Layering the Rich Man and Lazarus – by Brad Jersak

Throughout the ‘hell debates’ of recent years, the parable
of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) has repeatedly begged our
attention, especially in Q&A times following the documentary, Hellbound? The dialogue has urged me
towards a sharper focus on the layered functions of the parable than I offered
in my contemplative read in Her Gates Will Never Be Shut.[1] Herein,
I will introduce an outline that I hope invites fuller treatment.

False functions

First, we ought to dismiss the false functions of the
parable as assigned by traditional (but sloppy) literalism. Readers often
imagine that Jesus’ intent is to describe the nature of divine judgment and the
state of the damned—or ‘hell’ (lit. hades),
defined as an inescapable place of fiery judgment. The symbolic nature of
parables is frequently negated and the passage treated as a revelation of the
afterlife.

Briefly, interpreting the story of Dives (Lat. ‘rich man’ in
the Vulgate) and Lazarus as descriptive of ‘hell’ ignores the difference
between hades and paradise vis-à-vis heaven and hell, both
biblically and theologically, even by literalist standards. The text says the
rich man is in hades, borrowed from
Greek language and mythology to correspond with the Hebrew Sheol—the place of the dead or the grave prior to the final Day of Judgment. This is confirmed by the rich
man’s desire to send a warning to his brothers before it is too late. Thus, whatever the rich man is suffering, it
is a precursor to the Day of the Lord and distinct from the infernalist’s typical
everlasting ‘lake of fire.’

Moreover, aspects of the story make a crass literalism
awkward: how does the rich man communicate with Abraham across the chasm? Does
everyone there have a direct line to the patriarch? Does someone being
incinerated in a furnace care about thirst? Are these literal flames? And since
hades precedes the resurrection of
the body, do we have literal tongues with which to feel thirst? Is this also
the literal Abraham? Do the millions in his care take turns snuggling with him?
Or is his bosom big enough to contain us all at once? How big he must be! And
so on into implausibility.

Taking the parable seriously means we mustn’t take it so literally.
Rather than text-mining for the architecture of the underworld, we ought to be
digging for the intended message of Jesus. He is using the afterlife to
illuminate some truth about this life. If we read carefully, we begin to see
hints of the rich strata of meaning that beckon us deeper beneath the surface. I
will propose three such layers here.