprocal social responsibilities. (212)

Johannes Fichter observes that "in a legal statement of this kind [in Lev 19:18b] extension beyond this circle [of the covenant community] is not to be expected in advance. (Ibid., fn 29)

Likewise, Fitzmeyer points out that "in Leviticus 'neighbor' stands in parallelism with 'the children of your own people', i.e., fellow Israelites." He further points out that this extends to the גר "sojourner" in 19:4, but not to others like the Goyim, i.e., nations/pagans. (210, fn 20)

Proctor's observations that the neighbor in Luke sees its companion terms with those within social contracts with one another (e.g., parents, friends, partners, etc.) is interesting since Luke's overall thrust is that what makes up the activity of a true covenant member is the care of other covenant members. Proctor wants to expand this to the generalized community of Jews having obligations to the general community of the Samaritans, or rather to see them all as one community, but this isn't quite Luke's point. The point in Luke-Acts is that Christians have obligations to Christians regardless of ethnicity or class or any other worldly divide that would normally excuse one within the community from helping another in the community who was in need. 

This is why the story of the rich man and Lazarus is important for the interpretation of Luke. The rich man is Jewish, the poor man is Jewish, Both are visible members of the covenant community, but one goes to paradise and the other to punishment, precisely, because the rich man proves himself to be a false member of the community by his lack of concern for his fellow covenant member in need. Hence, the Book of Acts displays the activity of taking care of one another's needs in the Christian community as a sign of receiving the Holy Spirit that is more significant than even speaking in tongues is in the book. 

Laudably, Proctor rejects the interpretation that Jesus is telling His audience that everyone is a neighbor or that the real question to answer is whether one is a neighbor to everyone without making any distinctions about who is who (206, fn 10). Proctor comments on Bock's statements that attempt this contradictory interpretation, and states that "while Bock's suggestion that 'a neighbor does not make distinctions in offering care' might ring true for some altruistically minded contemporaries, such sentimentality would be grossly anachronistic should one try to impose such an understanding of either γείτων or πλησίον on a first-century text like Luke's Gospel" (213, fn 31).

Indeed, not only would it be anachronistic but eisegetical by reading in modern ideas of inclusivism and egalitarianism into a Christocentrically exclusive theology conveyed by Lukan volumes and the New Testament (following the Old) as a whole.