The Pharisees were the hellfire preaches of the day; they were the ones that taught that angels carried the righteous to a place on the right side of Hades they called "Abraham's Bosom" and the wicked to the left side of Hades to be tortures by wicked angels. They even partitioned Hades by a great gulf. Now where did they get these detailed ideas? And why would Jesus tell their extra-biblical story back to them? Would He be trying to scare them with their own story? I certainly don't think so.
Hi Vander.....Both the Essenes and the Pharisees believed in postmortem punishment and rewards; this wasn't a belief peculiar to the Pharisees. Jesus himself taught "extra-biblical" apocalyptic eschatology (similar to that found in Essene texts) to his disciples in the synoptic gospels — such as the casting of the wicked to Gehenna for fiery judgment, the notion of the "Son of Man" seated on his "throne of glory" who would judge individuals and assign eternal destinies, etc. Jesus is not depicted as simply using "extra-biblical" eschatology against Pharisees but he used notions not found in the OT with his own disciples. That is only natural, as his views were very much aligned with what is found in Essenism and not at all like what was taught by the Sadducees, who were the real eschatological conservatives. But I think it really misses the point of the story to say that Jesus wouldn't be "trying to scare them with their own story", and so the eschatology is only satirically adopted. The polemic against the Pharisees in the synoptic gospels is usually aimed at their hypocritical actions and not at what they teach (e.g. "The Pharisees sit in Moses' seat so you must obey them and do everything they tell you, but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach," Matthew 23:2-3). I believe this is the case here. Earlier in the same chapter, the Pharisees scoff at Jesus when he said that one cannot serve both God and mammon, "you will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other" (Luke 16:13-14). The Pharisees obviously regarded themselves as serving God but they were really "lovers of money" (v. 14). Thus from the perspective of the author, they had good reason to be scared by that story.
It seems to me that there are rich people that love the Lord and will be with Abraham in the afterlife. I would say that neither wealth nor poverty is an indication of ones love for or approval of God. Abraham, Job, Joseph, David etc. were all very rich and influential people. Certainly their comeuppance will not resemble that of the Rich Man in this account.
Sure, but the story is not concerned with faithful men of former generations who received their wealth from God as a blessing. The story is concerned with the rich of the present generation (a "wicked and perverse generation" according to Luke 9:41, 11:29, Acts 2:40, etc.) who are indifferent to the poor and who are lovers of wealth. That includes the Pharisees of Luke 16:14. Thus the rich man of the parable displayed his wealth publically with his clothes and he "feasted sumptuously every day" in sight of the poor (16:19). The comeuppance is aimed at the Pharisees, of whom a few verses earlier Jesus says: "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight" (v. 15).
Poverty and sickness were looked upon as a sign of sin and judgment by the Pharisees. But, the Pharisees at least gave hope to the destitute, teaching that they, accepting God's judgments, would find themselves at death, in a very literal (but extra-biblical) place they referred to as, "Abraham's Bosom". So Jesus put the destitute Lazarus right where the Pharisees assigned him in the afterlife. In effect then, Jesus was, like you, teaching Pharisaic doctrine. "Bad now, good later".
I'm not sure if the Pharisees depicted the poor as intrinsically having a reward, which is what Jesus certainly taught in this gospel (e.g. Luke 6:20), and which reflects the views of the Essenes as well (cf. the Epistle of Enoch). My impression is that they taught that one's reward is dependent on fidelity to the Torah, which they regarded as themselves respecting. But even if they did promise that the poor would receive their blessings after death or in the resurrection, they did not construe themselves as having "bad later". That is what, according to the Lukan Jesus, is wrong with that picture.
It is important not to ignore the dualism in the author's polemic against wealth ("you will either hate the one and love the other") and the relationship between this and the eschatological dualism implicit in the Lazarus story and other judgment scenarios (such as the sheep/goats of Matthew 25). The poor are promised the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20), but "woe to you who are rich for you have already received your comfort" (v. 24). This thought is echoed in the Lazarus story when the rich man is told that he already received "your good things in your lifetime" (16:25). In the story of the rich ruler, Jesus tells him that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (18:25), and what is emphasized is the giving of most or all of one's wealth to the poor (12:33, 18:22, 19:8, 21:1-4; cf. Acts 2:44-45, 4:32-37, 5:1-9, etc.), that allows one to "store up treasures in heaven". The same thought is expressed in ch. 16 in language that echoes the Essene dualism found in the Dead Sea Scrolls: "The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light. I tell you, use mammon to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings" (16:8-9). The Lukan view of wealth and the rich in such passages as Luke 6:24 and 16:13-15, 19-31 is close to what we find in the Epistle of Enoch:
"Woe to you rich, for in your riches you have trusted, from your riches you will depart because you have not remembered the Most High in the days of your riches.... Woe to you sinners, for your riches make you appear to be righteous, but your heart convicts you of being sinners and this word will be a testimony against you, a reminder of your evil deeds. Woe to you who devour the finest of the wheat and quaff wine from the mixing bowl while you tread on the lowly with your might. Woe to you who drink water from every foundation for quickly you will be repaid, and case and dry up, because you have forsaken the foundation of life....Woe to you who acquire gold and silver unjustly and say, 'We have become very welathy, and we have gotten possessions, and we have acquired all that we have wished, for silver we have gathered up in our treasuries, and many goods in our houses; and as water they are poured out.' You err! For your wealth will not remain, but will quickly ascend from you.... For men will put on adornments as women, and fair colors more than virgins, in kingship and majesty and power. And silver and gold will be among them as food, and in their houses these will be poured out like water, because they have no knowledge or understanding. Thus they will perish, together with all their possessions, and all their splendor and honor, and for dishonor and slaughter and great destitution, their spirits will be cast into the fiery furnace.... Woe to you, dead sinners. When you die in your sinful wealth, those who are like you say about you, 'Blessed are the sinners, all their days that they have seen. And now they have died with goods and wealth, and affliction and murder they have not seen in their life. They have died in splendor, and judgment was not executed on them in their life.' Know that down to Sheol they will lead your souls, and there they will be in great distress, and in darkness and in a snare and in a flaming fire. Into great judgment your souls will enter and the great judgment will be for all the generations of eternity. Woe to you, you will have no peace" (1 Enoch 94:8, 96:4-6, 97:7-10, 98:1-3, 103:5-8).