Spirituality Column #729

November 3, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

About Those Two Thieves    

By Bob Walters

“Who ARE those guys?” – Dialogue spoken by both Butch Cassidy AND the Sundance Kid as the posse closed in on them in the 1969 movie of the same name.

Two thieves.

No, we’re not talking about any particular candidates on this election day nor, actually, about Butch and Sundance – two thieves of the American old west circa 1900.

We are talking about the two “thieves” crucified with Jesus.  Who were they?

Nobody knows, but I do have a theory.  And there is one thing about the two thieves that we do know: there is no agreement in the Gospels (Matthew 27:38 and Luke 19:39-44) or anywhere in the Bible for that matter, that they were “thieves.”

In the (old) King James Version, Matthew does call them “thieves,” but the New King James Version translates the Greek noun lestai, as do many other versions, as “robbers.”  My NIV and other versions say “rebels.”  The ESV says “robbers,” NASB says “rebels” and NASB1995 says “robbers.”  Chalk “thieves” up to Church tradition.

In Luke, the Greek adjective kakourgon (23:39) is translated as “malefactors” in the KJV but “criminals” in most others.  Funny how the whole world came to know these two guys as thieves, but they obviously were something far worse in the eyes of Rome.

One reason we know that is because Romans did not crucify thieves; they crucified insurrectionists and murderers – those rebels and revolutionaries who threatened or challenged the power of Rome.  They crucified people like Barabbas – pardoned by Pilate and replaced by Jesus – who was to be on the third cross that day.

My long time Bible mentor George Bebawi always counsels against putting too much stock in a single word in scripture, instead being careful to consider context, themes, metaphors, allegories, and the larger truth of Jesus’s mission – e.g., He was the son of God come to fulfill Israel, initiate God’s Kingdom on earth, prove the reality of a loving and glorious God, and to hasten the gift of the Holy Spirit onto mankind.

A helpful note in the “Expanded Bible,” which George affirmed (George is a multi-lingual Bible translator), is that “robber” was a Roman term that also meant rebels, revolutionaries, brigands, and insurrectionists, i.e., people who “robbed” Roman power.

Anyway, I was preparing notes last week for the Thursday morning Bible study I teach (“Words of Jesus,” we’re up to the Cross).  Look at the “crowd” that showed up at Pilate’s to shout for Barabbas’s release; evidently separate from the Jewish leaders clamoring for Jesus’s crucifixion.  Then at the cross, there is the “crowd” that wasn’t the Jewish leaders, nor were they the few Jesus followers – Mary, John, a couple others.  But I wondered why those “other” people were there.  Did they know the “two thieves”? 

Then notice the “good” thief’s words of rebuke to the “bad” thief, “We are punished justly,” (Luke 23:41), and I got to thinking.  It appears the Romans were prepared for three crucifixions that day.  So … perhaps the thieves – under “the same sentence” (23:40) with each other – were co-conspirators, “lieutenants” in rebellion with the person who actually was supposed to be on the third cross that day: Barabbas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that the three crosses comprised an apt, divine metaphor for the world: God (sinless Jesus) and two sinners: one who believed and one who did not.  Funny, Adam got kicked out of paradise; next man in was a thief.