#lazarus drachma

[arche0ps]

Oh yeah my friend got me on persona so here's my femc :3 Lazarus Dracma <3

[lauralot89]

Purgatory is a Biblical Concept

I’ve been reading through the Slacktivist dissection of the Left Behind series for the third time now, because it never gets any less hilarious or jaw-droppingly awful, but for the first time, this paragraph from one of the posts caught my eye:

[Purgatory] is, after all, an extrabiblical innovation now abandoned even by those parts of the church that once accepted the idea. The case for Purgatory was based on a handful of fairly opaque, symbol-heavy passages of Scripture which were magnified through the prism of a complex interpretive scheme that imposed its own cosmology and chronology. It is, in other words, very much like the case for premillennial dispensationalism. Except the case for Purgatory was probably stronger.

I think the author here is confusing purgatory with limbo, because purgatory certainly hasn’t been abandoned by the Catholic Church.  And even churches who don’t use the term purgatory, such as the Eastern Orthodox, still have a concept of an intermediate state after death and heaven, and show no signs of dropping that belief.

This is a sentiment I see a lot, where otherwise insightful and entertaining posts about religious stuff will throw in an aside about how the Catholic Church made up purgatory during medieval times.  It happens in the Boolean Union’s dissection of the hysterically terrible Alberto comic, for instance.

Sure, the word purgatory doesn’t appear in the Bible.  Along with other words like trinity and Christmas.  But the concept of purgatory?  Much like the triune God and the story of the Nativity, it’s totally in the text.

I do want to take a moment, though, before I start citing verses and whatnot, to talk about Judaism.  As I’ve mentioned before, when I was talking about the two hells, in the Jewish view of the afterlife, inasmuch as there’s anything resembling a ‘definitive’ view, the dead await the coming of the Messiah in either Abraham’s bosom (a place of holding for the righteous dead) or Gehenna/Gehinnom, which is a place of fire and suffering not unlike the Christian concept of hell.  You can see Abraham’s bosom and Gehenna both in the New Testament, in the story of Lazarus and the rich man.

Unlike hell, however, Gehenna is not a permanent punishment.  Almost everyone sent to Gehenna after death only remains there for a year or less.  So it’s a purgatorial state, pretty much, and in the Gospel of Luke linked up there, Jesus Himself is talking about the rich man suffering there, so if that’s not definitive Biblical proof of a type of purgatory then I don’t know what is and there’s probably no point in continuing to cite verses, but I’m gonna do it anyway because I’m bored.

So other than the Lazarus parable, probably the most blatant Scriptural reference to purgatory is found in 2 Maccabees 12:39-46, when Judas Macabees and his companions are burying the dead after a battle:

39 On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his companions went to gather up the bodies of the fallen and bury them with their kindred in their ancestral tombs. 40 But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had fallen.41 They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden. 42 Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.43 He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind; 44 for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. 45 But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. 46 Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin.

There would be no point in making atonements and sacrifices for the dead if their transgressions could not be forgiven after death.

Granted, pretty much all Protestants reject the books of Maccabees as apocryphal, and they aren’t collected in the Tanakh either, but even if we don’t view them as Scripture, surely the books retain cultural significance and show that, historically, the Jews prayed for their dead.

Still, since it’s controversial, let’s set Maccabees aside.  Purgatory appears as a concept in the Bible without it.

Moving on to the unforgivable sin mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew:

32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

If blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven in the age to come, the logical implication is that there are sins that can be forgiven in the age to come.

Earlier in Matthew, Jesus uses “prison” as an allegory for purgatory:

25 Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.

He’s not talking about hell, as hell is a state without release.  And the start of this section of His sermon (“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’”) makes it clear that he’s referring to judgment after death, not actual earthly imprisonment.

1 Corinthians 3 contains one of the most obvious references:

13 the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire [itself] will test the quality of each one’s work.14 If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage. 15 But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.

That description there is pretty much the very definition of purgatory.

I suppose the argument could be made that in these verses, a person’s works are being tested, not their soul, but how can a person’s works exist to be judged independently of themselves?  I’m pretty sure Death of the Author does not apply here.

Finally, let’s consider Revelation 21, which describes the kingdom of heaven:

22 I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb. 23 The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it,for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and to it the kings of the earth will bring their treasure.25 During the day its gates will never be shut, and there will be no night there. 26 The treasure and wealth of the nations will be brought there, 27 but nothing unclean will enter it, nor any[one] who does abominable things or tells lies. Only those will enter whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

If nothing unclean can enter heaven, that leaves us with two possibilities.  The first is that only people who die in a state of perfect sinlessness can go to heaven, which means pretty much nobody.  The second option is that there exists an intermediate state of cleansing between earth and heaven.  Purgatory is just a name the Catholic Church gave to this state because they might as well call it something.

[delicatemusictastemaker]

4   Parables

In the New Testament, the vocabulary "parable" appears 50 times. Except for the two parts of the Hebrew book, the rest is the parable that Jesus Christ made to people in the synoptic gospel. For some reason this word does not appear in the Gospel of John. In other words, as far as parables are concerned, one should look at the synoptic gospels. If you read Judaism's Tamroot, you can see that the rabies often used parables when preaching. The only disappointing thing is that Tamroot is a book made between the fourth and sixth centuries of Christ. It is difficult to clarify how preaching was done by the Rabbi in Christ's or Christ's time, because there is no pre-tamroot material. However, I do not think that Jews' rabies saw the way they spoke Jesus and their disciples, and that they themselves adopted the parable. Rather, the opposite possibility is greater.

So how much parable is in the synoptic gospels? This is quite different depending on the theory. Some say that there are only twenty-seven. Some say that there are about seventy, some hundred, and so on. This is the difference that emerges from here, whether or not it is possible to enter things like sayings and sayings in parables. After all, the difference in numbers is not that big. The main thing of this parable is roughly divided into two groups.

First, the character of teaching is strong.

Second, it has a strong ethical meaning.

But this distinction is not so clear either.

First group

(1) A story on the sea (Matthew 13)

Seedlings, mustard seeds, bread seeds, pearls, treasures hidden in the fields, fish nets, etc.

(2) A parable mainly on the kingdom of God, especially directed to disciples and Pharisees

A man who works in the vineyard (Matthew 20: 1-16), two children (Matthew 21: 28-32), a bad farmer (Matthew 21: 33-44), the wedding of the king

(Matthew 22: 1-14) The ten shrine maidens (25: 1-13), the parable of the talents (Matthew twenty-five: 14-30, Luke nineteen: 11-27)

Second group (generally from the Luca Gospel)

Two men praying in the temple (Luke 18: 9-14), a friend who asks for bread in the middle of the night (Luke 11: 5-8), an unjust judge (Luke 18: 1-8), a mercy Samaria A man (Luke ten: 30-38), a pardonful servant (Matthew eighteen: 23-35), a lost sheep, a lost drachma, a prodigal son (Luke fifteenth: 3-32), a foolish rich man ( Luke 12: 16-21), the unjust manager (Luke 16: 1-12), the rich and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31)

[arche0ps]

Lazzy doodle for my tupper of her :3 h ribbon isn't nearly big enough but oh well

[arche0ps]

Oh yeah lazarus doodles I never posted :3 spring/winter casual