Is Lazarus the beggar the same one who was raised from the dead by Jesus?

Answer 1

Lazarus, in the story of the rich man and the beggar, was a leper. The other Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, was not.

This story of Lazarus the beggar appears in Luke 16:19-31. There is mentioned that Lazarus had "sores" (King James Version) but nothing is said about him being a leper. If he was a leper, most likely he would not have been permitted to "be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores (v 21)." If he was a leper, being leprosy was contagious, neither of these actions would have been permitted. In other words, his social status would not have allowed him to be in such close proximity particularly to a wealthy or "rich man." Additionally, there is nothing in this story that alludes to Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, who Jesus raised from the dead, being the same person as Lazarus the beggar.

Answer

The six New Testament Gospel accounts: involving Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha; Simon the Leper, Simon the Pharisee; and Lazarus the beggar feeding from the rich man's table; and the woman or women who so spectacularly and "memorably" anointed Jesus' feet at such great cost; on one hand seem to be related to each other. On the other hand there seem to be so many differences that up to three different incidents, possibly in three different houses and three different towns at three different stages of Jesus' ministry occurred.

Amidst all this confusion, and the various assumptions different commentators use to try and bridge the gaps or make the connections, one seemingly innocuous point could possibly solve the puzzle. The accounts do seem to comprise a conundrum or enigma. These famous and well-known Biblical event-accounts are perhaps the most enigmatic, probably because of the emotions of the women at Jesus' feet, but a solution to this enigma may provide a key to unlocking others.

The key here is to consider the Hebrew word for "leper". The next point is to understand what Hebrew does. grammatically, to say someone "became a leper". No one was born with leprosy, though one man was born blind. Most information from the Bible supports the fact that leprosy was a disease one caught because it was contagious or 'in the air'. "Leper" in Hebrew is tsara or zara. Hebrew uses the verb "to be" with a lamed ('L') so that he "became a leper" reads "haytah l'zara". Transliterated into Greek, where 'us' or 'os' is added to indicate the status of the noun, we get Lazarus. Now if Simon the Pharisee had become a leper soon after Luke's account, very early in Jesus' ministry, and later in Luke we see Jesus visit Mary and Martha, it is possible that Simon now Lazarus, subsequently died after perhaps 4 days going into deep coma or whatever, and Jesus came to resurrect him, which He did. Thus we see that all these events occur in the one house but in two quite different occasions early and late in Jesus' ministry, in the one town named Bethany, outside the city of Jerusalem's walls, accounting for the sinner woman coming to gate-crash the first party (in Luke's account) while Simon-Lazarus is part of the wealthy pharisaic community set. All accounts involving the women anointing Jesus' feet are thus in the same household which Jesus visited according to Luke's account obviously after Lazarus had to leave it because of his disease. Simon-Lazarus only returned back to his own household with his two sisters after his resurrection.

All this explains one reason why the Jewish leaders then wanted to kill Lazarus along with Jesus. The 'Leper healing' was an embarrassment to the leaders because along with the healing of the 'Man Born Blind', another full chapter in John's Gospel along with the 'Raising of Lazarus', and the exorcism of the deaf-dumb man, healed lepers were one of the three specific miracles the leaders had earlier (just before the Birth of Jesus) designated that only the Messiah or God could perform. But the Pharisees especially hated Jesus because He did not abide by the rules they had added to the Laws of Moses which effectively bonded the common people to them making them quite rich in the process. Simon, humbled by Jesus' little lesson about the man with the big debts who had been forgiven much, contracted leprosy so that Jesus could heal him. Whether Lazarus repented and believed Jesus before his death, or only after, is a question perhaps, but the faith of his two sisters may have led Jesus to resurrect Lazarus, after which he certainly was a believer. That may, of course what was behind the discussion between the rich man and Abraham in the parable about the beggar named Lazarus and the Rich Man. In parables, the people are never named and are always anonymous. That parable is different. Which means that it is almost certain the beggar in the parable also "became a leper" so that he to was l'tsara or Lazarus.

Another assumption behind all this is that the Gospel texts we read had an underlying Hebrew draft from which the Greek translations were lifted. Since most scholars believe Aramaic was the underlying language from which the Greek was lifted, this point about Hebrew grammar with the verb 'to be' and the 'lamed' preposition would rarely have occurred to them. However, this becomes yet another vexing question for scholars and commentators. What these accounts actually show is that there are some seriously wrong assumptions being made about the origin of the Gospels.

On a final note regarding this, another issue that led this commentator to suspect there was one household, one family, at one town - Bethany - but at two quite different stages of Jesus' Ministry (very beginning and very end), is the question of the two cities Israelites built for Pharaoh (Exodus 1:11) or "Eth Pithom and Eth Raamses". Elsewhere it is shown that they were two capital cities of Egypt on the same site in two different eras (1500 BC and 600 BC), not two different cities in two different parts of Egypt in the same era as Moses (1500 BC). Jeremiah tells us that he went to Egypt in 600 BC to find Israelites once again at the brick kilns for the construction activity at Migdol. The 'eth' before the names of the towns "Pithom and Raamses" is comprised of the Hebrew letters aleph and tav or the Greek Alpha and Omega ('A and Z'). In this form the word is a simple definite article but the Hebrew grammar in that passage does not require it. So why put it there? The answer to that goes beyond the scope of this question except to say that these two letters play a very interesting role in the Hebrew Old Testament text. Jesus said at the end of the Bible, "I am the Alpha and Omega" which in Hebrew would be "The Aleph and Tav". It appears to be a clue to decoding the Bible.

Answer 2

No, Lazarus the beggar from The Bible is not the same person as Lazarus of Bethany who was raised from the dead by Jesus. Lazarus the beggar is a character in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke, while Lazarus of Bethany is the brother of Mary and Martha and was raised from the dead by Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Answer 3

A:No. In Luke's Gospel, Lazarus was a hypothetical person in a parable that Jesus told about him being raised from the dead. In John's Gospel, Lazarus was the brother of Jesus' friends, Mary and Martha, and Jesus raised him from the dead.

Answer 4

No because Lazarus the beggar died outside the mans house who he was begging to. However, the other Lazarus died of illness. (I think...)