Ummm, I'm hardly the most-qualified person for Biblical commentary, but...
The Good Samaritan parable tells us nothing about the man who was beaten and left to die. The point of the tale is that the one person who stopped and showed kindness and concern was a Samaritan.
Samaritans were considered scum-sucking heretics by mainstream Jews of the period. They were despised, hated, and considered worthless. (I forget the actual point of heresy; something that, when I studied up on it, seemed bogglingly trivial, as I recall.)
So the point of the parable is that "Actions speak louder than words." It was the despised heretic, not the "good" Jews, who showed the compassion to the wounded man, compassion that God would give benny-points for Heaven to, regardless of the Samaritan's heresies.
(One of my short stories, "The Rest of the Story", back in the mid-90's, was a re-casting of the Good Samaritan parable as a detective story, and went into the question of who the wounded man actually was, and why he was attacked. My story's conclusion revealed that he had been attacked by a group of Jewish rebels after being recognized as a tax collector for the Romans, i.e. a traitor to Jewry.)
Another quibble --
Yes, there are dumb actors who can fake smart. This came home to me in a stunning flash back in the early 90s, when the smartest character on TV was, hands down, John Corbett's "Chris in the morning" on Northern Exposure. Poetic, sensitive, off-the-wall well-read, human and real and deeply centered -- Chris was both the brains and the beauty of a show that had plenty of both.
And then I saw John on a TV talk show. And he was big and affable and not a little self-centered. I've literally known smarter rocks. Spent a lot of the interview talking about his bike and a new pair of custom cowboy boots he'd just ordered. Not a lot of there there -- just a very big, very pretty boy who was far more ornamental than practical.
(Don't talk, OK? Just sit there and let me look at you. Don't spoil the fantasy by saying a damn thing.)
As much of Hollywood is finding out these days, you can build an entire career out of nothing more than a well-chisled face and having the right script writer on your side.
Bruce A. -
You were right. Sorry.
It's fixed. Thanks for the correction. I'd been working on the post for hours, and just missed paying attention at some point.
Sara -
The thing is, from now on, you can't EVER watch anything that actor does without it being ruined for you. You KNOW he's stupid, so you know it's an act.
Worse, when you really pay attention, you can tell it's acting. Somehow, it just doesn't feel real.
Because down under it all, people can't fake smart. When it comes down to having a genuine connection with someone in front of the camera that's well, smart, they can't do it. There's no one home back there to connect with, and the camera picks that up.
Maybe you can't see it on television (with a small screen.) But I assure you it's very visible on the movie screen.
Jesse:
Here's hoping that Dave Reichert reaches his sell-by date in 2008. It's hard to imagine a character like him getting re-elected west of the Cascades after Y2K in any case; maybe next year reality reasserts itself.
Commenting by HaloScan
