The following comes from:
Ed Chrisitan, “The
Rich Man and Lazarus, Abraham’s Bosom, and the Biblical Penalty Karet (“Cut
Off”),” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 61, no. 3 (2018):
519, 523:
What could have led so many
readers to assume Abraham and his bosom were in heaven? Luke 16:23 reads, “In Hades,
where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with
Lazarus by his side.” The literal translation is not “looked upon” but “Lifting
up the eyes.” Readers without access to the textual tools we have might assume
that “lifting up the eyes” meant looking up into the air. However, the phrase
is a Hebrew idiomatic expression that usually means “looking.” [28]
Does anything else in the parable
suggest that the rich man was looking up to heaven? No. Verse 26 reads, “Besides
all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who
might want to pass [diabainō,
to step across or cross over] from here to you cannot do so, and no one can
cross from there to us [diaparaō, to pass over or cross over].” A “chasm” usually
separates two things that are more or less on the same level. It’s not the
usual word for separating something above from something below. Similarly, we
don’t “step across” or “cross over” from one stair to the next, or from earth
to heaven. We step across a crack or cross over a river a river or a street
from one side to the other. Thus, we should imagine that rich man with his eyes
down. He lifts his eyes to a horizontal position—in hades—and across a
chasm he sees “Father Abraham.” [29] The rich man does not speak to Lazarus,
and there is no sign at all in the parable that Lazarus sees or hears him. Only
Father Abraham speaks to him.
. . .
By this light, we see that in
Jesus’s parable, the rich man has been “cut off” from “Father Abraham,” and so
evidently from the rest of “the fathers.” They are all in hades, but the
rich man is “tormented,” while Lazarus is “comforted.” The rich man has
suffered the penalty of karet, and between him and his fathers is a
chasm he cannot cross over. Meanwhile, Lazarus, though a beggar in life, is
with “the fathers” in death, awaiting the resurrection.
I myself agree with the psalmist
when he says, “For in death there is no remembrance of you,” and asks, “in
Sheol who can give you praise?” (Ps 6:5). I believe that both the righteous and
the wicked are in the grave, awaiting the resurrection and their eternal
reward, for good or ill. I believe the Pharisees and people of Jesus’s day had
taken OT figurative language as literal while ignoring more literal verses. Why
then did Jesus use such language? Was he not confirming the truth of their
beliefs? No, I think he was, rather, meeting people where they were, explaining
the truth in terms they would remember and understood, even though the story
was not literally true.
There is a word for using what is
imagined to explain what is transcendent parable. Those who prefer to believe
this parable is not a parable at all but a revelation of something that had
actually happened, however, or of the actual state of the dead, must now
accustom themselves to the revelation that their loved ones are not in heaven
after all, but in hades, awaiting the resurrection. This is the literal meaning
of the text.
Notes for the Above:
[28] The phrase used in the Greek
in Luke 16:23 is also found in John 4:35, where Jesus invites his disciples to
lift up their eyes and see that the fields are ripe for harvest. He is not
suggesting that the fields are on mountaintops or in the sky. The Hebrew idiom
occurs more than four dozen times. Sometimes the context reveals that it does
mean looking up—to heaven, or the hills. Usually, however, the idiom suggests
an eye movement from looking down to looking out or looking at. Among the texts
supporting this are Gen 13:10; 18:2; 22:4, 13; 24:63, 64; 33:1; Exod 14:10;
Deut 3:27; Isa 49:18; 60:4; Jer 13:20; Ezek 8:5; 23:27.
[29] Hippolytus wrote, of the
wicked looking at the righteous in hades, “And again, where they see the
place of the fathers and the righteous, they are also punished there. For a
deep and vast abyss is set there in the midst, so that neither can any of the
righteous in sympathy think to pass it, nor any of the unrighteous dare to
cross it” (emphasis added). (Note that by the time of Hippolytus those in
Abraham’s bosom are aware of those cut off from it by the chasm, but this may
be due to the Greek influence, and it goes beyond the words of the parable.)
. . .
[40] In Pseudo-Philo 40:4, we
find another mention of the “bosom,” though with an unusual usage. God says,
about the daughter of Jephthah, “Her death will be precious before me always,
and she will go away and fall into the bosom of her mothers.” (It is interesting
that in 33:2, Deborah says, “Listen now, my people. Behold I am warning you as
a woman of God and am enlightening you as one from the female race; and obey me
like your mother and heed my words as people who will also die.” This motherly
authority is rare indeed in the Bible, more’s the pity.)
[41] The parable, whether literal
or figurative, also makes it clear that neither the righteous nor the wicked
dead can return to this world to give messages. This negates the possibility
that what the witch of Endor saw “coming up out of the ground” was in fact
Samuel or his spirit or host. However, it is significant that this man of God
is said to come “up” (v. 16), rather than from some heavenly place, as this reinforces
the idea of “Abraham’s bosom” being understood to be part of Sheol in Jesus’s
day.
