Luke 23:43 (Focus)

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Mon Oct 7 13:50:04 EDT 2002


Hi, Nick

In your first posting you said you weren't arguing for the second
alternative - which is your first option below, but now it seems to me that
you ARE doing so. Have I misinterpreted you?

I don't think it is possible to reach a conclusion by only comparing
sentence structures as you are doing below. There are many issues involved
at the same time. Some of the main ones are: 1) What was the freedom fighter
thinking when he talked about Jesus coming in his kingdom? 2) What did Jesus
think the man thought? 3) Is the spiritual kingdom of Jesus already
established at his resurrection or only after his ascension when he sat down
on the throne at the right hand side of God or only at the PAROUSIA or maybe
when the new heaven and earth are created? 4) What did Jesus intend to
communicate with "being in PARADEISOS"? 5) Why did Jesus not give a
straightforward answer? 6) What did Paul think about PARADEISOS when he
visited that place in the third heaven - and came back? Etc, etc.
>
>
>      AMHN LEGW SOI SHMERON MET'EMOU ESH EN TW PARADEISW

The correct citation has AMHN SOI LEGW etc. When you talk about focus that
is significant.

>
>      'Truly I tell you today you shall be with me in paradise'.
>
>      There are two ways to interpret this verse according to its
> information
>      structure. We can display these two ways simply as follows:
>
>
>      (1) First option:-
>
>      AMHN LEGW SOI         SHMERON    MET'EMOU ESH    EN TW PARADEISW
>
>      Speech introduction    When         What            Where
>
>
>      (2) Second option:-
>
>      AMHN LEGW SOI SHMERON    MET'EMOU ESH   EN TW PARADEISW
>
>      Speech introduction         What            Where
>
>
>      To help us decide which of these is that which is most
> probably intended we
>      need to look at the thief's original question in v.42:-
>
>       IESOU, MNHSQHTI [MOU - added] HOTAN ELQHS EIS THN BASILEIAN SOU
>
>      'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom' |
>
>      Here we see that the structure is:-
>
>      [Vocative]   What    When
>
>      The vocative is an extra-clausal constituent and need not
> concern us here.
>      The basic utterance consists of a main clause, plus a circumstantial
>      clause. We note that the main clause contains both
> 'actants', that is,
>      - the agent (you = Jesus, encoded by means of the verbal suffix)
>      - the patient (me = thief).
>      'Remember me', says the thief. This is the thrust of his
> communication to Christ.
>
>      We need to ask ourselves which part of Christ's response
> corresponds to
>      the request of the thief. Clearly it is MET'EMOU ESH, 'you
> shall be with
>      me'. Here we have again both actants present - 'YOU shall be
> with ME'.
>      Does this not suggest that this is the thrust of Christ's
> response? The
>      thief says, 'Remember me', and Jesus answers 'You shall be with me',
>      implying that he would indeed be remembered. As the thief's
> request is
>      clause-initial, being the main assertion of his utterance, is it not
>      reasonable to suppose that Christ's response corresponding
> to this would
>      also be clause-initial? In both cases the main assertion
> comes first,
>      followed by a less prominent circumstantial clause/phrase.

Now, IF Jesus intended to correct the When part of the proposition, it would
be most natural to put the time phrase initial, wouldn't it?
If Jesus had intended to communicate a straightforward "Yes, I will remember
you when I get to my kingdom" why didn't he say so? He could have said:
"Surely, I will remember you."
We need to ask more questions in order to analyze his rather surprising
answer. Why did Jesus introduce the idea of PARADEISOS? It only makes sense
to me if he is trying to add some new information. That added information
could well be: "Not only will I remember you when my kingdom is established
in the future some time - not today - but already TODAY when I enter
PARADEISOS, you will be there with me. That is giving the freedom fighter
more than he asked for! Of course, whether people can accept this
interpretation, depends heavily on what they think PARADEISOS stands for.
(And Jesus did say: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, so Jesus
knew that his spirit would go to be with the Father when he died.) I assume
Jesus would have said in Hebrew or Aramaic "Garden of ADONAI", that place
God has prepared for the redeemed souls. That place where we find Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Lazarus and scores of others. Those living
souls or spirits that God is God for, since he is not God for the dead.

> If this is a
>      correct analysis, this would give us:
>
>      'Remember me             when you come into your kingdom'
>
>      'You shall be with me    in paradise'
>
>          What                  When/Where (Circumstance)
>
>      The conclusion of this analysis is that 'today', SHMERON,
> forms no part of the main proposition.

Which is a problem, since it can hardly belong to the speech introduction.
That is, as I have shown, unprecedented. I am not saying it is impossible,
but one has to weigh all factors together when trying to reach a conclusion.
On the other hand, there are good reasons why it could well be a focused
temporal constituent in the main proposition.
Furthermore, if Jesus only wanted to confirm that the freedom fighter would
enter the kingdom of Jesus, then the phrase "WITH ME you will be" is
awkward. Why add "with me"? Of course Jesus himself would be in his kingdom
in the future. It would be more natural to say: "Yes, you shall enter into
my kingdom." But, what if Jesus is going somewhere else first? Like in
Paradise, which is a good place to be. And he will take the saved criminal
with him. There will be a bodily resurrection later at the parousia for him,
but that is not the topic under discussion.
>
>      I am reminded of 1 Thess 4:15-18:-
>
>      15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that
> we who are
>      alive, who are left until the COMING of the Lord, will by no means
>      precede those who have died.
>      16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's
>      call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven,
>      and the dead in Christ will rise first.
>      17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the
>      clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and
> so WE WILL BE WITH the Lord forever.
>      18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
>
>      Here is the Lord coming at the end of the age following
> which we will
>      'be with' him forever. Paul tells us to comfort one another
> with these
>      words, that is, with the fact that we shall always be with the Lord.

Your added capitals above could give the - wrong - impression that there was
focus on this part of the proposition. In the context of this section which
starts in v. 13 outside your quote, the focus is the question whether even
the dead Christians will join the living ones in the PAROUSIA. Paul says
that not only will they join the living ones, but they will even go ahead
(slightly) of them. The comfort that Paul brings is focused on this: Don't
worry, the dead ones will not be left behind at the PAROUSIA - which they
apparently thought was very imminent at the time this letter was written.
When Jesus comes, we shall ALWAYS be with the Lord in those new bodies. At
that time death, sorrow and worry has ceased. The topic of this section is
IMO too different to thrown light on Luke 23.

Sincerely
Iver Larsen




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