[Diamond]

... Hebrew to this day does not have a word "Paradise" or the equivalent. The fact that the Hebrew word for garden (any garden) is irrelevant.

That is simply incorrect:

Judaism

In the Old Testament, the word 'Pardis' (a transliteration of the Persian word) occurs in Song 4:13, Eccl.2:5, and Neh. 2:8 meaning 'park', the original Persian meaning of the word, similar to the description of the parks of Cyrus the Great by Xenophon in Anabasis.

In Second Temple era Judaism 'paradise' came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophesies of restoration of Eden. The Septuagint uses the word around 30 times, both of Eden, (Gen.2:7 etc.) and of Eden restored (Ezek. 28:13, 36:35) etc. In the Jewish pseudepigrapha use of paradise varies. In the Apocalypse of Moses Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise after having been tricked by the serpent. Later after the death of Adam, the Archangel Michael carries the body of Adam to be buried in Paradise which is the Third Heaven.

Later in Rabbinical Judaism the word 'Pardis' reoccurs, but less often in the Second Temple context of Eden or restored Eden. Tosefta Hagigah14b uses the word of the veil around mystic philosophy.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise

Jewish Encyclopedia.com says,

—Biblical Data:

The word "paradise" is probably of Persian origin. It occurs but three times in the Old Testament, namely, in Cant. iv. 13, Eccl. ii. 5, and Neh. ii. 8. In the first of these passages it means "garden"; in the second and third, "park." In the apocalypses and in the Talmud the word is used of the Garden of Eden and its heavenly prototype (comp. references in Weber's "Jüdische Theologie," 2d ed., 1897, pp. 344 et seq.). From this usage it came to denote, as in the New Testament, the abode of the blessed (comp. Luke xxiii. 43; II Cor. xii. 4; Rev. ii. 7).[snip] [emphasis mine]

See also, IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL - Jewish Encyclopeida

The ideas of the immortality of the soul and the abode of the blessed came much earlier to Jewish thought than you are portraying. As can be be seen from the sources above, it is not at all implausible that Jesus was simply telling the thief that he would be him in the abode of the blessed, and used a word picture to convey that truth. There is no evidence or reason to assume that the thief would not have understood the word in this way.

Click on the links if you want a more balanced view of the Jewish mindset than I am able to present here in short excerpts.

Cordially,

[kosta50]

That is simply incorrect: Judaism
In the Old Testament, the word 'Pardis' (a transliteration of the Persian word) occurs in Song 4:13, Eccl.2:5, and Neh. 2:8 meaning 'park'

In pre-apocalyoptic Judaism of the 2nd century BC the was used to mean garden or park, and it is borrowed form the Persian word of the same meaning.

As your source admits, it eventually became associated with the garden of Eden, (still meaning the garden or park), i.e. the paradis of Eden, and only so in the apocryphal works. Surely you don't consider the Apocalypse of Moses a genuine biblical text! It is a latter-day Christian work written in Greek based on some Jewish legends.

In the apocalypses and in the Talmud the word is used of the Garden of Eden and its heavenly prototype

But you are using this out of context. Apocalypses are writings of the Essenes and are not considered mainline Judaism, and Talmud is a Christian-era rabbinic work, heavily influenced by Platonic beliefs.

When I speak of Judaism, I speak of pre-Christian, pre-Babylonian, genuine Judaism. It seems to me that most people have no idea that Judaism evolved and is not what it used to be in beginning (i.e. the Torah Judaism). Today, Judaism is a Pharisaical branch of Judaism that evolved in the Christian world, heavily influenced by mysticism, legends, Platonism ,etc.

When Jesus allegedly spoke to the good thief, there was no Talmud, and last time I checked he wasn't an Essene either.. Talmud doesn't come into existence until about 200 years after Christ and isn't completed until about 500 years after him. You can't just spill facts without their context.

See also, IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL - Jewish Encyclopeida. The ideas of the immortality of the soul and the abode of the blessed came much earlier to Jewish thought than you are portraying

No it didn't. let me quote form your own link:

[necromancy] was discouraged and suppressed by prophet and lawgiver as antagonistic to the belief in Yhwh, the God of life, the Ruler of heaven and earth, whose reign was not extended over Sheol until post-exilic times (Ps. xvi. 10, xlix. 16, cxxxix. 8).

In other words, genuine Judaism prohibited belief in immortal soul. The key word here is post-exilic, after the exile. In other words when Persial freed Israel form Babylonian captivity and influenced Judaism with Zoroastrianism, c. 5th century BC.

It seems to me some key words go right by you, or you don;t read the whole thing.

As a matter of fact, eternal life was ascribed exclusively to God and to celestial beings who "eat of the tree of life and live forever" (Gen. iii. 22, Hebr.), whereas man by being driven out of the Garden of Eden was deprived of the opportunity of eating the food of immortality

Duh!

It is the Psalmist's implicit faith in God's omnipotence and omnipresence that leads him to the hope of immortality

It was only in connection with the Messianic hope that, under the influence of Persian ideas, the belief in resurrection lent to the disembodied soul a continuous existence (Isa. xxv. 6-8; Dan. xii. 2

Messianic hope is a latter-day development in Judaism. In fact it can be traced tom a VERY late development and influence of pagan Greek thought

The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended, as the Semitic name "Minos"

So, today's Jewish belief in immortality or resurrection is a later development (limited only to Pharisaical Judaism, the form of Judaism that survived and morphed into rabbinic Judaism after 70 AD and the second Exile that produced Christian Era Talmud), and can be traced to Persian, Greek and Egyptian origins, none of which have anything to do with the genuine Mosaic Judaism.