In my last post I began to discuss Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus from Luke 16) and I mentioned there is a very similar tale in ancient Egyptian lore, about a man named Setne and his adult son Si-Osire.
In the story the two of them are looking out the window of their house and see the coffin of a rich man being carried out to the cemetery with great honors. They then see the corpse of a poor beggar carried out on a mat, with no one attending his funeral. Setne says to his son: “By Ptah, the great god, how much happier is the rich man who is honored with the sound of wailing than the poor man who is carried to the cemetery.” Si-Osire surprises his father by telling him that the poor man will be much better off in the afterlife than the rich one. He surprises him even more by proving it.
He takes Setne down to the underworld, where they see how the unrighteous are punished, including some who are in dire hunger and thirst with food and drink just out of reach above their heads. In particular, they see a man lying on the ground before a great hall with a large gate; the hinge of the gate is fixed in the man’s eye socket, swiveling as the gate opens and shuts, with the man pleading and crying for help. This, as it turns out, is the rich man they had seen being taken off for burial with great honor. When he arrived in the underworld the judges weighed his misdeeds against his unrighteous acts, and he was found seriously wanting. The gate in the eye socket is his punishment.
Setne and Si-Osire also see
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Bart,
I just finished the book American Holocaust by David Edward Stannard (historian and Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii). and he touches quite a few times on the impacts and influence of Christianity on the genocide of the peoples of the Americas.
I was wondering if you have ever read this book and if so what are your opinions on it?
TY, SC
I have not.
“That doesn’t mean, though, that the negative view of wealth in the passage is necessarily unrelated to Jesus’ own views.”
Is it likely that Jesus had a negative view of wealth because he and his family were poor and his audience generally was poor?
I’d say it’s impossible to determine what actually (experientiallly/psycologically) led to his views…. Oh for more evidence…
Bart, what’s your opinion of the following spin: Luke composed this parable to include a thinly-veiled swipe at the Sadducees and the high priestly family. Luke takes a simple story of a rich man and beggar who had their fortunes reversed in the afterlife, and adds the purple and fine linen, and the father’s house with five brothers. This aligns with Caiaphas and his five brothers-in-law, all of whom were high priests at some point. Caiaphas, according to the fourth gospel, was inclined to have Lazarus killed because people were saying Jesus had raised him from the dead. In the parable, he is told that they have Moses AND the prophets. The Sadducees only accepted the Torah as authoritative. In the prophets, there are allusions to resurrections (Samuel up from sheol, Elisha raising a boy, etc.) Father Abraham tells him that if they don’t believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe even if someone (Lazarus!) is raised from the dead. Personally, I think this parable is Luke’s finest composition. Luke-Acts is occasionally sympathetic to the Pharisees; sometimes some of them are good. But the Sadducees are always baddies.
Oh goodness…gate hinge in the eye socket as punishment? Ouch. Gate is a great word that when traced back to the OT brings clarity (as mud ) to its uses. What I would give to fully understand the Hebrew language? Maybe one day, but for now I rely on the symbolism of the Hebrew letters. H8176 as seen in Prov 23:1-9 is enlighting. The entire chapter but verse 2 especially. What does this have to do with after-life? I need to get your Heaven and Hell book.
A question. I’ve often thought, that the prosperity gospel and Pentecostal movement came about as a result of The Great Disappointment of 1844. What do you think caused these new shifts in Christian theology?
My last book deals at some length with the Great Disappointment (well, it’s the last one I wrote, but it hasn’t come out yet; Armageddon, due out in the spring); it did lead to very interesting things — the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and eventually the Branc Davidians and David Koresh (whom I also deal with in my book), but so far as I know there is no direct connection with either Pentecostalism or the Prosperity Gospel.
Are you sure that the world didn’t end in 1844? One of our parties certainly seems to think that things have at least gone considerably downhill since then.
I”m thinkin’ 180 years later, 2024, might be a good candidate, in any event.
Off-topic Question about the concept of forgiveness:
First, recently I have heard Christian preachers/ministers teach that when Jesus taught forgiveness, the purpose of forgiving is to set the forgiver free. In other words, it’s a better way to live, not something actually meant to benefit the person you’re forgiving.
Second, I have heard it taught that Christian forgiveness does not mean foregoing any punishment. So, apparently you can “forgive” someone for harming you or a loved one, but still seek to have them punished. Are these views on forgiveness consistent with early Christianity?
Thanks!
1. I’d say that is inferred in the text, but is not something the text it says. It does sound a lot like “It’s all about me” — a nice modern idea not shared by the biblical authors. I’d point out that God also forgives, but surely it’s not to make himself feel better about himself; 2. My sense again is that it is modelled on God: he forgives so that you aren’t penalized; it’s also based on debt collection: if you forgive a debt than the person no longer needs to pay. No fines allowed!
I read it as not necessarily all people to repent, but specifically Lazarus’ brothers, who in the frame of the parable are likely as rich and hard-hearted as their brother Laz, and therefore heedless to warnings that contradict their material ambitions.
Jesus’ entire mission could be said to be a battle against persistent unbelief, not only with the Pharisees but with his apostles, including Peter. Including unbelief in the resurrection. Therefore, why presume that Jesus couldn’t have been the author of this parable? To conclude that he wasn’t seems based on a presumption that Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t part of his teachings.
