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After reading many articles, I have two questions. "To be absent from the body is to be present with the L-rd" and "today you will be with me in paradise" both passages seem to indicate that something follows death besides sleep or the end of existence (prior to the resurrections). What do you take as the meaning of those two scriptures?

When Paul stated in 2Corinthians 5:8, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Master," he was simply saying that he would prefer to be with the Master, not that he was or could. He was not even sure of his own salvation, 1Cor. 9:27. The common misquotation of the passage is, "To be absent from the body IS to be present with the Master." The two are not symbiotic. Being without a body following death is not the same as being with Yahshua, as the misquotation suggests. Besides, not everyone without a body (in death) will receive salvation.

When Yahshua stated in Luke 23:43, "Verily I say unto thee, today shall you be with me in paradise," we understand He was saying, "I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise." It was an emphatic statement and the Greek did not have punctuation to bring that out. Yahshua was assuring the thief that very day that upon His return that the thief would be with Him in paradise or the kingdom." We use the same terminology when we say, "I’m telling you right now…" Punctuation was added by English translators based on their understanding of the context. We know that the common misquotation of the verse is in error because Yahshua never went to paradise that day. He was in the tomb three days and nights before He resurrected from death.