The following comes from:
Leslie Baynes, “The Parables of Enoch and Luke’s Parable of
the Rich Man and Lazarus,” in Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels: Reminiscences,
Allusions, Intertextuality, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Gabriele
Boaccaccini (Early Judaism and its Literature 44; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 148-50
|
Luke 16:19-31 |
Si-Orisis |
|
There was a rich man who was
dressed in purple and linen and who made merry during his life. |
A rich man receives a splendid
burial shrouded in fine linen. |
|
And at his gate lay a poor man
by the name of Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to satisfy his hunger
with what fell from the rich man’s table; And even the dogs would come and
lick his sores. |
There is no connection
between the rich man and the poor one. |
|
The poor man died and was borne
away by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was
buried. |
A poor man is buried
ignominiously but receives a place of honor
in the underworld (Amenti), with the
ruler of the underworld, Osiris. |
|
In Hades, where he was being
tormented, he lifted his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus in his bosom. |
The rich man is tormented in
the underworld. The rich man’s torment is a
door hinge through his eye. He does not see the poor man in Amenti, and vice
versa; they are both observed by third parties, Si-Osiris and his father. |
|
He called out, “Father Abraham,
have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and
cool my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame.” |
The rich man never begs for
mercy. He does not suffer flames. |
|
But Abraham said, “Child,
remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus
in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in
agony. Besides all this, between you
and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass
from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” |
The moral of the story: good
deeds must outweigh bad in order to enjoy peace in the afterlife.* |
|
He said, “Then, father, I beg
you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may
warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.”
Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to
them.” He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the
dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and
the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the
dead.” |
Si-Osiris has returned from
the dead, but in a manner completely unrelated to any request from the
tormented rich man.
Si-Osiris’s father takes to
heart the negative example he observed in Amenti. |
All of the stories we have considered here give different
rationales for the rich man/men suffering in the afterlife, a detail Luke does
not explicitly articulate. Much ink has been spilled trying to explain the
reason for Dives’s torment, but I agree with Bauckham that it is clear, like it
or not: the rich man received good in his life, and Lazarus did not. I go
beyond Bauckham (“Rich Man and Lazarus,” 232–33) in using internal context
clues to infer that Dives’s earthly treatment of Lazarus was callous—literally
damning—indifference to him. We do not know if Dives built his wealth unjustly
on the backs of the poor, as the rich in the Parables and Epistle of Enoch did.
Active oppression of the poor is one important reason for the rich suffering
the flame of Sheol in both those books, while the Parables also emphasizes
arrogant refusal to acknowledge God and his Chosen One.
As the chart demonstrates, the story of Si-Osiris is not a
perfect match with Luke 16:19–31. But while it is always possible that Luke did
not know this story, either in a written or an oral form, and used instead
texts based on it that are no longer extant, or related ideas “in the air” of a
common milieu, I believe the text we have at hand precludes the necessity to
peer into the void speculating about (currently) nonexistent alternatives.
Hence in addition to the Epistle and the Parables of Enoch, I think it is
likely that Luke was influenced by the story of Si-Osiris as well.
