I have a question and wondered if anyone here could help me.

I post often on an ET site and a question came up about the rich man and Lazarus and where the comma should be in Luke9:23 where Jesus says to the thief on the cross,"Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." I say the comma should be after the word today and look like this: "Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in paradise."

Does anyone have any information on this verse or what language Jesus spoke in to the thief when he was on the cross? I don't know languages well, but I do know that the Hebrew has no punctuation so where the comma goes would be up to the one who writes it. I haven't looked into this yet, but I plan on doing that after I post this.

Also, what is this place called paradise? I'll look into that also, but, I know so many of you have studied these things already and maybe you could help me, or give me a website that could answer my questions.

Thanks again for all your help.

Edit apostrophe is (') comma is (,)

Hi Debra

Fixed your post, (having a blonde moment - LoL)

Well the debate is irrelevant as it is likely it comes from the premise He descended into hell to set the captives free. We know He went to the grave and was there for 3 days. What transpired in that time we have one reference of setting prisoners free aka gates of hell et al. Me thinks that he in fact went to collect the folk and usher them home but I am of the mindset it happened when they died anyway. Being outside of time after death - there is no reason this could have happened timewise than and also when the folk died. That of course based on the idea that when we die we are transported to the heavenly realm immediately.

Folk have the idea that when we die we kinda go into limbo of sorts awaiting the 1st resurrection but my belief is that we do not wait even though folk dieing a 100 years later may see this event as a corporate occasion. Thus if one died 1000 years ago and one died today, their resurrection will appear to them at the same time and time has no meaning after death.

This is of course how I believe it but the fundies usually see it as a 1st resurrection for the "righteous" coinciding with the rapture and a 2nd resurrection after the millennial reign.

I tend to lean towards the idea that the 1st resurrection is from death aka born again and the 2nd resurrection when we die. That would line up with the reigning bit for those alive now and "saved" - 1000 years IMO is merely symbolic of a long time.

Again this needs to be viewed from a spiritual stance and not just physical. We all die and thus I cannot see the idea of two resurrections.

Hope that helps

Blessings

No Bernie, I was having the blonde moment. I thought apostrophe sounded funny, but wasn't aware of it until you said you fixed it. I think I was having a senior moment, since my hair has long ago lost its blondness. Your answer helped, Bernie and I thank you for it.