About what Jesus said to the thief on the cross

[oscarsiziba]

Sure enough at Jen,at death we just get back to what and where we were before our birth-nothingness,but our record of deeds is kept safe for the purpose of judgment .To say that the dead rest in Abraham's bosom when he is not even mentioned to have ascended into the heavens would be dangerous presumption.Christ said that He was and would come to take us-note how He will come in Revelation 1 v 7
7Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
It says here..every eye..thus if one dies there is no basis for any to say he has gone to heaven for when Christ comes every eye shall see Him.All other Scripture points to a resurrection of the dead at Jesus' coming and a total eclipse of their minds and faculties at their death,their presence in graves until Jesus comes,therefore it only brings to credibility the issue of punctuation in this case as it is the only Scripture that contradicts the rest of the Bible.When there is ample and overwhelming evidence for a certain issue it would be wise to let go of our preconceived ideas and give space to the 'new',but true and real thing.After His resurrection ,Jesus pellucidly stated He had not ascended to His Father.If we believe His word I honestly think that we will take this statement as it is and conclude that ,indeed,the moment between death(sleep) and resurrection is like a second and that is why Jesus promised the thief paradise.The thief is dead and awaits the second coming.

[Jac3510]

Just an fyi on this.. The original Greek did not have punctuation marks as we do today.

Yes sir, I am aware. That's why I pointed to Mark's reference. If you want to be technical, the Greek behind the phrase, "Truly, truly, I say to you" (or however you want to translate it) is:

Amen, lego soi

That phrase occurs over and over and over again by Jesus in all the gospels. He only adds the word "today" two times in all of Scripture: once in Mark 14, and one in Luke 23. In Mark 14, the addition of "today" is clearly part of the following clause. The construction in Greek, when speaking to the thief on the cross, is exactly the same.

If I can use a silly illustration to make my point:

J. Vernon McGee has a silly little speech tick where, when he moves to make an application of a passage, he almost always uses the phrase, "Now may I say you you . . ." He invariably uses the phrase. Now, suppose he said the following:

"Now may I say to you today you should forgive that man who offended you!"

How would you hear him? Is he saying on this day to you that you should forgive him at some point, or is he saying that you should forgive him today? Well, since he ALWAYS uses the phrase WITHOUT "today," it is aburd to think that the addition here is superfluous. This is further obvious in Greek in that word position has to do with emphasis rather than meaning. The word "today" as used by Jesus in both Mark and Luke comes at the beginning of the direct discourse, placing it in the emphatic position. It should be, then, translated:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, this very day you will be with Me in paradise."

It isn't a punctuation issue. It's an emphasis issue. Now, is it grammatically POSSIBLE what Jen and others are saying? Of course, but from a grammatical, contextual, and linguistic perspective, it is really is rather absurd. It makes a total mockery of the idea of emphasis, as well as Jesus' repeated usage of the phrase in all of Scripture.

God bless

[jenna]

A total mockery? Sorry, but I don't think so. Any other translation of the verse would make Christ a liar. So anyone who thinks differently is the true "mocker", and don't truly understand His message in this passage. I apologize if this offends anyone, but that is truly the way I see it. Just as the way you see it is different, but I don't think you said it to offend me.

[Jac3510]

Of course I didn't say it to offend you, but if you want to ignore common Greek grammar, be my guest. I'm telling you the way emphasis works. Let me give you an English example. As you know, Greek doesn't have punctuation. They used word placement to show emphasis. The construction I've mentioned is very, very common. To ignore that is just foolish, in my opinion. *shrug*

This reminds me of the time I was discussing Eph 2:8-10 with Puritan Lad and he finally concluded that Paul had just used bad grammar. :p

[jenna]

Bingo! The Greeks didn't have punctuation, so the comma was inserted by men who simply put it into the wrong place so that they could further support their views on heaven and hell. Although there will be a curse placed on men who do this, sadly the ones who do it actually think it doesn't apply to them. This is why I am very careful to fully study before I post something like this. I definitely don't want any curses from God to be on my head.

[Jac3510]

Bingo! The Greeks didn't have punctuation, so the comma was inserted by men who simply put it into the wrong place so that they could further support their views on heaven and hell. Although there will be a curse placed on men who do this, sadly the ones who do it actually think it doesn't apply to them. This is why I am very careful to fully study before I post something like this. I definitely don't want any curses from God to be on my head.

It isn't a punctuation issue, Jen. It's a grammar issue.

Consider this sentence:

"Well, I didn't say YOU passed the test."

What does that mean? Obviously, it means that YOU weren't the one who passed it . . . someone else did (or at least, so I say). But what would you say to a Greek who read this and interpeted it to mean that you didn't pass the test. Instead, he believes it means you passed the class, as if it read, ""Well, I didn't say you passed the TEST."

You'd gently tell him the way English works when you have capital letters and bold is that we are emphasizing a word. But suppose he said, "But Greek doesn't do it that way!" Your response would be, "So? That's the way we do it in English."

