"Herzog"

Herzog starts off by saying that travelers at night occured to beat the heat of the day. However this was usually only seen in derserts and places close to seas shoresm i.e seabreeze.
Bread was always at the ready and never cooked at a certain time. Low income peasants we able sustain their bread until is was all gone. There was a communal oven that enivetibly showed every who was packed the freshness. A normal meal had about 2 loaves of bread. 3 fresh loaves were given to guests as a part of strict jewish custom.

As a part of custom, hosts gave more food then the guest could possibly eat and the guest was always obligized to eat. The bread is dipped into a dish or salt. A guest is considered a guest to the entire village. The host would gather from the village if he was unable to provide for his guest. Because of the demands of customs and the vaule of tradition, it's hardly unlikely that a peasant would not answer the call of a guest at night. The village would see him as an a-hole.

The word Anaideian means "shamelessly". Anaideian refers to the sleeping neighbor. This tries to draw the conclusion that praying to god enough will bugg him so much that he;ll have to listen. However, the researcher, Bailey, determined that anaideian actually means "avoidance of shame". Therefore showing that God is here to hear us.
The setting of the parable is in a "nucleated village". A village that was near some sort of large market and was built around a town well and oven.

Peasants of this time believed that all good in life was limited. They stated that land, wealth, healath, friendship, love, manlieness, honor, respect, status, power, influence, security and safety always existed in limited quantity. To get more of this good you had to run others over and take their share.

The peasant farmer was concerned with one thing, protect and provide for the family. The Elites would offer protection in exchange for substinance. For every mistake made, there was someone there to bath in your wrong. People only helped others with the expentancy that the help would be returned.


The parable states that the begger is a long traveller looking for a place to eat. Since he is from far away, the resident has to obligation to feed him. Hospitality is in the name of Abraham and of the Torah.

The Torah was the souce of drawing boundries. Urban elites used Torah as rules of purity. Offering hospitaltiy challenged the elite that bounded the peasants. The elite recieved