I’d like to pushback on that particular verse Luke 23:43 in which it has been translated as “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”.
1. There was no punctuation in the original text, and so translators added it where it felt important to them, in their context. Scholars would disagree with the common (by common, I mean popular) English translated versions and re-write it as “Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise”. That comma is so important. It has precedent in that much of the OT is festooned with events that occur ‘today’. So Jesus is saying, or it is recorded as Jesus is saying, that on this day you will be with me ‘in paradise’.
2. Saturday 25th May marks the Scottish FA Cup Final where Celtic and Rangers are playing once again. If Celtic were to be playing at home, they would be at Parkhead or as it is known locally ‘Paradise’’. Paradise is not a Greek word but a loan word from Persia. When the Hebrews were writing about the Garden of Eden, they were trying to convey that it was a Garden of Delight – not a physical place. Upon the Greeks seeking to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into their native tongue, they took Eden in its Hebrew form and translated it to Paradiso, hence paradise. Furthermore, in the Greek of Luke 23:43 it isn’t ‘a paradise’ but ’the paradise’. It isn’t an actual place but a metaphorical, spiritual place of being with God. Jesus was telling the man that he would be joining Jesus in the paradise, which relates to Eden, which was on Earth.
3. Hence no mention of Sheol, or worse still purgatory (not biblical but taking an understanding of Sheol and developing it for the benefit of the Church).
4. If Jesus was to go to paradise, as some might see it in Heaven, why did he spend that night in the grave, as the Bible confirms? Or in Sheol as some Christians believe?
5. Rather than thinking of Earth and Heaven as separate entities, what if we were to consider Heaven to be a state of mind, being with God. Rather than dying and our ‘souls’ – very Greek philosophical thinking – going to be with God, to be reunited with a form of a body in some kind, and us trying to be “reborn” in a physical Heaven, replete with clouds and harps, is there another way to consider this?
How about viewing this on a different axis. Consider being with God on one axis and not being with God on a perpendicular axis. Living our lives where, we can be found all across that graph; sometimes closer to the God axis, whilst, on other days, being far away from God. Being far from away from God is what the church deems to be sin, a breakdown of the relationship between God and ourselves. That’s not the physical act or thought or emotion, but the actual separation from us and God. Hence, the desire is to live a life that is close to the God axis for that is where we will know God more and more – a bit like Heaven.
“Death is but a bus stop on the journey of life, it is not the place where the bus stops, for the journey continues” – a paraphrased quote from the Methodist website. On our graph, time does not physically exist, for our journey continues. What is key is to remain close to God.
6. Please be careful with the word eternal: it does not mean physical time but a long time, that is without reference to physical time. Being in a boring class (or listening to a sermon) might be construed as eternal at times 😉
7. Oh, any reference to ‘God breathed’ scripture also needs a health warning. Firstly it is heavily doubted that Paul wrote either of the letters to Timothy. The evidence is far greater for him not writing 1 Tim than 2 Tim. There is some thought that Paul had a secretary to write the second letter but that is sketchy. Secondly, this is one verse, when throughout the Bible we are told to follow God, not a book which has yet to be compiled 300+ years later. If it is so, we should disregard the NT but only focus on the OT. “Paul” was trying to encourage to Timothy in his work – he was not writing to us in the 21st C. We might be mindful not to read in context which was never intended. Think of the history which was be played out at that time; for example, Colossians was seemingly written to the church in Colossae after a major earthquake where the city was in ruins. Given the numerous errors in transcribing (they weren’t paid but slaves who had a capability of copying text, sometimes very poorly) and translating that occurred throughout the millennia, we might be wary of taking the verse, especially if in red ink, literally.
Who wrote it, why did they write it, when did they write it, and for what purpose? may be questions we should be asking ourselves.
Then, and only then, should we take what is read and bring it into our own lives. But hey, what God says to you, go with that.
Hope that helps, hopefully not hinders.
I am really enjoying the dialogue