You might occasionally meet someone who claims that they died and then came back to life. You will probably, correctly, assume that he means his heart temporarily stopped or his breathing ceased for a brief period of time but then he was resuscitated. This happens fairly routinely with modern medical care. For this reason the idea that someone is “dead” when their heart stops is outdated. Sometimes it is even done intentionally by doctors (gasp!), such as when operating on the heart, but we don’t accuse the surgeon of killing the patient (unless of course the patient isn’t successfully revived!). Usually the time period must be very brief, or the brain cells will die, and brain death is true death; no coming back from that. There are exceptions: we know that when the body temperature is low the brain and other organs can survive longer. For example, drowning victims can sometimes be resuscitated after a longer period of time than usual. That’s why doctors say that someone isn’t really dead until they are warm and dead. But what about someone who has been dead and buried for four days? That is beyond medical science, despite Dr. Frankenstein’s pioneering efforts.
One of the difficulties in studying Jesus is determining if an event or statement in the Gospels truly goes back to the historical Jesus or if it was developed or invented later. Of course, this is not an issue for the faithful: it all goes back to Jesus, every statement, every event! Scholars and skeptics are not so easily convinced, especially when the story is miraculous in nature, or the teaching seems peculiar. I am going to discuss an event (a miracle) and a statement (a parable) that may not be based in history but very well might have a common origin, and the origin might lie with Jesus himself.
First, the event. In the Gospel of John Jesus culminates His public ministry with an astounding miracle, shortly before entering Jerusalem. He is said to love a man named Lazarus and his two sisters. When Lazarus dies Jesus waits a few days (building suspense?) and then raises Lazarus back to life after 4 days with a simple but apparently powerful command: “Lazarus, come forth!” (John 11:43) This miracle is so critical to John[1] that he says it starts the cascade of events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion. Note John 11:53: “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” And then 12:10,11: ‘But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.’ Yet despite the wonder and significance of this amazing miracle at the apex of Jesus’ ministry the other three gospels surprisingly ignore it. Or do they?
Depiction of Jesus raising Lazarus, from theCallistus Catacombs, Rome, 3rd Century CE.
Note the (magic) wand in Jesus’ hand.
In Luke 16 we have a story (parable?) purportedly told by Jesus. A rich man ignores the needs of a poor man at his gate. They both die. The rich man is in agony in flames, while the poor man is being comforted by the patriarch Abraham, no less. The idea that in God’s kingdom the selfish rich will face judgment while the poor are comforted seems compatible with the teachings of Jesus, although the image of someone suffering in flames rather than being consumed by them seems at odds with some of His teachings. Lest you use this as a proof text that Jesus taught the concept of Hell as a place of eternal torment, note that this scene is set before the final judgment: the rich man’s brothers are still alive on Earth. Plus, I think it highly unlikely that people in Heaven and Hell will be conversing with each other, as Abraham and the rich man do in this story. (Although Muhammad thinks so: see Quran post #7.) And Jesus usually depicts the destruction of the ungodly, like weeds thrown into a fire. So, there are a number of peculiar aspects to this parable, which is found only in Luke. But the truly unique facet of this parable is that it is the only one in any of the Gospels in which a character is given a name: the poor man is ‘Lazarus.’ Is it a coincidence that the Luke 16 and John 11 stories use the same name? Could the stories be related or connected?
Depiction of the Lazarus parable, in the British Library.
(Although there are no demons mentioned in the parable.)
It is not just the name, but I would also suggest that the point of both stories is the same. In the Luke story it concludes with the tormented rich man begging Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers. But Abraham replies, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.” The story of Lazarus in John seems to be making exactly the same point. Jesus raises Lazarus back to life, right outside Jerusalem, and the Jews, rather than accepting this as a sign of God’s power and blessing, not only reject Jesus but even plot to kill Lazarus as well (John 12:10). This seems to confirm the point of Luke’s parable: even faced with someone back from the dead some people refuse to believe.
