Comments

• Jengie Jon Shipmate

  September 29 edited September 29

  Nope. Our entire way of thinking about faith has been shaped by the way the Old Testament was translated into Greek for the Septuagint and the way that was adapted in the New Testament. Rarely is the move from Hebrew and related languages to Greek smooth. I am away from my notes on this, and they are only in development, so sorry not to be more explicit.
  
  What I do know from sociology of faith actually covers a broad spectrum of meanings, of which belief is only part; I am here using belief to mean intellectual assent and faith as the broader concept of self-affiliating to a religion. They almost could be swapped around in English. Faith encompasses: belief, loyalty, trust, admiration, affiliation, etc.
  
  If we take the loyalty aspect of it. Certainly, saying the right things helps, but what about last Sunday's Gospel reading, Matthew 21:28-32? The younger is saying all the right things but is not obeying the father's request. God is quite explicit in his requests, and what you list stands out among the priorities.
• Nick Tamen Shipmate

  September 29

  KarlLB wrote: »

  If anyone stands accused by this parable, therefore, it's not atheists, agnostics or any other non-Christians. It's Christians who supposedly believe in Jesus but have no care for the marginalised, the poor and the oppressed - or, worse, actively support their oppression.
  
  Thoughts? Am I talking crap?

  To the contrary, I think you’re spot on.
  
  
  
• Lamb Chopped Shipmate

  September 29 edited September 29

  It might be useful to remember that Jesus' audience was basically 100% worshippers of YHWH--they didn't really have declared agnostics or atheists in those days, at least in this particular culture. So listeners would have assumed both Lazarus and Dives were following the same religion.
  
  Dives takes a dive (oops!) because he's a hypocrite--he ignores human need right at his gate, though YHWH is super concerned about the poor and those who suffer. Lazarus, well, he's not really the primary focus of the parable, and we get basically no information about him except the fact that he suffered, and is apparently not a hypocrite, being the foil for Dives. But I don't think we're right to say therefore his suffering is what got him to paradise, just because it's all that we know about him. It's more likely IMHO that if we had asked Jesus, he would have said, "Because he belongs to YHWH, duh" and looked at us like we missed the point. Which we would have done, because the parable's not about Lazarus.
• Lamb Chopped Shipmate

  September 29 edited September 29

  I looked back and realized I'd missed out a major bit of what KarlLB asked in the OP, and it's kind of fascinating:
  

  So what is it that Dives' brothers don't believe that they have Moses and the Prophets to teach them, and that someone returning from death won't convince them of?

  
  I went and grabbed the text because my brain isn't working so well right now! It's here, from Luke 16:
  

  24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
  25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
  27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’
  29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’
  30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
  31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

  
  My attention was caught by the words, "Child, remember..." This is a direct response of Abraham, and it's not to a question about "Why am I here, and Lazarus over there?" Instead it's a response to "send Lazarus" to relieve Dives' suffering. I think Abraham is saying, "What you've just asked is totally inappropriate and impossible. First it's inappropriate because of sheer justice--you got all the good stuff in life and it was the reverse for Lazarus, so don't think he should be your servant now, that's messed up. And it's also impossible, because there's this huge chasm separating us, so even if Lazarus wanted to go, he couldn't."
  
  Of course Dives doesn't get it. Because the very next thing he asks ("send him to my father's house") shows that the only thing he cares about is the impossibility bit--the chasm. He keeps ignoring how inappropriate it is for him to ask the least favor of Lazarus at all! Let alone the fact that he's not asking Lazarus anyway, he's asking Abraham to order Lazarus around. It's just so wrong--a hangover from his days on earth, when he used to be "up" and Lazarus "down."
  
  Now here at least Dives does focus on the issue of eternal destiny, for his brothers anyway. He says, "I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’" What exactly does Dives want Lazarus to say to his brothers? Stop ignoring the needs of the poor? Could be. Because deeds usually follow the heart. And if Dives' brothers are as unconcerned about the poor as he was, they will be just as much hypocrites in their following of YHWH as Dives was--and wind up in the same place. And of course "Moses and the prophets" were hammering on the needs of the poor" all over the place.
  
  There's this, too. Dives seems to assume that his brothers will recognize Lazarus if he rises from the dead, and listen to him! But I see no reason why this would be true. If Dives could ignore a man dying at his gate, covered in sores and licked by dogs, his brothers are highly unlikely to notice a poor man who rises from the dead--why would they look at him in the first place? I don't think they would. And Jesus himself qualifies as a poor man, given his status as a homeless travelling rabbi who probably owned no more than the clothes he stood up in. My understanding is that, after Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't bother appearing to any of his enemies (most of whom were well-off and powerful, like Dives) with the possible exception of his brothers--and that's a much murkier situation anyways. But Caiaphas, Annas, Pontius Pilate, etc. seem to go on their merry way to the end of their lives without any visits from Christ--and Jesus seems to have planned this ahead of time, if John 14:22 and its answer mean what I think they do.