in his essay "lost in non-translation", biochemist and author isaac asimov argues that to the jews of the time there were no good samaritans; in his view, this was half the point of the parable. as asimov put it, we need to think of the story occurring in alabama in 1950, with a mayor and a preacher ignoring a man who has been beaten and robbed, with the role of the samaritan being played by a poor black sharecropper.