First off, I do not have the answer for this - it was brought to my attention by a brother and I'm just interested to see what everyone thinks. (Maybe shed some light for me?)
Luke 23:43 "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
Where is paradise? When I was asked this, I immediately said Heaven. However, that can't be right. Jesus didn't go to Heaven for three days.
One commentary I read stated that punctuation was not originally used in the inspired Greek in which Luke wrote. The comma was inserted later, and should have been placed after the word "today." That would make the text read, "Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in paradise." The commentator thought that Jesus was stressing the time of his promise - not the time he would be in paradise.
Anyway, just curious what others perception of this verse is.
It says in Ephesians 4:8 ...When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive....verse 9 says He first descended into the lower parts of the earth.. verse 10 says He that descended is the same that ascended up far above all heavens,(We know there is at least 3) that He might fill all things.
So first he descended and then ascended, leading the captivity captive.
When I'm reading a book, which I do very rarely, and I come to a word I don't understand, I look for a dictionary. In this case, "Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words."
Paradise: PARADEISOS (Greek) is an oriental word, first used by the historian Xenophon, denoting the parks of Persian kings and nobles. It is of Persian origin (Old Pers. "pairidaeza," akin to Gk. "peri," around, and "teichos," a wall) whence it passed into Greek. See the Sept., e.g., in Neh. 2:8; Eccl. 2:5; S. of Sol. 4:13. The Sept. translators used it of the garden of Eden, Gen. 2:8, and other respects, e.g., Numb. 24:6; Is. 1:30; Jer. 29;5; Ezek. 31:8,9.
[P] In Luke 24:43, the promise of the Lord to the repentant robber was fulfilled the same day; Christ, at His death, having committed His Spirit to the Father, went in spirit immediately into Heaven itself, the dwelling place of God (the Lord's mention of the place as Paradise must have been a great comfort to the malefactor; to the oriental mind it expressed the sum total of blessedness)."
Vine goes further, but I believe that is enough to answer the question.
