The chasm between greed and generosity, between callousness and compassion, between neighborly neglect and neighborly love can and must be crossed in this life. How desperate must you be for afterlife “data” to turn this delightful, intimate, love-your-neighbor farce into an unsmiling eyewitness report on the hereafter news channel? It’s a life and death caricature of the failure to love. Jesus is piercing the heart with a playful drama.

In the Parable of Poor Lazarus and the Rich Man, Jesus has given us a crafty afterlife cartoon designed to tickle and tease the imaginations of those who have ears. And moreover, the literalists are desperate for afterlife material, as there is much less afterlife emphasis in the Bible than people have been led to believe. Why? Because there are too many humorless literalists in the world today, and because of them, the church has all but missed the fun.

Now look at Matthew 17:8:Īs you probably know, this parable is often touted as a documentary on the afterlife. It’s often translated into English as “turned against me.” He’s speaking of Judas’ betrayal.

It means have courage or take heart, similar to our idioms in English to “hold your head up high” or “keep your chin up.” In John 13:18 Jesus said, “He who is eating the bread with me, did lift up against me his heel.” (YLT) Does Jesus mean that one of the disciples is going to stomp on him? Again, no. In Luke 21:28 Jesus tells his listeners to “lift up your heads.” Does he mean to take your head off and hold it in the air? Does he even mean literally to look up at the sky? No on both counts. To raise your voice is to shout or cry out. In Luke 11:27 a woman “raised her voice.” This cannot mean that she took her larynx from her throat and lifted it over her head! No, it’s an idiom, an expression that means something beyond the literal words. Here are some examples from our New Testament Gospels. But frequently the term is used figuratively. Yes, evpai,rw epairo can mean literally lift up, raise, or elevate. So he definitely has a body in Hades, but he’s also buried-two bodies? The rich guy asks for water on his tongue. Moreover, Greco-Roman Hades was a place specifically for souls, not bodies. And the rich man is being tormented by flames physically in Hades, which introduces other inconsistencies. It’s on the opposite rim of the canyon from Lazarus. And note that Jesus’ parable-Hades isn’t underground. The rich man is definitely not a disembodied soul in either place. Suddenly he’s in two places at once, in the grave and in Hades (which biblically should be the same thing, since Hades is the Greek word for Old Testament Sheol, meaning the grave). No transport is mentioned for him at all. He’s asked later in the parable to dip his finger in water, so wherever Lazarus is, Jesus portrays him as a physical being throughout, not a disembodied soul. His burial isn’t mentioned, and he is transported by angels over to Abraham’s side of a canyon. But look at the many contradictions that occur when you literalize this parable.

Lazarus bible story character