Loading...I want to show in some depth why I think the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31 does not originally go back to Jesus himself, but is a story that Luke either came up with himself or inherited from the oral tradition. Recall: the rich man feasts sumptuously; Lazarus is impoverished and desperate for the crumbs from the man’s table. They both die. Lazarus is carried by the angels to “Abraham’s bosom” where he is in blessed and satisfied; the rich man is sent off to Hades to be tormented in the flames. When the rich man pleads with Abraham to have Lazarus come and provide him some temporary relief, Abraham indicates it is not possible. When he asks for him to go and warn his five brothers to repent, he is told that there is no point: if the brothers don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen “even if a person is raised from the dead.”
The parable is found only in Luke (so it is not multiply attested). That does not prove Jesus did not say it, but you can’t show that he *did* say it based, for example, on the fact that it is found in several independent accounts of Jesus’ sayings (i.e, it is not in Q, or M, or John, or Thomas, etc – just this one passage in Luke).
And even more important, the end of the parable coincides perfectly well with Luke’s own theological agenda, and not so well with that of Jesus himself. In particular it is the ending that matters: Luke insists throughout his work that Moses and the prophets attest to Jesus, and that people who reject Moses and the prophets reject Jesus. The Jewish rejection of Jesus is a key theme in Luke, much more, than say, even Luke’s source, the Gospel of Mark — where of course there is indeed a theme of Jesus’ rejection, but not nearly as pronounced as in Luke.
How does one show that? By a comparative analysis of the two.
One of the most striking accounts of Jesus rejection in Mark occurs …
To read the rest of this post you need to belong to the blog. If you don’t belong, now’s the opportunity of a lifetime. JOIN! You’ll never regret it. And your membership fees will go to help the needy. So why not???
“The Jewish rejection of Jesus is a key theme in Luke, much more, than say, even Luke’s source, the Gospel of Mark — where of course there is indeed a theme of Jesus’ rejection, but not nearly as pronounced as in Luke.”
But Luke is not monolithic on this point. Note, for example, the positive portrayal of some Pharisees, the many priests that join the movement early in Acts. I don’t necessarily go along with the recent minimal trend to speculate that Luke may have been a proselyte or even Jewish, but he was certainly not anti-Semitic, ‘though he did have a view of salvation history, coming from the Jews and advancing to the Gentiles, a view with a genuine Jewish pedigree. While the Judean authorities (not equal to ‘the Jews’ in a more modern sense) rejected Jesus in his gospel, Luke never rejected Moses and the prophets, as is also clear in his Lazarus parable.
Bart,
There are scholars who think that the narrative found in the gospel of John —- the story about the risen Lazarus—- was based on Luke’s Lazarus parable.
Your thoughts?
Yes, I think there must be some kind of relationship — possibly a muddling up of the oral tradition?
Luke’s Lazarus story seems to fit with John’s Lazarus story: in John Lazarus does indeed come back from the dead but as Luke suggests people still reject the message (and plot to kill him again!). Are the stories connected? Are there other Lazarus references in early writings?
Yes, I think there must be some kind of relationship — possibly a muddling up of the oral tradition?
It seems to be Jesus’ belief that only those with faith can be healed, and they are healing themselves–that even the slightest bit of true faith can work miracles, and anyone can do it. Peter could walk on water–for a moment. If you truly believed you could move a mountain, you could (probably not a good idea). You can hear similar ideas today at utterly secular ‘self-help’ seminars. For Jesus, faith is everything. Far more important than doctrine.
Jesus can’t do anything for those who don’t believe. Which is how faith-healing works, to the extent it does. The mind-body connection. However, it may be that some people are able to inspire others to the point where they do feel better–and the belief of others helps such people project that special charisma. Interactive. Mark wants to believe Jesus can do true miracles, affect even the weather, raise the dead (who cannot, by definition, have faith in anything, faith being only necessary to the living), so it’s a tough needle he’s threading here. His solution is that those who disbelieve are like some kind of jamming device, making it impossible for Jesus to work his influence upon them. The dead would have no such resistance, so he can still heal them.
