But why not cast the comparative net wider? After all, the text of the parable is in Greek, and it is part of a larger two-volume work that was intended for persons whose familiarity with Greco-Roman society is not in doubt. But the point is not so much to think in terms of Jew and Greek as it is to realize that Luke, his readers, and Jesus himself (if the parable is authentic) all belonged to a traditional society whose principal features not only extended around the Mediterranean basin but, as