Loading...In my previous post I summarized an Egyptian story about a rich man and a poor man who both die, with the poor man having a fantastic afterlife and the rich man suffering horrible torture. The poor man was righteous and so was rewarded, the rich man was a sinner and so was punished. Is that what the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 is also all about – rewards for the righteous and punishment for the wicked? So that it’s a story that tries to stress that you need to live a good life or you’ll pay the consequences later?
It is indeed possible that this biblical story also contains an implicit teaching about righteous living. But since, unlike the Egyptian tale, this parable says nothing about sin and righteousness, some interpreters have suggested different ways of understanding it.
Maybe the problem with the rich man in Luke’s parable is not that he is generally wicked, but that, more specifically, he hasn’t used his wealth in order to help those who were poor. That would be suggested by the fact that Lazarus lay right outside the man’s gate, starving to death, while the man feasted every day in great luxury. The man had no heart. In support of this view is the fact that the rich man knew all about famished Lazarus. When he is in Hades, he calls him by name.
Moreover, this understanding makes sense of the rest of the story. The rich man is clearly a Jew: he calls Abraham “father,” and it is implied that he, like his brothers, should have paid attention to “Moses and the prophets.” The Law of Moses tells people to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). The rich man allowed Lazarus to starve to death when he easily could have done something about it.
Other scholars have argued a more …
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In your book on the afterlife will you be discussing the social and political upheavals that happened to shake the “idea” of what heaven and hell looks like? I’m also studying ancient civilizations on the great courses with Professor Andrette. Which he points out how thoughts and influences happen based on the social and civil upheavals. For instance the Hyksos and Egyptians, the Indus and the aryans, etc. Will you be also taking a more biblical point on it from both the Hebrew Bible and the NT? Or a more broader view? Like comparing Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, India, Chinese, etc.
To some extent (mainly involved with periods of intense religious opposition and persecution).
I wish I had my old faith back. In the afterlife would be my family and friends, forever. In this life I dip between completely fulfilled by my wife, family, and friends and knowing it will all pass, and thus I feel nihilistic. I know your theory on why the afterlife was created, but this seems to hit close to the bull’s-eye. What do you think and do you ever feel this way?
You may want to read my book God’s Problem. I deal with that issue there (at teh beginning and end). Short story: no, I don’t feel nihilistic at all. I feel like I want to relish life as much as I can for as long as I can.
I get the sense when reading Jesus’ alleged sayings in the Gospels that he was not as enthused about the family as Christians have portrayed him. I’m thinking of his statement disavowing his mother and brothers in preference to those who “do the will of God”, and Luke 14:26, where he refuses discipleship to those not willing to abandon their families in preference to him. Aplologists have promised that those entering Heaven would gain a whole new family of Christians. I wonder if those public figures who often make pronouncements about “Judeo-Christian values” are truly aware of what they speak.
Yes, indeed — I talk about this in several of my books. It’s intersting that Jesus could actually be said to have opposed what many people today think of as family values — mainly because of his strongly apocalyptic views.
May I ask an off-topic question?
I think I saw you mention last year that Joel Marcus from USC will be publishing a really interesting book on John the Baptist in the fall of 2018, so I set a google reminder to ask you if you’ve had a chance to have a read it.
I’ve just had another look at the google synopsis https://bit.ly/2A3iUiT and it does sound awesome. Do you know anything more about it?
Yup, I”ve read it. It’s really good I think, a very full and well documented study.
I suppose that the author of Luke had a moral clarity which most people lack, then and now. It’s arguable that being rich in a grossly unequal society is indeed inherently immoral. If you’re rich, and spending lots of money on your own comforts, then you’re starving the poor more-or-less by definition, given how easy it would be to donate that money instead. Of course most of us middle-class people in rich countries (who are comparatively rich by global standards, at least in income terms) are guilty of this to a greater or lesser extent; we should give far more than we do.
That said, the idea of eternal torture for anyone (rich or not) is horrifying. I’m somewhat glad (even as an atheist) that the historical Jesus didn’t teach that idea.
(This is of course a general “you”! Bart has raised vastly more for humanitarian causes than most people do in a lifetime.
I give to various charities and to homeless people in the street, and did pro bono work when I was a lawyer. But can I really assert that I give all that I could give? Definitely not. Not even close.)
I good bet I’ll have finished this book within a day or two of it showing up on my Kindle.