It's the same thing here, Jen. The word "Today" is in the emphatic position. It's just standard grammar. Luke put it there to emphasize the point that the theif would be in paradise that very day. If he were writing in English, he would have underlined or bolded the word. I can't say it enough . . . it is just standard grammar.

Feel free to ignore that, along with the other evidence I've presented on the matter. But just know that your assertions are only that: assertions. They don't mean much (to me, anyway, not that my opinion matters) without supportive evidence.

[jenna]

Is it the word "today" that is in emphasis? Or is it "will be"? In other words, Jesus could have said "Assuredly I say to you, today you WILL BE with Me in paradise". Or from my version, "I say to you today, you WILL BE with Me in paradise". Either way the emphasis should be on Christ's promise that it would happen.

[oscarsiziba]

Punctuation really matters guys and in this case it has to be brought up if the Bible is to be harmonised and remain in unity.Look at this:A woman without her man is nothing.
Someone can punctuate it as follows :A woman ,without her man is nothing.
Or:A woman:Without her, man is nothing or.....
If the Bible is really God's word, I think it has to be harmonious and this issue is no exception.Many and all other verses indicate that the dead wait for Christ's return to get their rewards and so indeed it is!

[jenna]

[Jac3510]

Is it the word "today" that is in emphasis? Or is it "will be"? In other words,

The word "Today" is the emphasis. As a matter of fact, the word "you will be" are rather incidental. Further, the word "with me" is actually given significant prominence as well. Jesus is emphasizing two things: the time and place of the thief's fate. He would be WITH CHRIST, and he would be with Him ON THAT VERY DAY.

Here, if you just want to see it:

και ειπεν αυτω αμην σοι λεγω σημερον μετ εμου εση εν τω παραδεισω
kai eipen auto amen soi lego semeron met' emou ese en to paradeiso
And he said to him, "Truly I say to you today with me you will be in paradise."

Here's a break down of the sentence:

kai eipen auto
This just means "And he said to him . . ." It's a standard introductory clause used hundreds of times.

amen soi lego
This means "Truly I say to you . . ." This is, again, a standard clause Jesus uses dozens of times in the Gospels. As a sidelight, the particular phrase points out that Jesus, not other rabbi's, is the source of authority for this statement. We might paraphrase it this way: "What I am about to say to you is absolutely true:"

semeron met' emou ese en to paradeiso
Word-by-word, this is "today with Me you will be in [the] paradise." This is the actual content of Jesus' statement to the thief. Now, standard Greek composition places the most important word first in a sentence. In discourse, it places the most important word or phrase first in the quote. Here, the first word in the statement is "today." It receives, then, the emphasis. The next to words are met' emou, lit. "with Me." We should stop to note the word emou. The normal word for "me" here is actually mou. We have a slightly different word in emou. This form of the word is used to add emphasis. Let me quote William Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek to explain this:

• In the first person singular, the genitive, dative, and accusative cases will sometimes include an epsilon and an accent (emou, emoi, eme) . . . These accented forms are called the emphatic forms.
  
  The emphatic and unemphatic forms basically have the same meaning. The emphatic form form is used when the author wants to be especially emphatic, usually in contrasting one person with another.
  
  • εγω εβαπτισα υμας υδατι αυτος δε βαπτισει υμας πνευματι αγιω
    
    I baptize you in water but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
  The contrast is usually difficult to bring into English. (Mounce, BBG, 92)

Moving on, the last phrase, en to paradeso just means "in paradise." It's a standard form to show location.

So what do we see? The emphasis is on where the thief will be "with Christ," and when he will be there "today." If Luke had wanted to say "On this day I say to you that [someday] you will be with Me in paradise," he would have used a totally different word order. As you noted, that particular understanding places the emphasis on the "will be," which is absolutely incidental in the Greek we have. As it stands, a good paraphrastic translation, based on the standard rules of Greek composition is:

"And Jesus said to him, 'I guarantee you, what I am about to say to you is absolutely true: I'm going to be in paradise, and on this very day, you are going to be there with me.'"

God bless

[zoegirl]

wow, very nicely put together, jac....makes me want to learn more about greek and hebrew. (if only my forte was language!)

You teach it well!

[Jac3510]

wow, very nicely put together, jac....makes me want to learn more about greek and hebrew. (if only my forte was language!)

You teach it well!

Thank you, Zoe. I bet you could teach yourself pretty easily. Just pick up a copy of Basics of Biblical Greek from Amazon, the vocab cards, and the lectures (they aren't necessary, but they make life sooooooo much easier). Spend a few minutes with it every day, and you'll have it in no time. It really and truly isn't as hard as people make it out to be. And it is really satisfying to pick up the GNT and know what you are looking at.

[zoegirl]

ha...you never saw me try to learn spanish

[Jac3510]

El español es realmente muy fácil para traducir. ¡Todo que usted necesita es el Internet!

I only wish Greek was that easy . . .

[zoegirl]

That would be something the teachers at my school have outlawed