Look how Luke describes it all in 16:22: ἀπενεχθῆναι αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀγγέλων εἰς τὸν κόλπον Ἀβραάμ. There Luke is (rather poetically) describing angels taking the man's soul (unless he means that they take him bodily?). Yes, Lazarus has been "taken back by/to God" in an ultimate sense, but in the proximate sense, Luke sees him taken by angels up to heaven with Abraham. Luke's conception, maybe, is of a God sitting atop and directing the universe through agents. This is not unique to Luke, but is a bit of a contrast with the more personal, agentive God often seen in Jewish and Christian literature. A lot of the angel stories in the Bible come from Luke and Acts.
As an aside, the Wisdom 15:8 language of "μετ᾿ ὀλίγον πορεύεται ἐξ ᾖς ἐλήμφθη," as well as being from Gen 3:19, of course, "... ἕως τοῦ ἀποστρέψαι σε εἰς τὴν γῆν, ἐξ ἧς ἐλήμφθης," perhaps bears a slight similarity to Seikilos' "πρὸς ὀλίγον."
Statistics: Posted by jeidsath — Wed Oct 25, 2023 2:42 pm