Still addressing the Pharisees, Jesus tells
his tale of the rich man and Lazarus. Since H. Gressman’s scholarly work on
this text, most commentators acknowledge the affinity between this parable,
which is peculiar to Luke, and an old Egyptian folk-tale which tells the story
of Si-Osiris who travels to the land of the dead where he witnesses the
reversal of fortunes of two people who were buried on the same day. The man who
was rich on earth is now in torment; the man who suffered poverty and hardship
on earth is now in bliss. The tale ends: “HE who has been good on earth will be
blessed in the kingdom of the dead, and he who has been evil on earth will
suffer in the kingdom of the dead.” A Jewish version of the story on the forms
of a poor scholar and a rich publican, Bar Ma’jan, was current in the time of
Jesus, and it carried the same moral: what happens to people in the next world
depends on what they do on earth. (Denis McBride, The Gospel of Luke: A Reflective
Commentary [Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1982], 216)
