The state of the dead: The Rich Man and Lazarus

[barnz]

The parable found in Luke 16:19-31 does seem to strongly imply that that those who die in Christ are carried up by angels to "Abaraham's Bosom." Meanwhile, those who are wicked are burning in Hades.

Assuming we are talking to someone who does believe that you go to Heaven or Hell, how do we explain what this passage means and why does it imply that people do go to heaven and hell after they die?

[olger]

According to Joachim Jeremias, this story was popular in Hellenized Israel only the ending was different. Jesus took the story and changed the outcomes. Got their attention.

[barnz]

According to Joachim Jeremias, this story was popular in Hellenized Israel only the ending was different. Jesus took the story and changed the outcomes. Got their attention.

I'm not sure who Joachim Jeremias is. Though that is an interesting answer, I'm really looking for biblical/theological answers about this text when I'm talking to someone who has a different belief in the state of the dead than us.

[olger]

This is the only text in scripture that would seem to give an impression that a person goes to a burning place at the moment of death. There are no other texts in all of the Bible that indicate that a person goes to a place of burning at the moment of death.

All of the other passages (that we will discover) that speak of a man going into the fire, they do not go at the moment of death—but they go after the thousand years. This is when Jesus comes from Heaven with the Holy City, His saints in the Holy City, then the Bible tells us that the wicked will be cast into the fire. No place in the Bible, except in this controverted parable do we have any indication that the person goes to a place of burning at the moment of death.

Now before we get into a study of this parable, we need to talk a little bit about the origin of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. This doctrine did NOT originate in the Bible. The OT writers are totally ignorant of such a doctrine. In fact, even though this doctrine originated way back in the Garden of Eden when the devil said “You will not surely die” it was transposed to Nimrod, and the builder of the Tower of Babel. It then it was transferred to Egypt. The place where this doctrine was particularly developed and refined was in ancient Greece.

I would like to talk just a little about what is known as the orphic myth in Greek philosophy. It is believed that Plato the Greek philosopher originated this idea of the orphic myth. Let consider how the myth was extended throughout the Grecian empire, and later came to Palestine. Indeed many of the Jews in the days of Christ believed this myth. Lets talk about this myth. You’re probably going to chuckle and say “How could anybody in their right mind believe this stuff?” We need to understand that we are talking about pre-scientific societies where objects were God. The sun was god, the moon was god, vegetation was god. They lived in a different type of conceptual world than we do.

Now according to the orphic myth the great god Zeus had a son on this earth who was Dionysius. Now Dionysus was the god of vegetation. It just so happens that living on this earth at the same time that Dionysius was here were a group of individuals known as the Titans. And it just so happens that the titans killed Dionysius, the son of the great god Zeus. And they ate him up, in other words they devoured him. He was the god of vegetation.

Now Zeus was not too happy about this, and so he decided that he was going to destroy the Titans for gobbling up his son. By the way his son had divinity—he was the god of vegetation. And so the myth tells us that Zeus sent a bolt of lightening that zapped the titans and reduced them to ashes. Now according to the myth, Zeus took the ashes of the titans and created the race of human beings that exist in this world today. Now the interesting thing is that this new race had an earthy element (they came from the titans who were earthly and they weren’t Gods). But since the ashes also contained the remnants of Dionysius whom the Titans had consumed, it was taught that humans had a divine element as well.

As Plato and the philosophers developed this idea, they came to the conclusion that the earthly element was the outer shell that we know as the body. This is the fleshly part of man. And they conceived that the divine portion of man which man acquired from the remnants of Dionysius, was the immortal soul which man supposedly has inside.

Now it’s interesting that a great admirer of Plato who is accredited with this idea of orphism, (or the orphic myth) was Alexander. He was a great admirer of Plato. And so Alexander decided that he was going to extend this idea of the immortal soul (among other things) throughout his empire. Remember that Alexander the great had conquered the whole empire. Through a process that we have come to know as Hellenization, Alexander the Great decided that he was going to extend Greek culture, Philosophy, Greek language, and Greek religion throughout the entire known world. In this way, the Orphic Myth was extended all throughout the empire. Now it just so happens that one of those places was Alexandria. Alexandria was a city in the delta area of Africa, or Egypt. The city is called Alexandria in honor of Alexander the great. It was a great thought center of the Greek empire. There were many philosophers and colleges of philosophy in that place.

An individual who lived in Alexandria was a Jewish philosopher named Philo. Have you heard of Philo? He was a very influential thinker among the Jews who were in the Diaspora (The Dispersion). In other words, the Jews were spread all over the empire. There was a large colony of Jews there in the city of Alexandria. Their thought leader was Philo. And Philo had imbibed this idea of the immortal soul from Plato. He often talked about the “world of ideas.” Thus Philo bought into this idea of the Orphic Myth. Through Philo these ideas were transferred to Palestine, where Jesus was to arise and teach. When Jesus arrived, this idea of the Orphic Myth and the immortal soul were already adopted by the Pharisees, even though there was no Biblical support for the idea.

[Gustave]

The parable found in Luke 16:19-31 does seem to strongly imply that that those who die in Christ are carried up by angels to "Abaraham's Bosom." Meanwhile, those who are wicked are burning in Hades.

Assuming we are talking to someone who does believe that you go to Heaven or Hell, how do we explain what this passage means and why does it imply that people do go to heaven and hell after they die?

The Jews believed that at death an individual who was good waited in peace in Abrahams bosom...

...And a person who wasn't waited in torment.

...The Jews didn't believe in an "eternal hell".

This intermediate state was understood to be "in the earth", "the grave" or "the pit"...

...At best it was NOT the place one wanted to go.

This is NOT to be confounded with the post Resurrection reality of Christ....

