Originally posted by Conrau K
[b]So Manny....did that scripture mean he was going to be with Jesus as you say in that "same day" they died?
Yes of course it does. It makes perfect mathematical sense.[/b]
this doesn't answer any of Galvos points, no not even a smidgen!
PARADISE
A beautiful park, or a parklike garden. The Greek word 'paradeisos', occurs three times in the Christian Greek Scriptures. (Lu 23:43; 2Co 12:4; Re 2:7) Greek writers as far back as Xenophon (c. 431-352 B.C.E.) used the word (pairidaeza), and Pollux attributed it to Persian sources. (Cyropaedia, I, iii, 14; Anabasis, I, ii, 7; Onomasticon, IX, 13)
Some lexicographers would derive the Hebrew word pardes (meaning, basically, a park) from the same source. But since Solomon (of the 11th century B.C.E.) used pardes in his writings, whereas existing Persian writings go back only to about the sixth century B.C.E., such derivation of the Hebrew term is only conjectural. (Ec 2:5; Ca 4:13) The remaining use of pardes is at Nehemiah 2:8, where reference is made to a royal wooded park of Persian King Artaxerxes Longimanus, in the fifth century B.C.E.
The three terms (Hebrew pardes, Persian pairidaeza, and Greek paradeisos), however, all convey the basic idea of a beautiful park or parklike garden. The first such park was that made by man’s Creator, Jehovah God, in Eden. (Ge 2:8, 9, 15) It is called a gan, or “garden,” in Hebrew but was obviously parklike in size and nature. The Greek Septuagint appropriately uses the term paradeisos with reference to that garden.
What is the Paradise that Jesus promised to the evildoer who died alongside him?
Luke’s account shows that an evildoer, being executed alongside Jesus Christ, spoke words in Jesus defense and requested that Jesus remember him when he ‘got into his kingdom.’ Jesus’ reply was: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.” (Lu 23:39-43) The punctuation shown in the rendering of these words must, of course, depend on the translators understanding of the sense of Jesus words, since no punctuation was used in the original Greek text.
Punctuation in the modern style did not become common until about the ninth century C.E.
Whereas many translations place a comma before the word “today” and thereby give the impression that the evildoer entered Paradise that same day, there is nothing in the rest of the Scriptures to support this. Jesus himself was dead and in the tomb until the third day and was then resurrected as “the firstfruits” of the resurrection. (Ac 10:40; 1Co 15:20; Col 1:18) He ascended to heaven 40 days later.—Joh 20:17; Ac 1:1-3, 9.
The evidence is, therefore, that Jesus use of the word “today” was not to give the time of the evildoer’s being in Paradise but, rather, to call attention to the time in which the promise was being made and during which the evildoer had shown a measure of faith in Jesus. It was a day when Jesus had been rejected and condemned by the highest-ranking religious leaders of his own people and was thereafter sentenced to die by Roman authority. He had become an object of scorn and ridicule. So the wrongdoer alongside him had shown a notable quality and commendable heart attitude in not going along with the crowd but, rather, speaking out in Jesus’ behalf and expressing belief in his coming Kingship. Recognizing that
the emphasis is correctly placed on the time of the promise’s being made rather than on the time of its fulfillment, other translations, such as those in English by Rotherham and Lamsa, those in German by Reinhardt and W. Michaelis, as well as the Curetonian Syriac of the fifth century C.E., rendered the text in a form similar to the reading of the New World Translation, quoted herein.
A Bible truth....
03 Mar '10 09:50
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