In the Holy Bible, the expression “the Bosom of Abraham” is found only in two verses of St. Luke’s Gospel (16:22-23). It occurs in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus the imagery of which is plainly drawn from the popular representations of the unseen world of the dead which were current in Our Lord’s time. According to the Jewish conceptions of that day, the souls of the dead were gathered into a general tarrying-place the Sheol of the Old Testament literature, and the Hades of the New Testament writings (cf. Luke 16:22; in the Greek 16:23). A local discrimination, however, existed among them, according to their deeds during their mortal life. In the unseen world of the dead the souls of the righteous occupied an abode or compartment of their own which was distinctly separated by a wall or a chasm from the abode or compartment to which the souls of the wicked were consigned. The latter was a place of torments usually spoken of as Gehenna (cf. Matthew 5:29, 30; 18:9; Mark 9:42 sqq. in the Latin Vulgate) — the other, a place of bliss and security known under the names of “Paradise” (cf. Luke 23:43) and “the Bosom of Abraham” (Luke 16:22-23). And it is in harmony with these Jewish conceptions that Our Lord pictured the terrible fate of the selfish Rich Man, and on the contrary, the glorious reward of the patient Lazarus. **For the continuation, please click on this link
newadvent.org/cathen/01055a.htm
God Bless
The
Jewish Encyclopedia says of the soul and death:
“The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body” – that is, after death – “is a matter of philosophical or theological SPECULATION rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly NOWHERE TAUGHT IN HOLY SCRIPTURE.
It adds:
“The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews
from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended.”
Herodotus, a famous Greek historian living in the 5th century BC also known as the father of history, wrote:
“The Egyptians were also the first that asserted that the soul of man is immortal … This opinion, some among the Greeks have at different periods of time adopted as their own” (
Euterpe, chapter 123).
Compare the similarity of present-day beliefs with what Plato wrote in his book, the
Phaedo:
“The soul whose inseparable attribute is life will never admit of life’s opposite, death. Thus the soul is shown to be immortal, and since immortal, indestructible… Do we believe there is such a thing as death? To be sure. And is this anything but the separation of the soul and body? And being dead is the attainment of this separation, when the soul exists in herself and separate from the body, and the body is parted from the soul. That is death… Death is merely the separation of soul and body.”
Instead of following the Bible’s revelation about the soul and death, some early church leaders followed the teachings of the pagan philosophers. Toward the close of the second century, a school of professing Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, adopted Platonism plus the Bible as their creed. One of their chief teachers, Origen wrote: “Souls are immortal.” He continues to speak of “The Platonist, who believes in the immortality of the soul.” (
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV).
Tertullian, another important teacher, wrote: “For some things are known, even BY NATURE:” – he meant, of course, by using philosophical thinking – “the immortality of the soul, for instance, is held BY MANY…” – yes, not by divine revelation – “I may use, therefore, the OPINION OF PLATO, when he declares: ‘Every soul is immortal’” (Vol. III).
However, as late as the fourth century we find the Catholic apologist, Arnobius, saying of those who were “carried away with an extravagant opinion of themselves that souls are immortal… Will you lay aside your habitual ignorance, O me, who claim God as your Father, and maintain that you are immortal just as He is?” (Vol. VI).
But the truth was gradually snuffed out by the more popular teachings of Greek philosophy, for which most of the early church fathers were steeped in. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia (Article “Soul”) admits that “It [the doctrine of the immortality of the soul] enshrines the principles of ancient SPECULATION.”
If one does not have a preconceived belief of the soul living beyond a person’s death, it would not be necessary to interpret the expression “Abraham’s bosom.” We can take it in its plain and obvious meaning and avoid the path of speculation.
Consider this. If the “bosom of Abraham” means a place of bliss, what is meant by “the bosom of the Father”?
“…the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father…” (John 1:18).
And what about the “bosom of Christ”?
“He [Christ] shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Isa. 40:11).
And you would also have to consider the “bosom of Moses”:
“… Have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child…?” (Num. 11:12).
Carlan