...Abrahams bosom was emptied and placed in heaven.

...Where there is a general assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect.

[Ron Amnsn]

It looks like Jesus was doing a parody on a popular Greek myth about the afterlife.

The conclusion of the parable says:

Quote:

But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'

So the lesson that Jesus was teaching (through the character of Abraham) in the parable was that people should listen to Moses and Prophets. In the Hebrew language a person has not listened unless they obey what they hear.

If you read and believe everything that Moses and the Prophets have to say about living and dying and "hell", you'll probably see the humor in the parable's parody of the Greekish story.

My impression is that Greek culture was concerned about the afterlife whereas the Hebrew mindset that listened to Moses and the prophets was concerned with living righteously in this life and trusted God to take care of whatever happened after death.

That difference between the Greek way of life and ways of God (as presented in Moses and the Prophets) had been at odds since the days of Antiochus vs the Maccabees. We get a tiny glimpse of the ongoing conflict in Acts 6 where the minority Hellenized Jews felt their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food by the Hebrew majority.

The sad thing is that modern Christians are so infused with Greek culture that they don't listen to Moses and the Prophets (and usually feel superior to those who do listen to Moses), and they consequently don't listen to Jesus (who rose from the dead) who demonstrated how a person should live victoriously by listening to Moses and the Prophets.

[Stewart (SDA)]

Alexamasan,

In reply to the latter part of your question,

"...why does it imply that people do go to heaven and hell after they die?",

I suggest that this thought from Christ's Object Lessons may be useful.

"In this parable Christ was meeting the people on their own ground. The doctrine of a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection was held by many of those who were listening to Christ's words." (COL p.263.

The following quote is from the Apocalypse of Zephaniah. (An apocryphal book of the Jews.) It is entirely possible that this book was in use in Jesus' day, and I believe it gives an example of the Jew's thinking on this point.

Concerning the intercession of the saints for those in torment.

(Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being the chief intercessors.)

11:1-6

And I also saw multitudes. He brought them forth.

As they looked at all of the torments they called out, praying before the Lord Almighty, saying, “We pray unto Thee on account of those who are in all these torments so that Thou might have mercy on all of them.”

And when I saw them, I said to the angel who spoke with me, “<Who are these?>”

He said, "These who beseech the Lord [on behalf of those in torment] are Abraham and Isaac and Jacob."

Then at a certain hour daily they come forth with the great angel. He soundeth a trumpet up unto heaven and another soundeth upon the earth. All the righteous hear the sound. They come running, praying to the Lord Almighty daily on behalf of these who are in all these torments.

[o2bwise]

Hi Alexa,

My main thoughts are:

1) Needing to incorporate the entirety of the Word in order to find truth.

2) My personal conviction that growth in discerning truth tracks with a reasoned understanding of the character of God and how the false view obliterates any sense of it.

3) Regarding the story itself, it contradicts the orthodox view of man's state between death and the 2nd coming. Man has no physical body at that time. So he would not have a tongue that thirsts, for example. He has no physical part to him, just a "spirit" (whatever that is).

Blessings,

Tony

[12tribes]

Notice the parable before that one.

Luke 16:1 KJV

(1) And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.

Luke 16:19 KJV

(19) There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

Both parables start the same way now look at another verse.

Luke 16:14 KJV

(14) And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.

[Gustave]

Hi Alexa,

My main thoughts are:

1) Needing to incorporate the entirety of the Word in order to find truth.

2) My personal conviction that growth in discerning truth tracks with a reasoned understanding of the character of God and how the false view obliterates any sense of it.

3) Regarding the story itself, it contradicts the orthodox view of man's state between death and the 2nd coming. Man has no physical body at that time. So he would not have a tongue that thirsts, for example. He has no physical part to him, just a "spirit" (whatever that is).

Blessings,

Tony

The belief / understanding was, that the spirit had the shape...

...Of THE actual body it once possessed.

...That's why when those early Christians thought Peter was a ghost.

...And they thought Jesus was a "ghost" or spirit.

[8thdaypriest]

Matt. 13:34: Jesus always spoke to the people using parables. Sooooo - this was a parable.

The rich Jew represented the Jews who thought they (as "sons of the kingdom") would automatically go to Abraham's bosom when they died. Judah had 5 full-blood brothers. They were all sons of Leah. Also - if this parable was aimed at the Sadducees then Annas had 5 sons who had all served as high priest.

Lazarus the begger was outside the gate (outside the kingdom). He would be unclean, as a gentile - but even more so because he was covered with sores. This is how the Jews viewed the gentiles. UNCLEAN and OUTSIDE

So Christ was telling these presumptuous Jews that the Gentiles would get into the kingdom before they would. The parable was not really about the state of the dead.

By 270BC the Jews were becoming Hellenized. The High Priest in Jerusalem sent 72 elders down to Alexandria to complete a translation of Scripture from Hebrew to the Greek. This translation is what we know today as the Septuagint (The 70). These elders chose the Greek word "hades" to translate the Hebrew word "sheol." But the Greeks had a vastly different meaning than the Hebrew "sheol." "Hades" was the place deep in the earth where the evil went for torment. Sheol on the other hand was just "where the dead go." Everyone went to "sheol" - good, bad, or indifferent. Jacob went to "Sheol." We can't imagine him going to Hades. Finally Hades was translated into our English as "HELL." But it's really just "sheol" - the place where the dead wait.

Hope this helps some.

www.prophecyviewpoint.com

[12tribes]

Luke 16:22 KJV

(22) And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

Matthew 24:31 KJV

(31) And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Notice the beggar was carried by angels and people are not carried by angels to Christ until the return of Christ as shown in Matthew 24