Marcelo's Reading and Thinking Log

For ages, I have been puzzled by the contrast between what I perceive to be the meaning of some Gospel passages and what others think they mean. As a consequence of my understanding of those passages, it seems to me that there are striking contradictions between them.
Let us begin with the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is widely known, so let us only make the shortest summary of it. Jesus, in one of his preachings, instructs his followers: 'Love thy neighbor'. A follower asks Jesus to explain to him who, according to him, should be considered his 'neighbor'. Jesus tells a parable about a man who has been robbed and left, injured, at a roadside. Three individuals come through that road, each one belonging to a particular class or ethnicity (there is a certain correlation between both categories): a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. The priest and the Levite pass the injured man by. The Samaritan stops and tends to him. According to Jesus, the Samaritan is the injured man's 'neighbor'. End of parable. This is a clear call for reciprocity, which should be a man's guiding ethical principle, above class and ethnicity. I do not see how there could be any doubt about it. This interpretation does not demand a lot of semantical probing. It is obvious. And yet, I have not seen one single person who has put forth a similar one. Most hermeneuts, or perhaps all, advocate that Jesus is calling for universal and unconditional love. Well, he is not. If that was the case, all three passersby would equally qualify as the injured man's 'neighbor', whom he is supposed to love, according to Jesus' preaching ('Love thy neighbor'). This is very plain in the text.

Now, about the contradiction. In other passages, Jesus instructs his followers: 'Love thy enemies'. No mention of neighbors here. This instruction directly contradicts the Parable of the Good Samaritan by placing a higher value on love towards someone who hates you (a 'non-neighbor'). Perhaps it was with this passage in mind that scholars twisted the meaning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Nobody wants to deal with such a blatant contradiction.

Related post: O Cristianismo, em algumas poucas frases. (Christianity in a few sentences.)