And this will win me eternal paradise, right? 😉
“The ending itself is the dead giveaway. …”
You will have to spend eternity biting your tongue.
I once heard somebody make the case that this parable also symbolized the rich man as the Jewish people (being inside the gate as symbolic for their access to God), with Lazarus representing gentiles (outside of the community, unclean, etc.). And then in the end we see the tables turned with the Jews being shut out and a gentile sitting on Abraham’s bosom, which reflected the later development of the gospel being taken to the gentiles and them being more responsive. This Jew/gentile symbolism was argued with other parables as well (e.g. the prodigal son, which the symbolism does seem stronger between the two sons). Do you think the author intended such symbolism in this parable?
I think it’s a bit of a stretch; the parable seems much more concerned to reinforce Luke’s teaching about wealth and poverty.
Such readings of the parables are inherently anachronistic and, worse, anti-Semitic. Read Amy-Jill Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus and/or her Jewish Annotated New Testament for more historically plausible interpretations.
1) Is it plausible that Jesus did tell the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, but Luke appended the ending about someone rising from the dead?
2) I used to read the Rich Man’s request to send Lazarus to his brothers, to be about sending Lazarus as a ghost or apparition, rather than as a bodily raised man. Does the 1st century Jewish context permit this reading?
3) Verse 31 does refer to bodily resurrection of a solitary person while other people remain in their normal bodily form. Is this notion inconsistent with 1st century Jewish thought prior to birth of the church?
1. Yup, that would be an option. But there’s nothing in the text, in my opinion, that would suggest it. 2. It’s an option, but at the end he talks about being raised from the dead, not appearing as a ghost. 3. Not necessarily. It’s what the Christians said, after all.
Regarding point3, NT Wright made much of the thesis that before the birth of the church, Jews believed in bodily resurrection of everyone at end of time, and the notion of resurrection of a solitary individual was unheard of. Hence Wright and Christian apologists point to this feature as evidence that the disciples didn’t and couldn’t have made up Jesus’ resurrection.
Interesting idea. (On the other hand, I don’t know anyone who thinks that teh disciples “made up” the view of the resurrection, so I’m not sure whom he is/would be arguing against)
Wright was making the “argument from uniqueness” – something had happened to Jesus that had never happened to anyone anywhere before this, and also that no one (no mortal anyway) would have though of this, a single body rising from the dead. So of course he has to say that the Greek never had the idea of a single person being resurrected and made immortal. (Except that they did.)
‘A longing to eat what falls from the rich man’s table’ is an obvious reference to the canaanite woman in matthew 15.
The rich man is the northern Kingdom which was lost without sharing the message the gentiles – the five brothers are the five tribes left in Judah which won’t spread the word even if someone rises from the dead
That is WAY TOO SUBTLE for me that
Second sentence of Lk 16:31 refers is referring to Jesus ?
> neither will they be convinced even if SOMEONE [Jesus?} rises from the dead
much better exegesis/hermeneutics, if those are the right words, is that being right with God depends on following the laws and prophets and not expecting some magical event like a person rising from the dead (or some magical appearance of a being standing on a cloud),
Luke appears to believe in postmortem rewards: Luke 23:43, the “penitent thief,” and the aforementioned Lazarus. Any other passages that support this view? One issue that I have is that Luke/Acts states that the following people were raised from the dead:
1) Luke 7:11-17: The widow of Nain’s son.
2) Acts 9:36-42: Tabitha/Dorcas.
3) Acts 20:7-12: Eutychus.
If Luke believed that immediately at death one goes to Paradise/Abraham’s bosom or Hell–and presumably all three are in the former category–then were these three people “pulled back” from Paradise? The second two were raised after the resurrection of Jesus, so even if Luke believed that no one prior to Jesus’ resurrection went to Paradise (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:23), how do we explain these cases?
Yes, if Luke is being internally consistent (one very big question is whether he is), then presumably the righteous people raised from the dead are being brought back from paradise AND that is seen as a good thing. Go figure!
re: “The second two were raised after the resurrection of Jesus, so even if Luke believed that no one prior to Jesus’ resurrection went to Paradise (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:23), how do we explain these cases?”
Don’t confuse resuscitation with resurrection. Two totally different things.
Regarding Paradise – Paradise was not a “fixed point of theology” by any means. When you die, your “life” – the soul, “nephesh”, spirit – whatever – “goes someplace” where, presumably, it awaits the resurrection. But, Jews were (and still are) all over the place when it comes to defining “paradise”.
