the role of the lukan parables in terms of the purpose of luke's gospel

of the passive form ( of elsewhere (Matt 8:6, 14; 9:2; Mark 7:30; Rev
2:22). 34 Here the gate, like the great chasm functions as a division between two entirely
different worlds, just as the place of begging and the place of celebrating, and in Hades and in
Abraham’s bosom. It seems excessive speculation, however, that the gate metaphor suggests,
as Scott believes, a possibility that the rich man will become the poor man’s patron in a
limited-goods society in which the places of rich and poor are fixed. 35
Lazarus longs to eat the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. But the dogs came
and licked his sores. Those scraps of bread were used to wipe guests’ hands and then tossed
36
under the table. Although nowhere is there indication that he would be able to acquire the
object of his desire, to some extent, it is likely that sometimes Lazarus would actually eat the
rich man’s crumbs. 37 It is not clear here whether the dogs are roaming street dogs or the rich
man’s, but in any case, dogs lick Lazarus’ sores, thereby aggravating his pain and pitiful
condition. Unlike Bailey’s suggestion, 38 the dog’s licking should not be thought as an act of
sympathy, but rather as a very degrading act which renders him ritually impure. 39
By means
of the gate, the story indeed pictures the stark contrast between inside and outside.
To be sure, their deaths are portrayed in reverse order to their lives so as to underline the
40
reversal of their fate in the life to come. The poor man finds himself in the bosom of
Abraham, whereas the rich man finds himself in Hades, that is, the poor man died and was
carried by the angels into the bosom of Abraham, but the rich man died and was buried, and
he finds himself in torment in hell. That there is no direct mention of Lazarus’ burial seems to
34. Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables (London: SCM Press, 1966), 145; Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to
Luke, 1131; Green, Luke, 606; Hultgren, Parables, 112.
35. Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 151.
36. Jeremias, Parables, 184; Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, 118; Green, Luke, 606; C.G. Montefiore,
The Synoptic Gospels (2 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1927), 2:538; Kilgallen, The Twenty Parables of Jesus in
the Gospel of Luke, 126.
37. Hultgren, Parables, 116; Duane Warden, “The Rich Man and Lazarus: Poverty, Wealth, and Human Worth,”
SCJ 6 (2003), 81-93, 81.
38. Bailey regards the act of dogs’ licking as an act which stands over against the rich man’s act, citing the
medical effects that the licking produces relief to his sores and easing his pain from Ibn al-Tayyib. Bailey, “The
New Testament Job, The parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man An Exercise in Middle Eastern New Testament
Studies,” 23. For observation that roaming street dogs as unclean animals are a plague in the ancient world. See
Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, 118; Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, 252; Scott, Hear Then the Parable,
151; Metzger, Consumption and Wealth in Luke’s Travel Narrative, 139; Str-B 1:722.
39. Malina, New Testament World, 149-83; Outi Lehtipuu, “Characterization and Persuasion: The Rich Man and
The Poor Man in Luke 16:19-31,” in ed., David Rhoads and Kari Syreeni, Characterization in the Gospel:
Reconceiving Narrative Criticism (Sheffield; Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 73-105, here 89; Snodgrass,
Stories with Intent, 425.
40. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 203.
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