Inn of the Good Samaritan Becomes a Museum

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” the man of the law asks Jesus.

“What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

And he answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might; and your neighbor as yourself,” quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

And Jesus responds: “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”

Quibbling, the lawyer replies: “Who is my neighbor?”

Then Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed leaving him half dead.” A priest passed 050 by but did not stop. A Levite, the same. A passing Samaritan, however, had compassion on the man and “bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn.”

And Jesus said to the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”

But where exactly was the inn? Luke 10:25–37 does not tell us. All we know is that it was probably on or near the Jerusalem-Jericho road.