I wonder if Jesus did in fact teach that some people were so stubborn that they would not believe even if someone came back from the dead. I can see this teaching being embellished as time went on, to become the parable we see in Luke 16. Jesus taught in other passages that it was hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of God, which also comes through in this parable. So, maybe the core teachings go back to Jesus, gradually being constructed into the details of the parable we read in Luke 16.
And I can see the possibility that the Lazarus miracle arose the same way. In the Gospel of John Jesus often seems to accentuate certain teachings with an illustrative miracle. “I am the bread of life” follows him feeding the 5,000. “I am the light of the world” and then he heals a blind man. ”I am the resurrection and the life” and then He raises Lazarus from the dead. But there is that added detail that as soon as Lazarus is raised from death the chief priests refuse to believe and instead plot to kill Lazarus, thus destroying the evidence of the miracle. So the Lazarus story that developed served two purposes: Jesus is indeed “the resurrection and the life” and even if someone comes back from the dead some hard-hearted people will still refuse to believe (as in the Luke 16 parable).
But where did the name “Lazarus” come from? “Lazarus” is said to mean “Whom God helps,” a Greek form of the Hebrew name “Eleazar” with that meaning. That certainly fits both the parable and the miracle. (The traditional name given to the rich man in Luke is “Dives (dy-vees),” which is Latin for “rich”, so both names seem to have symbolic meaning.) Since Jesus’ parables did not use character names I suspect the name first arose from the miracle story. In John there is even a little background story for Lazarus: he is the brother of Mary and Martha in Bethany. Luke mentions Mary and Martha but not with a brother Lazarus; that’s unique to John. Recall that these parables and stories were passed along orally for some time before being written down in what we now know as the Gospels (see the intro in Luke 1:1-4). So, as the parable of the beggar and the rich man developed someone saw the connection to the Lazarus miracle story that was also in circulation and started to use the name in the parable also. When the author of the Gospel of Luke records the parable he includes the name ‘Lazarus’ that had become associated with it. Thus a named character ends up in one of Jesus’ parables.
I do not know exactly how the parable and the miracle story developed, but I think it is too much of a coincidence that these two unique stories also share the same unique character name. It is interesting and I think significant that the stories share the same point: many people are so stubborn as to reject even the testimony of someone raised from the dead. Thus said Abraham in the Lazarus parable, and that’s what happened in the Lazarus miracle story. But for the Christian evangelists what really mattered is that it was also true with the Jesus story: people were refusing to accept the testimony of a resurrected Jesus. Or technically, the testimony of those who claimed Jesus had come back from the dead. But in their view the real problem was the stubborn hearts of the unbelievers, not the lack of convincing evidence for an extraordinary event involving an unconventional Messiah. And this point finds its way into two gospels, in two different forms.
Thinking exercises:
1. Is it possible that the miracle stories in the Gospels first developed as illustrations or parables that later were told as actual events? (Jesus is the light of the world becomes healing a blind man, Jesus is the bread of life becomes the feeding of 5,000, Jesus is the resurrection and the life becomes the raising of Lazarus, etc.) Could that help explain why we have two different Lazarus stories? Could the same parable have evolved in two different ways?
2. What would it take to convince you that someone had risen from the dead today, either spontaneously (like Jesus) or by someone’s intervention (as with Jesus raising Lazarus)? Like, 4 days dead, not just a drowning resuscitation. Is someone telling you about it sufficient? Do you use your same standard of evidence for the Bible stories of resurrections?
3. In the Luke 16 parable, if the rich man is condemned for being rich while others are poor, what will happen to affluent people today? Why do you think the rich man is condemned in this parable? What is the lesson for us today? Is there a Lazarus outside your gate? Should that lesson be applied to our political views as well?
[1] When I say “John” or “Luke” I am simply using the traditional names of the authors, without endorsing the idea that these gospels were actually composed by the disciples John and Luke.
2 responses to “53: Whence Lazarus?”
The most important point of the Lazarus Parable is the desire of the Rich Man to warn his brothers.
Interesting view. Perhaps you can elaborate.