Sunday, April 23, 2017

Brief note on παραδεισος in Luke 23:43

I have discussed Luke 23:43 before, with respect to (1) baptism and (2) Mortalism:



In this post, I wish to briefly discuss the term “paradise” in this verse (παραδεισος).

In his 11 June 1843 diary entry, Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898) recorded the following statement of the Prophet Joseph Smith:

I will say something about the spirits in prision. Theire has been much said about the sayings of Jesus on the cross to the thief saying this day thou shalt be with me in paradise. The commentators or translators make it out to say Paradise. But what is Paradise? It is a modern word. It does not answer at all to the original that Jesus made use of. Their is nothing in the original in any language that signifies Paradise. But it was this day I will be with thee in the world of spirits & will teach thee or answer thy inquiries. The thief on the Cross was to be with Jesus Christ in the world of spirits. He did not say Paradise or heaven. (Wilford Woodruff's Journal, volume 2: 1841-1845 [ed. Scott G. Kenny; Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1985], 240)

With respect to other biblical evidence, Joseph's comments are correct--the thief did not go to heaven the day he died, as Christ did not go to heaven on that day, too. In John 20:17, after revealing himself to Mary Magdelene the day he was resurrected, he read that:

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and day unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

Where Jesus spent the three days between his death and triumphant resurrection was the “spirit world,” as seen in 1 Pet 3:18-20 (cf. D&C 138):

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight, souls were saved by water.

Furthermore, with respect to lexical evidence, Joseph’s comments are correct. In BDAG, the leading Koine Greek lexicon on the market, we read the following definition of παραδεισος:

5565  παρδεισος
παρδεισος, ου, (Old Persian pairidaêza [Avestan form; s. WHinz, Altiranisches Sprachgut der Nebenüberlieferungen, ’75, 179[=‘enclosure’; Hebr. פַּרְדֵּס. In Gk. X.+; gener. ‘garden’; freq. pap., s. also New Docs 2, 201) in our lit., except GJs 2:4, not of any formal garden (as also TestAbr A 4 p. 80, 23 [Stone p. 8, 23] ApcrEzk fgm. a) or park, but only

1. the garden of Eden, paradise (Gen 2f; Philo; Jos., Ant. 1, 37; SibOr 1, 24; 26; 30; Iren. 5, 5, 1 [Harv. II 331, 3]; Orig., C. Cels. 7, 50, 31; Hippol., Did., Theoph. Ant. 2, 22 [p. 154, 21]), lit. Dg 12:3, and in the same connection fig., of those who love God, ο γενμενοι παρδεισος τρυφς who prove to be a luscious paradise, in so far as they allow fruit-laden trees to grow up within them 12:1 (cp. PsSol 14:3).

2. a transcendent place of blessedness, paradise ( παρδεισος τς δικαιοσνης appears as such En 32:3; cp. 20:7; TestLevi 18:10; SibOr fgm. 3, 48 and other passages in the OT pseudepigrapha not preserved in Gk., as well as other sources in the lit. given below.—Dssm., B 146 [BS 148]) Lk 23:43 (JWeisengoff, EcclRev 103, ’40, 163-67). ς ν π. AcPl Ha 3, 23. More fully π. το θεο (Gen 13:10; Ez 28:13; 31:8; PGM 4, 3027 ν τ γίῳ αυτο [=τ. θεο] παραδεσ) Rv 2:7. ρπζεσθαι ες τν π. be caught up into Paradise 2 Cor 12:4.—S. on ορανς 1e and τρτος 1a. Further, Bousset, Rel.3 282ff; 488ff; PVolz, D. Eschatologie der jüd. Gemeinde im ntl. Zeitalter ’34, 417f; Billerb. IV 1118-65; Windisch on 2 Cor 12:4; AWabnitz, Le Paradis du Hadès: RTQR 19, 1910, 328-31; 410-14; 20, 1911, 130-38.—DELG. M-M. TW.