Biblical Meaning for the Word Samaritan

Religion

1. From the article and from your work in our class so far, what do you think makes this word important and what do you think it’s basic meaning is?

Based off the text and how I interpreted the word Samaritan, I thought that it was just talking about Jesus getting water from a woman that just happened to live in Samaria. I have no idea about what was the point other than her being kind to him. When I have been in church I was always told just that the basic “moral” of the story was be kind to your neighbors, and just by reading the book of John I decided there was no need to question it. John is mostly about showing why people should believe in Jesus and that it is important to let other people know, his stories so they can also believe in the “messiah”

2. How many times does the word appear in the New Testament in the NRSV?

The word Samaritan appears five times out of the six, in the New Testament, it appears in the gospels of Luke and John according to The NRSV Concordance Unabridged, By Kohlenberger.

a. How many times, if and does the word appear in the Old Testament in the NRSV?

The word Samaritan does not appear at all in the Old Testament, according to The NRSV Concordance Unabridged, by Kohlenberger.

b. What might be significant about this?

I feel that this is really significant because the word Samaritan shows up in the New Testament rather than the old, this is important because more people felt a need to talk about Samaritan in the New Testament. Apparently the authors of John and Luke found it more important than any of the other writers. It feel like this is a really big deal do to the fact that this word is extremely unique to Luke do to the fact that Luke is a synoptic gospel, this must have come from source L that makes it unique to Luke because it is not found in any of the other Gospels. A different form of the word maybe but this form is specific to Luke. John on the other hand has nothing to do with what the synoptic gospels say because it is not a part of them. So to find the significance in John you have to look at why the author of John decided to include them, in other words examine the author’s agenda for writing the book. John was written mostly for the people that were already followers of Jesus and his beliefs, he wanted to express in his writings that everyone needed to understand that Jesus was the Messiah and needed to accept him as such. I make that claim on what the author’s agenda was based off of reading the book of John and also what I have read within Harper-Collins Study Bible.

3. IN what book of the New Testament does the word appear most frequently?

In the book of John the word Samaritan shows up the most. Out of the six times we see it used in the New Testament.

a. How many times?

It shows up four times in John, according to The NRSV Concordance Unabridged, by Kohlenberger.

b. What might be significant about this result?

Again, I feel like this is important because John doesn’t have a problem with using examples of Jews and Samaritans being together. I feel like he as opposed to many Jews feels like Jesus interacting with a Samaritan is important to understand what and who Jesus was. You need to look again at where this information is coming from and what was its purpose. You also need to understand that the second place that this word shows up most in is Luke. After reading in Ehrman I know that Luke and John are a lot alike. This fact that they both show common ground with each other interests me because John is not part of the synoptic gospels in which Luke is. John is based on making the followers of Jesus better followers and to recruit for Jesus and his cause. Luke on the other hand after also reading it seems to me that Luke is a God fearing man before becoming a Christian and also wants Christians to be Christians and not really associate themselves with Jews, his audience seems to already know kind of what he is talking about, or is supposed to know.

4. Based on the collection of occurrences for the word, what seems to be its essential meaning? Make sure to base your claim on the occurrences. Cite them to support your claim.

The word mostly shows up in chapter four in John, when Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman and asks her for a drink (paraphrased from the Harper-Collins Study Bible NRSV). In this sense of this you just think this is a story