One would have to dig into ages-worth of Rabbinic writings to be able to say “this is what Luke meant”, or “this is what Jesus meant”, but in real life, what was *specifically* meant, in any given usage of the word, is probably not even knowable.
It’s a *concept*. The parable of Laz and the Rich Guy is as much “folklore” as is, say, a story (or even a joke) about some guy dying, and “going to heaven”, and “meeting Peter at the Pearly Gates”.
One Jewish writer (who doesn’t believe in heaven or hell) noted “If anything is less Jewish than belief in heaven and hell, it’s Jews agreeing on an official theological party line.” She goes on to quote an old saying: “Two Jews, three afterlives”.
What I’m getting at is this: If you find someone that can tell you what Jews believed about heaven, hell, paradise, or even the afterlife in general, then you’ve found someone who’s trying to sell you something…
If you’re trying to figure out what happens if a guy dies, and then is resuscitated, good luck with that. Because you’ll *never* find a definitive answer in Judaism – and in particular, in the Judaism of the time of Jesus.
Dr. Ehrman, have you noticed that this parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus could have even been written or taught by a Pharisee? There’s nothing in the meat of the story that begs it to be taken as distinctly Christian — notice there is no mention of anything unique to Christianity in the entire parable (unless, of course, you choose to interpret that last verse as referring to Jesus, but, again, the reference is not explicit, only inferred).
Indeed, it is a very Jewish kind of parable. If you add to that the fact that taking care of the poor (as well as widows and orphans) was considered standard practice in the Judaism of Jesus’s day, then it becomes all too clear what the purpose of this parable is. Its purpose is to show what it means to be a righteous Jew (whether Christian or not), and what the reward for that generous righteous Jew is (eternal paradise with the Saints) and the punishment for the miserly unrighteous Jew (the fires of Gehenna/Hades). I could imagine this parable being found, word for word, within the Talmud itself. And it wouldn’t, at all, be out of place.
For most of it, yes. But what is distinctively Christian is the end: “even if someone is raised from the dead” in the context of Luke’s Gospel does not mean “just anyone” but is a reference to Jesus’ resurrection, which, for Luke, did indeed occur and people *still* aren’t paying attention.
Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man had a Jewish origin, and the only reason Luke chose to include it in his gospel was *because* it made that reference to returning from death at the end. In other words, Luke took what was originally meant to be a general Jewish parable and made it apply to Christian doctrine by inference. (We could imagine the parable’s provenance as follows: some apocalyptic Jew creates the parable; it finds its way into a common pool of apocalyptic parables; at some point the parable gets attributed to Jesus; the author of Luke agrees with that attribution and thus includes it among other purported words of Jesus.)
That being said, I should make clear that I don’t think Jesus originated this parable, but that’s for a different reason. I place this parable within the category of Catastrophe sayings (of the 3 Cs: Commission, Community and Catastrophe) which were created to portray Jesus as presaging his own demise. The fact that this parable implies that Jesus knows he’s going to die would take it out of contention. However, the sentiment of the parable sounds exactly like something any apocalyptic Jew, including Jesus! could have uttered. That’s my point.
Growing up as a debater, I naively thought that most people would be persuaded by the best evidence. How wrong I was to think such a thing. Recently, I have been reading about how people, even good and smart people, especially when it comes to religion and politics, often are unpersuaded by even overwhelming evidence and I have learned about confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance reduction, motivated reasoning, the backfire effect, and so on and so forth. If any readers of this blog are interested in such stuff, I recommend an article by Chris Mooney entitled “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science” that appeared in the May/June 2011 issue of “Mother Jones.” The story in this article about how Dorothy Martin and her followers responded when the anticipated spaceships did not arrive on schedule is especially interesting as is the work of the Stanford psychologist Leon Fostinger which is described in the article. If anyone has other such references, I would love having them. My guess is that people living in the first century had similar tendencies and biases when it came to explaining stuff. How could it be otherwise? Thanks
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” ~ Upton Sinclair
The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich man doesn’t align with Paul’s theology either. In the Parable, the Rich man is being punished for his lack of righteous behavior and not on his failure to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Not a question on the Afterlife but more on the Gospels vs Paul. Although we know Paul’s letters were written prior to the Gospels, how well known was Paul and his writings? Is it possible that the Gospel writers were unfamiliar with Paul and his theology?
