" Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes" by Kenneth E. Bailey. A literary-Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke. Combined Edition. Bailey's extensive work within Middle Eastern peasant culture has helped him in his attempt to determine the cultural assumption that the teller of the parables must have made about his audience. The same values that informed the parables in Jesus' time, Bailey suggests, can be discovered today in isolated peasant communities in places like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. By plumbing the world views for these cultures, it is posssible to discern, for example, what it meant 2,000 years ago for a friend to come calling at midnight, or for a son to ask for his inheritance pror to his father's death.