![]() And now, nobody experiences anything like Jesus describes in this story. He stepped on the devil Belial’s neck, freed all the Old Testament saints, and took ’em with him to heaven. Once he died, he went to hell-but with keys, to unlock the place. (Just Abraham, and a few others who were as good as Lazarus.) Nobody else had good enough karma, so they were forced to wait in hell till Jesus died. There’s a popular Christian myth called “the harrowing of hell”: Before Jesus died to atone for our sins, it seems God saved nobody by his grace, and therefore nobody but the very best people could get into paradise. In some cases they’re dispensationalists who claim maybe this used to be the way the afterlife worked, but not anymore. We’re immediately resurrected and live in New Jerusalem from now on, or we live in some glorified spiritual form while we wait for our resurrection, or we get to become angels like Mormons believe, or we otherwise become powerful guardian spirits like Daoists believe. This, they insist, is not what happens after people die: We go to heaven. Primarily because they have very different beliefs about the afterlife. On the other extreme, we have people who insist this story is entirely fiction. It’s a theory which makes no sense, because Lazarus’s family asked Jesus to come cure him they didn’t just dump Lazarus at the door of the local idle rich guy, hoping he might uncharacteristically do something. Some of ’em even claim this Lazarus is Jesus’s friend Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus later raised from the dead Jn 11.1-44 -and this is how Lazarus died. So they claim Jesus was straight-up talking about an actual pauper named Lazarus. ![]() This is the only story where Jesus gives someone a name, so they figure it must mean something. Traditionally this man’s been called Dives (usually pronounced 'daɪ.viz instead of like the verb) ’cause that’s what he’s called in verse 19 in the Vulgate dives is Latin for “rich.” So I’m gonna call him Dives it saves time.Įvery once in a while some literalist insists this isn’t actually a parable. This story is often called the story of the rich man and Lazarus-or Lazarus and the rich man, depending on who oughta come first, and since it’s not really about Lazarus, stands to reason the rich man should come first.
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