Due to the Use of Greek Lestes and kakourgos for Thief 4 men were crucified?.

[Raymond]

I am sharing the below article that was tweeted by Chris Wheeler on Twitter.

He explains that there were 4 men crucified with Jesus and not two as per tradition based on the fact that two different Greek words are used for the “thieves”. 1. Lestes and 2. kakourgos.
To me it looks like he has a very good case. Could someone help confirm as I am not good with Greek and my mental powers of logic are not what they used to be.

Mike Wheeler Tweet
Tradition might be the strongest force known to mankind.
Traditional Christian teachings are so ingrained that even a hint that they might be wrong causes triggering of the highest order.
I’m going to point out a simple traditional belief that is easily proved to be in error.
Yet most fellow Christians will reject it out of hand because of tradition.
I picked this one because, as far as I can tell, there aren’t any issues with salvation or any eternal rewards.
Just a combination of apparent contradictions that Pipe smoking, Cardigan sweater wearing Professors use as ammunition to prove to unsuspecting young adults the Bible cannot be trusted.
Three crucified.
Matthew and Mark both record two thieves at the crucifixion of Jesus and say both reviled him.
Matthew 27:44, “The thieves also…cast the same in his teeth.”
Mark 15:32, “And they…reviled him.”
Luke records this.
Luke 23:39, “and one of the malefactors…railed on him”
23:40, “But the other answering rebuked him (the other malefactor)…”
And this malefactor goes on to defend Jesus and receives an eternal blessing.
John doesn’t mention any conversation but he has input we will see later.
Here we have the 1st of several apparent contradictions Professor Cardigan Pipe Smokers’ use to pound “errors” into poor students just trying to get enough credits to get a better than average job.

I’ll come back to this.
First let’s check out “who” these “two” are.
Matthew and Mark both call these “two” thieves, lestes in Greek.
Common robbers. The kind we might call cut-purse today. They pinch a loaf of bread off a merchant cart or pick-pocket an unsuspecting traveler. They don’t use violence as a rule and prefer to use stealth to get away.
Luke however calls these “two” malefactors, kakourgos.
Hardened criminals that prefer to intimidate their prey and tend to be very violent. We call them thugs today.
I would like to point out that Luke knew the word lestes and used it four times in his gospel.
10:30
10:36
19:46
22:52

But here at the crucifixion he uses kakourgos exclusively 3 times.
For anyone who has read any of my responses you know it’s time to bring out the dancing bears and the circus hoops.
Pastors for centuries have been whipping those poor dancing bears through several circus hoops to explain this and 4 other contradictions of this gospel mess.

They try to squeeze these two accounts into a single event by saying things like, well, at 1st both of them were reviling Jesus but later one changed his mind. Or Luke meant lestes and not kakourgus.

And anyway it’s just a small detail and it doesn’t matter.
And they chase those poor bears through their hoops.
Well, to me , it matters and not just here at the crucifixion.
But let’s check in with John and see if he can save those poor bears.
John 19:18, “Where they crucified him and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.”
Like I said, John doesn’t record any conversation or accusations. He’s focused on the details.
But here we see KJV translators once again fiddling with the text to make this verse match their “traditional” belief.
Checking any interlinear it is easy to see they added this word “one.”
Now normally when KJV adds a word they put it in italics to let us know they added a word (apps don’t have this feature).

But here they fail to do that, so most people don’t even realize they are playing loose with their “word for word” mandate.
In Greek this says, “allos duo enteuthen kia enteuthen”
Allos is others of a different kind, two on this side and on that side. Four total with Jesus in the midst.
KJV changed the word order of the sentence AND added the word “one” to satisfy THEIR traditional belief that only 3 were crucified that day.
But John is letting us know that there were different kinds of criminals crucified with Jesus and the two on each side were different.
When we come to the breaking of the legs we see 2 further confirmations of this.
19:32 Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the 1st (we will see in a minute this is a lestes) and then of the other (allos, a different kind; the kakourgos Luke mentioned) which was crucified with him (key phrasing here).
When they came to Jesus, he was already dead.
If there were only 3 crucified the order we see is this:
<criminal>-<Jesus>-<criminal>
Now I ask you, does it make sense for the soldiers to break the legs of one criminal and then skip Jesus and run around to the other and break his legs?
Not really.
The true order (as we shall see) is this:
<lestes>-<kakourgos>-<Jesus>-<kakougos>-<lestes>
This matches the event of the breaking of the legs in order.
They broke the legs of a lestes (left or right I do not know) then of an allos (different kind of criminal), kakourgos but Jesus was already dead so they didn’t break his legs (and prophecy was fulfilled).
Now we’ve saved those dancing bears at least one trip through the circus hoops.
Moving on.
Another contradiction the Pipe Smokers hit future Bachelor degree indoctrinates with is the timing of these “two” criminals being crucified.