It’s usually thought (rightly in my view) that the Gospel writers did not know Paul’s writings.
I was very surprised to read that it is generally held that the gospel writers did not know of Paul’s writings. Does this apply to Luke who devoted so much of Acts to Paul’s activities? Why is it thought that Luke would not have been interested in Paul’s pastoral care of the churches he founded?
Yes, that’s the truly odd part. Luke (in Acts) shows no evidence of knowing Paul’s letters — or even of knowing that Paul *wrote* letters!
1. This parable does not assume eternal punishment, as the scene is clearly before the final judgment, when, according to Revelation, Hades and its inhabitants will be consumed in the lake of fire.
2. Is the rejection of wealth based on the apocalyptic view that the end is near, so who needs money and possessions?
3. Is it possible (or likely?) that the name Lazarus was added to conform with the raising of Lazarus in the Gospel of John? In John Lazarus is raised, and rather than inspiring faith they conspire to kill him!
2. Yup, probably 3. It’s usually read the opposite way. There was a story about a man named Lazarus involving someone being raised from the dead, and it came to be transformed in the retelling to an account of Jesus raising someone named Lazarus from the dead.
Off topic question: In Matthew’s account of the burial of Jesus, did Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus on the Sabbath? There is no mention of the Jews being anxious to get the bodies below ground; no mention of anyone’s legs being broken; no mention of anyone being poked in the side with a spear. Was “Matthew” unaware that burying a body after sunset was a violation of Moses’ Law or does the word “evening” mean something other than the period of time shortly after sunset?
When it was EVENING, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. 58 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. -Matthew 27:57 (NRSV)
I checked and the KJV, NKJV, RSV, ESV, Dhouay-Rheims, ASV, Wycliffe, and several other English Bibles all translate the Greek word in question as “evening”.
Yes, the word is definitely “evening.”
That’s interesting — I never noticed it before. I guess it must mean that it was when it started to get dark, not after the next day began. I’ll have to look into it!
Some Christian apologists say that the Greek word in question means “late” and that Jews used this term to refer to the time period of 3PM – 6PM. This would have given Joseph of Arimathea three hours to go to Pilate, buy the burial cloth, take Jesus down from the cross, and bury him.
It starts to get dark only after the sun goes down (sunset) which is the start of the next day, which in this instance, would have been the sabbath.
Is it really possible that first century Jews referred to late afternoon (when the sun was still in the sky) as “evening”?
I don’t know. I’d have to see sonme evidence of it. In the standard Greek lexicon of the NT it is claimed that it often refers to teh period between late afternoon and darkness, but I would have to do a word study to be convinced. From what I’m seeing in a quick overview, it appears that the word simply means (literally) “late” rather than “after sundown”
When we see ‘poor in spirit’ vs ‘poor’, and ‘those who hunger for righteousness’ vs ‘those who hunger’–does that suggest that Luke is changing Matthew for theological reasons, or vice-versa? Or does it indicate that both Matthew and Luke had a similar source, and only one of them changed it?
It comes from Q, and so one of them appears to have changed it. Usually it’s thought that it was Matthew, but since Luke’s version so clearly promotes Luke’s agenda, maybe it was the the other way around.
Hi Bart, this was interesting. I have always wondered about the perspective of time in Luke’s writings. Would you consider the verse in Luke 14:27 “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple”, similar to the one in 16:31 “neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead”? In other words, don’t both indicate that these quotes were conceived after the crucifixion and can’t be referring to an actual utterance by Jesus when he was alive?
Oh, and btw, I saw your debate with Dinesh D’Souza centered around suffering and wonder if you’ve ever heard of Rupert Spira? He comes from a completely different school of thought and like Alan Watts does not subscribe to the Biblical notion of God however I thought this might be interesting to you personally. I’m not really looking for a comment on this. Just thought you’d find it interesting. “The Royal Way to Approach Suffering” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FalrMDDmlW0
Thanks for all of your insights and hard work.
Yes, indeed — both assume a time after Jesus’ death.
I’m afraid I don’t know of R. Spira.
Why do you think this concept took root and became the central idea regarding concequences in the afterlife? Something must have happened in the Church or in society that would perpetuate this notion to our times. I hope your books follows this as the Church expands.
What books in the New Testament were written above Koine Greek (common Greek), say at the Second Sophistic level (started during the reign of Nero and going into the second century)?