As to Luke and Lazarus, I would think it was a story he got in some form, and he added in the part about raising the dead, or accentuated it, for reasons you have already made clear. The message of the story is entirely in keeping with what we know of Jesus. Which doesn’t prove he told it, but if it’s a pastiche, it’s a good one.
As to a prophet being without honor save in his hometown, I’m tempted to mention this former judge in Alabama, but since he’d take that as a compliment…….
I had read that Mark 6:3 reads that Jesus is the son of the carpenter. Is there enough information as to which is more likely? Is it possible there was some scribe confusion due to the similarity between TEKTON (τέκτων) and TEKNON (τέκνον) (child)?
Yes there is a textual problem at that point, with different manuscripts saying different things. Interesting theory about TEKNON, but the text that says “son of” uses UIOS instead.
Was the life of Adam and eve written before or after the new testament
Hard to say.
Interesting. Keep going!
So do you think it’s just coincidence that Luke and John both have (albeit completely different) Lazarus stories?
I think there must be some relation between the two — possibly a muddling of the oral tradition?
Lazarus (Eleazer in Hebrew) was a very common name at the time. It also may not be a coincidence that the name Lazarus (i.e. Eleazer) means something like “God helps”. It’s also possible that the original story was a folk tale about a man named Lazarus who came back from the dead to tell people what the afterlife was like, not unlike many of the popular apocalypses of that time and place, in which Patriarchs like Abraham perform similar journeys. After time, the folk tale and Jesus’ ministry may have been conflated to the point where it was Jesus himself who brought Lazarus back from the dead so he can tell everyone what the afterlife is like.
It seems like when this part of the story was being created, the early Christians were in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, Jews at that time valued “signs” more than anything. Those “signs” could be fulfillment of prophecies, political or celestial events, and, of course, wonderworking (what we would call performing miracles). So one tool in the basket of the apostles was to gain Jewish converts by using Jesus’ ability to work wonders as a sign that he was/is the Messiah. Well, one would think that if a messianic figure was going around performing miracles, one would certainly have heard about it. So if you’re an apostle, and you’re preaching to people about Jesus’ wonderworking, they’re rightly going to ask why, if this man was literally bringing people back from the dead, that they’re only hearing about it now — maybe 20 years after the fact. Well, if you’re an apostle, there’s one convenient explanation (excuse?): Jesus could/would only work wonders before the faithful, and since most of the people he preached to were unfaithful, he didn’t work wonders for them.
— He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.”
— He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah”
— As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.”
An apostle might say, “Oh, the reason you haven’t heard about it until now is that Jesus only worked wonders before the faithful, and since there were few faithful then, there were few wonders. So the only sign given to everyone in this generation was his death and resurrection, which is what I preach to you today.”
So the evolution might have gone as follows:
— “Fellow Jews, there were signs that Jesus is the Messiah.”
— “Jesus performed signs that prove he is the Messiah.”
— “Jesus performed signs, but he didn’t waste them on the faithless.”
— “Only the meager few faithful experienced Jesus’ signs.”
— “You people ask for signs, but no sign will be given to you.”
— “You people ask for signs, but the only sign you’ll get is Jesus’ death and resurrection.”
— “This generation will only get the sign of Jesus’ death and resurrection three days later.”
— “The only sign this wicked generation will get is the same sign as the prophet Jonah!”
They went from “There were signs” to “There were no signs” to “There was only one sign, the death and resurrection”.
Where is the proof that Satan was believed to be the devil before christ
Good question. I”m not sure I know off hand. Sorry! (I’m out of town and away from my books)
Unrelated question: why is Jesus’ appearance to over 500 people (1 Cor 15:6) not mentioned by the later NT authors? You’d think it would be a pretty important event to include in Acts at least! Maybe the other authors didn’t have access to Paul?
Yes, it appears to be a tradition that was not widely known. I wonder what Paul had heard, and from whom!
Mark is very protective of Jesus and his reputation. If Jesus had performed miracles in Nazareth, naysayers and believers alike would have had a definite source (friends, family, neighbors) whom they could have contacted during Mark’s lifetime. It’s my view that Mark also heard stories of the virgin birth and Jesus’ appearances to multiple, named individuals but decided to deal with the birth problem by going full throttle directly into Jesus’ ministry and explaining away the appearances with Mark 16:8.