Yes, in the Gospels Jesus does speak of his coming resurrection. The question is whether that is something that we can trace to what the historical Jesus himself said. I strongly think not. His followers who came to believe he had died for the sins of the world and been raised from the dead became certain that these events did not catch him unawares, so (in my view) (which, of course, I didn’t come up with!) they indicate that he predicted it all. But I think that was after the fact. He himself did not appear to expcect a death and a aresurrection but a coronation as messiah.
Is there any evidence indicating the dating of this tale?
It’s a great question! I”m afraid I’m on the road and don’t have access to my library — so I don’t remember! Maybe someone else on the blog can help us out?
The British Museum describes the document as follows:
Papyrus; On verso: Demotic text of Tale of Setne (II); recto : Greek text of land-registers from Crocodilopolis, dated to Year 7 of Claudius (46-7 AD).
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA10822-1
Thanks! That, of course, is the date of this *copy* of the story — not of when the story was first told or written. But it’s very helpful to know.
Since there was a general request – Heaven & Hell cites this book:
https://archive.org/details/MiriamLichtheimAncientEgyptianLiteratureVolIII/page/n65/mode/2up
Page 125 says that the papyrus the story is taken from was written during the period of Roman Egypt, so after 30 BCE. She doesn’t comment on when the *actual story* was authored, even to venture a wild guess, other than saying that tales of Setne circulated in the centuries after his death in the 13th century BCE or so.
Thanks!!
“…weighed his misdeeds against his unrighteous acts”
Is that a typo? Should it not be “righteous acts”?
Scribal corruption of the text?
On Setne: Did this story have much influence beyond Egypt? Or just an interesting example of parallel evolution? I know that there was a substantial diaspora Jewish population in Egypt, but I don’t get the impression they cared much for local Egyptian beliefs, and certainly don’t get the impression that if they did, the Jews over in the Herodian Kingdom cared much.
On Lazarus: I’m not so sure about the argument that the historical Jesus didn’t give this parable due to the ending. The ending isn’t so deeply linked to the story to imply they’re inseparable. It seems possible that Jesus gave something like this and the story was “touched up” with the final pointed comment about people who don’t believe despite the resurrection. (Of course, the argument that it wasn’t in Matthew, and therefore probably not in Q, does cast some doubt if we assume Q was more reliable.)
My sense is that there lots of stories floating around about rich folk getting it in the end, to their surprise, while the outcasts are rewarded. And yes, it’s possible it was touched up — but it does seem like a climax to the story. Still, possibly…
Bart, Celtics or Warriors? Why?
Warriors. Steph.
Dr. Ehrman,
It seems that the rich man has
always been called upon to give
back to community to tackle
social inequality. Was there in
early christianity any movement
that called upon the poor to take
back what is rightfully theirs?
I don’t mean ”workers of the world
unite!” type of movement back then
but they could use the temple
incident, ”den of robbers” statement
and other instances in the bible as
a justification.
No, not so far as we know. The poor, as a rule, are to await their divine reward with patience.
Re: origins of Christian charity. Here you don’t see Luke 16 as from Jesus (and I understand your reasons). And elsewhere, you think Sheep and Goats (Mt 25) *is* from historical-Jesus (because it contradicts Paul), although I’m not aware of another critical scholar who would make that claim.
So how much did the historical Jesus emphasize charity and generosity? Can the Christian origins of charity be traced to the historical Jesus? Or was he an apocalyptic prophet and this emphasis on charity was a later development to promote his blamelessness and innocence? Amy Jill Levine and other Jewish scholars would argue Jesus was not much different than other Judeans of the time.
Much of the emphasis on the poor comes from Luke in ways that are secondary to Mark. And John is basically devoid of the subject. And in Mark, yes, Jesus speaks against money (Mk 10) and eats with sinners (Mk 2) and heals hurting people, but was he really promoting widespread charity and generosity? Or is this more a call to abandon everything, commit to the kingdom, and plan to die in martyrdom? And the mighty deeds aren’t statements of wide-sweeping compassion for the masses, but defenses of his identity? Thoughts?
I think it’s a pretty common view among scholars. It’s not just that the parable is opposed to Paul (I would at least never put it that way). I think views of poverty in Xty do go back to Jesus who developed them from the Jewish tradition based in large part in the Hebrew Bible. And I also think he was an apocalyptic prophet. These are not incommensurate I don’t think. I also don’t think that Jesus was much different from lots of other Jews of his time (though he wasn’t actually a Judean). Enphasis on poor is pretty prominent throughout the Jesus tradition, I’d say.
My thoughts about The apostle Paul. I believe that the Apostle Paul lied a lot in his writings. First we have the vision,I believe he never really received a vision base on the context of his writings. Second we have the changes he had to make in order to persuade his converts to believe him. Third we have his writing where the first chapter in the book starts from a third person point of view and then chapter would flows into first person narrative. Lastly, I believe he was writings on the bases on what he knew and read.
I know it’s outside your specialty, but I’d like to know more about the story of Setne and Si-Osire and how it fits into the history of Egyptian thought. After all, we all know ancient Egypt as the civilisation in which Pharoahs would go to great lengths — and great expense — to secure their prospects in the afterlife. I want to know what else the Ancient Egyptians had to say about the fate of poor people after death and how those ideas changed over time. You did not give dates, but I’m guessing the Setne story must originate in the New Kingdom, and owe a lot to hellenisation and other foreign influence.
It’s a long and complicated subject, and I’m not an expert in it. There were trends that emphasized the importance of pious and righteous living in the present to secure a happy afterlife, but I’m not able to trace out the entire sets of Egyptian traditions as they developed, or whether these kinds of stories were really believed as literally true or as illustrative lessons.
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