Was Paul’s Romans written at the Second Sophistic level instead of Koine Greek?
= = =
Background from Wikipedia
The Second Sophistic is a literary-historical term referring to the Greek writers who flourished from the reign of Nero until c. 230 AD and who were catalogued and celebrated by Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists. However, some recent research has indicated that this Second Sophistic, which was previously thought to have very suddenly and abruptly appeared in the late 1st century, actually had its roots in the early 1st century. It was followed in the 5th century by the philosophy of Byzantine rhetoric, sometimes referred to as the “Third Sophistic.”
Writers known as members of the Second Sophistic include Nicetas of Smyrna, Aelius Aristides, Dio Chrysostom, Herodes Atticus, Favorinus, Philostratus, Lucian, and Polemon of Laodicea. Plutarch is also often associated with the Second Sophistic movement as well.
The term “Second Sophistic” comes from Philostratus. In his Lives of the Sophists, Philostratus traces the beginnings of the movement to the orator Aeschines in the 4th century BC. But its earliest representative was really Nicetes of Smyrna, in the late 1st century AD. Unlike the original Sophistic movement of the 5th century BC, the Second Sophistic was little concerned with politics. But it was, to a large degree, to meet the everyday needs and respond to the practical problems of Graeco-Roman society. It came to dominate higher education and left its mark on many forms of literature. The period from around AD 50 to 100 was a period when oratorical elements dealing with the first sophists of Greece were reintroduced to the Roman Empire. The province of Asia embraced the Second Sophistic the most.
None of the books are written at an elevated level of Attic Greek Hebrews probably comes closest.
High style isn’t everything when it comes to writing a book people care about over the long term. Not that you said it was. It is a simple fact that the literary lions of almost any given era would be horrified to know about some of the writers of their day who are remembered now.
It’s not about elegance, and it’s not about short-term popularity won by pandering to popular tastes. It’s about passion. How much of yourself you put into the work. Style is a means whereby the writer expresses his or her inner self. Some writers who seem to have very crude styles are in fact highly sophisticated–more so, in some cases, then those who do everything properly by the existing rules. Breaking the rules often leads to better results.
Thank you.
I just put in the search field: “Clement I.”
Bart:
the letter as a whole, along with its constituent parts, shows clear familiarity with Hellenistic rhetorical forms. In particular, the letter functions as a kind of “homonoia (= harmony) speech,” a rhetorical form common among Greek and Roman orators for urging peace and harmony in a city-state experiencing internal strife and disruption.
Steefen
Does Clement I, therefore, reach High Greek?
No, I was referring to its rhetorical form (homonoia speech) rather than the quality of its literary Greek.
Steefen:
Interesting.
He was smart enough to have the rhetorical forms but not educated at a level to write High Greek.
James S. Jeffers (Chair of the History Department at California State University, Dominguez Hills):
Hermas describes a Clement as the one charged with addressing other churches on behalf of the Roman Christians (Vis. 2.4.3). Scholars in general believe that Hermas refers to the author of 1 Clement. Irenaeus asserts that this Clement, who had conversed with the apostles (peter and paul) was the 3rd to succeed them as bishop of Rome. Eusebius also reports that in AD 92 to 101, he became the 3rd bishop of Rome to succeed Peter and Paul. Jerome also places Clement 3rd.
He may have been a Roman aristocrat educated in Greek or a Greek-speaking freedman.
Most current scholars doubt that Clement had training in philosophy, however, Harnack believes the author lacks a higher philosophical education and Roman aesthetic taste. Lightfoot suggested that the author of 1 Clement was a former slave. Maybe he was a slave of Flavia Clemens and Flavia Domitilla but hard evidence is lacking.
“Send back quickly to us our messengers Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Vito” lends credence to the idea that Clement was an imperial freedman and the three probably belonged to the same house church in Rome.
Based on his comparison of 1 Clement with the Letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians, Losh asserts that Clement must have been one of the imperial slaves who composed official letters.
Steefen:
Hm, official letters not quite rising to the level of High Greek. But, I guess if a senator, consul, or emperor were writing, they wrote in High Greek.
i am trying to make sense of
“it should be clear that the historical Jesus himself did not tell the story. . .. The ending itself is the dead giveaway. ”
maybe I am dense but it isn’t clear to me
Abraham said ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead’
Doesn’t that mean that resurrection from the dead and/or being witness to a resurrection form the dead [even if that resurrected person is Jesus Christ] will have NO BEARING on whether someone is saved or NOT.