Luke 23:32, “And there were also two other (heteros this time, two others of the same kind), malefactors, led with him to be put to death.”
These three were crucified at the same time and the reason for the order I listed above is because these two malefactors were already on their crosses when the lestes are brought out.
But this also makes sense that one of the malefactors would have been closer than the lestes making his conversation with Jesus easier.
Here in Luke we see the parting of the garments AFTER these 3 were crucified (Luke 23:34) and the superscription being put up AFTER they were crucified (Luke 23:38).
Checking in with Matthew and Mark we are going to see a different sequence of events and Pastors are going to bring out even more circus hoops to run their dancing bears through.
Matthew 27:35, “And they crucified him, and parted his garments..”
27:37, “they set up…his accusation.”
27:38, “THEN were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.”

Mark records the same sequence.
15:24, “..And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments..”
15:26, “..And the superscription…”
15:27, “..and with him they crucify two thieves..”
Mark is not as emphatic as Matthew who noted these were THEN crucified but the order of events is the same.

And here we start to see the crux of the tradition and the reason the Cardigan Sweaters can so easily convince future tax payers to NOT trust the Bible.

Tradition has made these similar events identical.

But they are not.

Matthew and Mark are describing events that happened after the other two were already crucified. I have no idea why none of these three men recorded both sets of criminals.

But this is the way they were inspired to write down their gospels, so we will have to ask God later.

There are other details of these 3 accounts that prove out what I am saying but I will leave those, for you who are not completely triggered, to ferret out for yourselves.

The one detail I think is interesting is that it appears to me the intense reviling started when the two lestes were brought out after the original three had been on the cross for whatever length of time that was.

All three accounts mention some mocking from the crowd and passersby at all stages of this event but Luke does make a point of the Malefactor’s conversation being made AFTER the superscription went up.

And to me this makes this hardened criminal’s story even more amazing.

This kakgougos had been led out with Jesus and had seen this entire event maybe even before they came out from Jesus’ mock trial.

He may have seen how Jesus was intentionally wrongly convicted and sentenced to death unlawfully.

This evil doer saw this innocent man, who had been so brutally beaten he was unrecognizable, ministering to his family and friends and even praying to God to forgive his tormentors.

This man who likely spent most of his life intimidating other people for his own profit, witnessed the greatest man who ever lived having the same nails driven through his hands and feet without so much as a whimper.

And after hours on the cross and seeing the crowds rail on him and seeing these common robbers also revile him, HE HAD HAD enough.

He told all the rest of them to shut the f*ck up and take their punishment like a man.

For they all deserved what they got but Jesus had earned his respect, something very hard to do with this type of criminal.

Jesus presented himself in such a honorable manner throughout this entire event that this man pushed back on the other’s with the most honest statement of his kind, Dost not thou fear God?

And Jesus saw his heart was right with God and made him an eternal promise that day.

So why have I spent so much time talking about “contradictions” that are only present from a traditional, dancing bear, circus hoop teaching of these events?

Because there are so many traditional teachings that are far more important than this one criminal receiving the promise of eternal life.

Entire sections of scripture that force those poor dancing bears to risk the flames of the fires of the circus hoops for no valid reason other than mankind’s incredible resistance to admit they are wrong.

Entire belief systems that cause intelligent people who go to college so they can live a better life, end up get driven away from God because Christians can’t pull their heads out of their ass*s and rethink what Genesis really says. Think Isaiah 45:18.
1st Corinthians 12-14 so badly translated the entire power base of the gift of Holy Spirit (that was in part why Jesus had thorns beaten into his skull), is rendered moot because KJV thought the 9 things listed were divvied out piece meal.
NO !!
All 9 all the time ought to be our mantra.
But tradition denies us our power and keeps us from putting on the whole armor of God.

[Timothy]

Raymond,

This is complete nonsense. First, the alleged distinction between λῃσταί (robbers) in Matthew & Mark and κακούργους (criminals) in Luke is not a real distinction, since these terms are not mutually exclusive. “Robbers” are “criminals.” The term “robber” is more specific, but “criminals” includes robbers. If Luke intended to indicate two more other than those mentioned by Matthew and Mark he would have used a specific term which described their crimes as something other than robbers. The term “criminals” is generic and includes any crime punishable by death. Since Luke stated that there were two “criminals” (which includes “robbers”), there could not be four “criminals.”

His claim that the Greek of John 19:18 supports two men crucified on each side of Jesus (for a total of four) is wrong. καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἄλλους δύο, ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν, μέσον δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν, (and with Him two others, here and there, but in the midst Jesus). That there were only two others and not four is also indicated by vs. 32: “Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him.” The critical point is that τοῦ ἄλλου (“the other”) is singular, which necessarily means there were only two crucified with Jesus. All four Gospels agree on this point.

There is no difficulty at all with the idea that both men at first ridiculed Jesus, but that one of them had a change of heart while hanging on the cross for several hours, especially after the supernatural sign of the sun turning dark for 3 hours while they were hanging there.

Whoever wrote that piece seems to be attempting to undermine some other text (1 Cor. 12-14) by providing an example of bad translation regarding the two thieves. But he obviously does not know what he is talking about. His excessive use of hyperbole and absurd metaphor, and his use of foul language, are also evidence that he is not being objective, but has an ax to grind.

[Raymond]

Thanks Tim. That makes perfect sense! I will let the guy know.

[Author]

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