The bad Samaritan

A third interpretation sometimes heard is the related claim that the priest and the Levite avoid the victim because, should he be dead, or die while they attended him, they would become ritually unclean. Therefore, in avoiding the injured man, they are actually following Torah. Again, nonsense. Yes, priests are to avoid corpses (see Leviticus 21:1–3), save for those of immediate family members, but this law does not apply to Levites. Were the priest concerned about the purity required by his Temple duties, he might have hesitated; but this priest is not going up to Jerusalem, he is going down (katabaino) from it. Moreover, in Jewish law saving a life trumps all other laws. The Mishnah (Nazir 7.1), the earliest compilation of rabbinic law, insists that even a high priest should attend a neglected corpse.

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