Thus implying the story was created by Christians after Easter?
wouldn’t it be the opposite?
No, it means that if an individual comes back from teh dead, many people will still not believe. That makes sense only in a context where teh readers believe/think an individual *has* come back from the dead and yet many do not still believe — i.e. in a post-Easter context.
“Poor in spirit”
I have never understood what this is supposed to mean.
Poorly endowed with personal spirit/holiness? or with the Holy spirit (I know the gospels aren’t relying on later concepts of the trinity, but some kind of immanent spirit)
Poor, but richly endowed with personal spirit, of the Holy Ghost himself?
As odd as this phrasing is, I don;t htink I’ve ever heard it even considered in a sermon or what have you.
Maybe meaning is clear in the Greek?
It’s usually taken to mean something like “humble” or “meek” or “having something other than an exalted view of oneself”
Three questions about Lazarus and the Rich Man:
1. Being as this parable is L material (no independent attestation) do you think the author was inspired by the Egyptian story or are the similarities merely coincidental?
2. Does the fact that this, the only parable in the entire canon with a named protagonist, specifies a name that just so happens to be shared by the protagonist in a pericope unique to the Gospel of John (no independent attestation) — the focus of which also happens to be the man’s postmortem experiences — suggest that some kind of tradition, whether parable or anecdote, involving a “Lazarus” and his afterlife adventures must have survived through the oral tradition for him to end up starring in subject-similar, sole-source pericopes by both authors?
3. Couldn’t the concluding allusion — almost certainly a reference to the Resurrection of Jesus — simply be a bit of post hoc window-dressing by the author of Luke, while the parable (with form lost in transmission to John) itself actually does go back to the historical Jesus?
1. No, I don’t think that the fact that it is L material makes that option either more or less likely
2. It’s usually thought (or often, any way) that the parable of Luke was retold so many times that it took on its own shape in a story later found in John; it is weird that you ahve a named person in a parable though, you’re right.
3. It’s possible, but note that we are not dealing with just a single line but a large element of the story involving its entire final part.
So the Resurrection allusions may not have come from Luke, but were embellishments that accumulated over the preceding half-century of oral tradition? But if the provenance for The Afterlife Adventures of a Man Named Lazarus accounts for both Luke’s parable and John’s anecdote, this would set a new standard for “telephone” divergence. Or was John so determined to remake Jesus into a Greek Academy alum that he preserved only the milieu and protagonist’s name from the story, recasting it into the provocative incident that precipitated Jesus’ demise? Although it strains belief that an author who undertook a recounting the life of the Son of God would have that kind of temerity (though, admittedly, Matthew didn’t seem to have any qualms about such redacting), so does the supposition that the author was utterly ignorant of Jesus’ signature teaching style. John portrays a Jesus who makes long, philosophical disquisitions, contra the synoptics in which only those in his inner circle were “granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” For everyone else, says the synoptic Jesus, “I speak to them in parables.” Or is the whole thing whole cloth that doesn’t trace back to anything Jesus ever said or did?
I”m afraid it’s a very old standard for telephone divergence. And very common.
Three more questions about Lazarus and the Rich Man:
4. Although our natural inclination is to presume that it was the Rich Man’s immorality in life (i.e., his self-centeredness and/or callousness, prominently featured in the story) that brought him to an unfortunate afterlife, what is your opinion of the alternative notion that the parable could merely have been a cautionary tale about the dangers of wealth as almost inevitably devolving into fixation on worldly concerns at the expense of spiritual enlightenment, whereas the poor are perforce not similarly encumbered?
5. Whether or not this parable goes back to the historical Jesus, isn’t the idea that prosperity brings spiritual peril entirely consonant with all the other worldly distractions he said should be eschewed — both the similarly overarching (property, occupation, family) and the more immediate (daily attire, a next meal, a place to sleep) — which seems to be a major theme of Jesus’ preaching throughout his entire ministry?
6. WRT the Beatitudes that both Matthew and Luke “borrowed” from the Q source, did Matthew insert the softening qualifiers (which appears to be his inclination throughout) or did Luke (who was clearly more faithful to what both authors “borrowed” from Mark) remove them?
Sorry: two questions a day is my limit!