For me, Mark, more than any other gospel author is going to write the truth. This is not to suggest that Mark did not ponder upon these stories. He did. It’s just that he wasn’t sure if they were truthful and accurate so he decided to create a narrative that seemed incorruptible. After all, he firmly believed that Jesus was the Messiah without needing to rely on any information he chose not to provide.
> the parable coincides perfectly well with Luke. . ,
> and not so well with that of Jesus
Doesn’t it coincide with
> it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than
> for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God ?
I think Lazarus is also a Jew, as he is reclining with Abraham, so the story does not seem to portray a UNIVERSAL rejection by all jews of the prophets.
Yes, that coincides with Jesus, and especially with Luke, both of them!
There is no indication that the 1st century author of this story whoever he might have been, believed in ‘eternal life’ in the physical world.
It seems to me, this story must have originated within the Jewish Christian community, cause of the references to Abraham Moses and prophets.
In a number of NT stories, Jesus is portrayed as having a command of the sayings of The Prophets. Do you think the historical Jesus read Hebrew? Or was he otherwise well-versed (schooled) in The Prophets? Or were these words put in his mouth a convenient device of the authors of the stories making a claim that Jesus fulfills OT Prophecies? Or something else?
The parable of Lazarus is consistent with the simplistic topsy-turvy, apocalyptic views of Luke. Your state in the afterlife is not determined by what you believe, but by your current life situation. If you are rich, well-fed, and happy in life, you will be stripped of what you had and tormented in the afterlife. If you want treasure in heaven, sell everything you own in this life and give it to the poor. These ideas are the antithetical to the so-called “prosperity gospel” preached by so many U.S. televangelists and Pentecostals.
Do you believe that Jesus had a consistent, and coherent message? My impression is that the details of his gospel were not well thought out. Instead, his message seems created on the fly—shaped by the immediate circumstances he faced—leading to multiple inconsistencies in what he taught; moreover, his understanding of his mission, and his own role, evolved throughout his ministry.
We *treat* the teachings of Jesus as if they will be consistent and coherent, but who knows if they were!
I think the basic outlines of his teachings are consistent, but I agree–he clearly was evolving his ideas as he went.
As anyone would. Any thinker of any kind, in all of history.
In the erhman/lincona debate on the resurrection you believe that Jesus appeared to several people as the risen Christ. How would you have responded to the multiple descriptive stories of a physical interaction with the risen Christ w all of the 12 described in John if lincona had used them in the debate?
These were much more than visions or dreams. Why accept stories in Acts and the Synoptics but question the stories in John?
I would say that you need to evaluate the historicity of traditions on multiple levels, not on the basis of just one criterion.
While the thought strikes, may I ask an off-thread question, please?
If, as I understand it, ‘αγγελος’ can mean ‘messenger’ as well as ‘angel’, is there any good reason it is so readily translated as ‘angel’ in the NT? This happens frequently in key events e.g. the Nativity and the Resurrection, thereby imputing supernatural involvement when a perfectly ordinary explanation might suffice by using the term ‘messenger’.
Translators think that this is what the context in each case suggests.
can you elaborate a little more on why you say
> this parable coincides . . not so well with that of Jesus himself. ?
if you mean that Jesus spoke very very little regarding the afterlife, i would agree.
but he did speak of the reversal of fortunes, which I think you list as a characteristic of apocalpticism.
Are you also planning on discussing Jesus view that Abraham Isaac and Jacob were still ‘alive’?
I’m talking about the Lukan theme of Jesus’ rejection by Jews.
One article I read says itinerant rabbis sometimes supported themselves by providing medical services, since it was not considered ethical to charge money for teaching about the law. Could the few healings Jesus did in Nazareth have been of that sort, rather than miraculous healings?
I’ve never seen that argument and I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is not right.
There is no reason to think the rejection of Jesus by his home town folk in Mark is historical, since Mark may just have been inventing this pericope to show Jesus fulfilled the prophesy of being a prophet, and hence being rejected at home.