Lazarus & The Rich Man: Prophecy or Parable?

7/25/2014

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2 Comments

Janie link

1/12/2016 11:49:24 am

Luke 23 Verse 43. - And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

J. A. Brown link

1/12/2016 01:13:38 pm

Hi Janie,

Thank you for pointing out Luke 23. I know this is actually a very common verse that gets pointed to (interestingly, it is the only "witness" people ever have to someone going to paradise immediately following death). What I would like to explain is how poorly this verse has been handled in English. It is perfectly explained in Greek, but not so much so in English.

For starters, I would direct your attention to the English of the King Jimmy that you shared. Notice the commas after the words "him" and "thee"? Those were added by translators who were trying to break the sentence in a way that makes sense in English, but they are not original. So toss them out for a moment. What you are left with is the phrase, "Verily I say unto thee today shalt thou be with me..."

Now there are actually two different ways to read this, based on how we emphasize the wording. We could read it as the translators did, and as you are clearly pointing out here. OR, we could read it the way it is actually emphasized in Greek, which with commas properly placed, should be, "Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me in paradise." See how changing the comma completely alters the understanding of the verse? The way you wrote it (just as the KJV does), the adverb "today" (in Greek semeron) is applied to the verb "thou shalt be with" (in Greek, ese).

However, this is a very biased and poor translation. In Greek, adverbs almost always follow the verb they are modifying. Thus the word being modified is the verb "I say" (Greek: lego). This means that when Christ said, "Verily I say unto thee thou shalt be with me" He was not saying the thief would be with Him "today" but rather He was saying, "I am saying this to you TODAY." This is a very clear example of translator bias.

I would point out that, if your interpretation of this verse means that Messiah told the thief he would be with Him that very same day, then Messiah lied to the thief. For Messiah Himself was not in Paradise that very same day. As He prophesied in Matthew 12L40, He had to spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, not in Paradise. So if He truly told the man, "You'll be with me today" then He lied. This clearly cannot be the case.

Shalom.

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Lazarus & The Rich Man: Prophecy or Parable?

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