Different day, same questions about Lazarus and the Rich Man:
4. Although our natural inclination is to presume that it was the Rich Man’s immorality in life (i.e., his self-centeredness and/or callousness, prominently featured in the story) that brought him to an unfortunate afterlife, what is your opinion of the alternative notion that the parable could merely have been a cautionary tale about the dangers of wealth as almost inevitably devolving into fixation on worldly concerns at the expense of spiritual enlightenment, whereas the poor are perforce not similarly encumbered?
5. Whether or not this parable goes back to the historical Jesus, isn’t the idea that prosperity brings spiritual peril entirely consonant with all the other worldly distractions he said should be eschewed — both the similarly overarching (property, occupation, family) and the more immediate (daily attire, a next meal, a place to sleep) — which seems to be a major theme of Jesus’ preaching throughout his entire ministry?
6. WRT the Beatitudes that both Matthew and Luke “borrowed” from the Q source, did Matthew insert the softening qualifiers (which appears to be his inclination throughout) or did Luke (who was clearly more faithful to what both authors “borrowed” from Mark) remove them?
4. I’m inclined to that interpretation: it’s a problem of wealth. The problem, though, is not sharing it. 5. yes, Jesus thoguht something very similar, even if he did not believe in the heaven and hell presented int he parable. 6. Yes, I believe Matthew inserted the softeners, but of course it’s a bit hard to say for certain.
A final question about Lazarus and the Rich Man:
7. If, as you have convincingly argued elsewhere, the concept of an eternal afterlife of reward or punishment has Platonic rather than Judaic roots, and was grafted onto Christianity as the movement proliferated by recruiting erstwhile pagans, couldn’t this development have shaped the formation of the texts in any number of ways, e.g., not only this parable in Luke but also, for instance, the demi-god portrayal (mortal mother, divine father) of the Incarnation by both him and Matthew?
Yup! My students are discussing this very issue on Tuesday!
Hi Bart. I have a question about a translation of a specific phrase. Maybe you can give me a hint to understand it better. The phrase is „I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.“ Is the last sentence „through me“ correctly translated, or should we consider better versions? Thanks for your help!
Matt
It’s not a disputed point. The Greek says “through me.” “THrough” is the word DIA which simply means “through” with the genitive; “me” is in the genitive, and is an emphatic form, so it’s “through ME”
I also noticed (as did blogger, brenmcg, above) the striking similarity between the adjuration by the Canaanite woman that “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mk 7:28 //Mt 15:27) and Jesus’ passing observation in this parable that the misfortunate Lazarus was “longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table” — with the (coincidental?) continuation: “Even the dogs came and licked his sores” (Lk 16:21).
It seems noteworthy that the author who uniquely provides the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus also opted to omit Mark’s anecdote about the Canaanite woman which Matthew preserved.
There is, of course, no way to ever know an author’s creative process. But I am curious, professor, about your opinion on this.
Is the similarity here incidental or are we seeing the only vestige of the Mark/Matthew pericope about the Canaanite woman that was retained by Luke?
It’s usually though simply to be an accidental similarity, since the substance of what is said about the dogs is so different.
Dear Bart,
You write “When Abraham tells the rich man that even if a person is raised from the dead, the rich won’t repent, the story is presupposing knowledge of Jesus’ own resurrection and the Christian proclamation that a person had in fact been raised”.
Is this your main reason to doubt the historicity of this parable? I’ve been reading Fitzmyer’s Commentary on Luke and he seems to think that the parable goes back to the Historical Jesus (“there is no solid reason not to ascribe it as a unit to Jesus himself”, p. 1127). D. Allison seems to think (p. 22 of his book “Constructing Jesus”) that we can’t decide (using the traditional criteria) whether or not this parable goes to the Historical Jesus.
I wonder if it is so unimaginable that Jesus himself could predict his own resurrection? It doesn’t mean he really rose or that he was a Son of God. There were people in history that had predicted certain things either about themselves or about other people.
Hope you can clarify this in a sentence or two.
Thank’s
Kind regards,
Marko.
Scholars obvioulsy disagree, but I think there are two very strong arguments against it going back to Jesus. It’s understanding of teh afterlife is completley contrary to his (ongoing existence of teh soul in heaven or hell rather than future resurrectoin for reward or destruction) and the assumption that someone woud come back from the dead and people still wouldn’t repent. I think it’s entirely implausible that Jesus told it.