Reincarnation References in Old and New Testaments ?
Declan Hughes
Hello,
I recently read "Many Masters, Many Lives" by Brian L. Weiss
(ISBN# 0-671-65786-0) and he refers to a comparative religions college
freshman course textbook that describes references to reincarnation in the
Old and New Testaments. He goes on to say that,
"In A.D. 325 the roman emperor Constantine the Great, along with his
mother, Helena, had deleted references to reincarnation contained in the New
Testament. The Second Council of Constantinople, meeting in A.D. 553,
confirmed this action and declared the concept of reincarnation a heresy.
Apparently, they thought this concept would weaken the growing power of
the Church by giving humans too much time to seek their salvation. ...
The early Gnostics-Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint Jerome, and
many others-believed that they had lived before and would again."
Can someone direct me to textbooks where I might learn more about such
references to reincarnation ?
Thanks,
Declan Hughes
dhu...@aero.tamu.edu
Mark D. Kluge
In article <52ujpq$r...@netsrv2.spss.com>, dhu...@topgun.tamu.edu. says...
> I recently read "Many Masters, Many Lives" by Brian L. Weiss
> (ISBN# 0-671-65786-0) and he refers to a comparative religions college
> freshman course textbook that describes references to reincarnation in the
> Old and New Testaments. He goes on to say that,
> "In A.D. 325 the roman emperor Constantine the Great, along with his
> mother, Helena, had deleted references to reincarnation contained in
> the New Testament. The Second Council of Constantinople, meeting in A.D
> 553, confirmed this action and declared the concept of reincarnation a
> heresy. Apparently, they thought this concept would weaken the growing
> power of the Church by giving humans too much time to seek their
> salvation. ...
> The early Gnostics-Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint Jerome, and
> many others-believed that they had lived before and would again."
> Can someone direct me to textbooks where I might learn more about such
> references to reincarnation ?
The first places you ought to check are the refenences in Weiss's book. You
should carefully examine the material dealing with deletions from the New
Testament of all material dealing with reincarnation. It won't take too long.
You won't find any from any reputable scholarly source.
You might have better luck tracing references to the attitude of the
Christian Church towards reincarnation, which is incompatible with
traditional Christian ideas of the resurrection. The canons of most of the
councils are available, so you can look through those of the second council
of Constantinople to find those anathematizing those holding that people are
reincarnated.
All of the Christian Fathers believed that they would live again. None of
those mentioned, to my knowledge, believed they had lived before. Again,
since Weiss says it, you should look up the corresponding references for
those Fathers. (If there aren't any references, that ought to tell you
something about the quality the book you're reading.)
It is erroneous to call those Fathers--Clement, Origen, Jerome--Gnostics.
None of them was ever condemned as a Gnostic, and the Christians of their
times and later would have been quite zealous in doing so had there been
cause. Origen did believe in the eternal freedom of the will. So he believed
that those who died in Christ could fall away, come back, fall away...etc.
Some have said that Clement was influenced by Gnostics. Jerome??? He was a
follower of Origen, at least in his early years, but no one seriously calls
Jerome a Gnostic.
mkluge
garyj
In article <52ujpq$r...@netsrv2.spss.com>, dhu...@topgun.tamu.edu says...
>
> Hello,
>
> I recently read "Many Masters, Many Lives" by Brian L. Weiss
> (ISBN# 0-671-65786-0) and he refers to a comparative religions college
> freshman course textbook that describes references to reincarnation in the
> Old and New Testaments. He goes on to say that,
> "In A.D. 325 the roman emperor Constantine the Great, along with his
> mother, Helena, had deleted references to reincarnation contained in the New
> confirmed this action and declared the concept of reincarnation a heresy.
> Apparently, they thought this concept would weaken the growing power of
> the Church by giving humans too much time to seek their salvation. ...
> The early Gnostics-Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint Jerome, and
> many others-believed that they had lived before and would again."
>
> Can someone direct me to textbooks where I might learn more about such
> references to reincarnation ?
>
>
> Declan Hughes
> dhu...@aero.tamu.edu
>
Hi Declan,
We have texts that are far before these mentioned dates and none of them
mention anything about reincarnation. There are several views on the subject
of "lifetimes". The Bible clearly teaches one life one judgment (Hebrews
9:27).
The question is weather to believe in life as cycles, or life as linear
happenings. The Bible is clear on the later, but many believe the first. A
cyclical view of history not supported by any scholarship that the Bible is
other than linear.
--
God Bless,
garyj
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* If this were a contest of right living *
* I'd hope we both win *
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Gerry Palo
In article <533q3r$k...@netsrv2.spss.com>, garyj <ga...@empirenet.com> wrote:
>In article <52ujpq$r...@netsrv2.spss.com>, dhu...@topgun.tamu.edu says...
>>
>
>mention anything about reincarnation. There are several views on the subject
>of "lifetimes". The Bible clearly teaches one life one judgment (Hebrews
>9:27).
As a Christian who believes in reincarnation, I have to agree that there
is no substantive evidence that an early teaching of reincarnation ever
existed in the gospels or other documents that were later edited or
censored. However, the other side is true too, that if you really read
the New Testament carefully you will see that there is no teaching about
only one life either. This includes Hebrews 9:27-28, about which I will
include once more some commentary by Rudolf Frieling, below. The New
Testament is basically silent in its teaching about the destiny of the
human being between death and the Last Day. There are hints here and
there, some of which do point to reincarnation, but it would be incorrect
to say that the New Testament has a teaching on this subject. Nor do I
believe that there were other documents, later lost or suppressed, that
have such teachings.
>
>The question is weather to believe in life as cycles, or life as linear
>happenings. The Bible is clear on the later, but many believe the first. A
>cyclical view of history not supported by any scholarship that the Bible is
>other than linear.
I think that the view of history encompassed by the Bible is not
necessarily linear as you put it. There is a certain linearity about the
unique destiny of the Hebrew people, as if for that whole race its
history were the biography of a single man writ large. But there is even
a cyclic rhythm in that history as well. But more important than an ever
repeating cycle, which is the oriental view of reincarnation and karma,
is the element of growth and development -- first of growth and what you
might call devolution, a downard spiral until a kind of dark nadir is
reached just prior to the Incarnation of Christ (a one time event, I
would add), and the beginnings of an ascent following this, which extends
far into the future. It is this unique view of the Old Testament that
distinguishes it from other sacred writings, whose viewpoint, however
sublime and true, does not grasp this unique sense of man's sojourn on
earth. Nor do they grasp the fact that this sojourn has as its aim and
effect the possibility of man becoming free.
And in the New Testament, most especially in the words of Christ, but also
throughout in Paul and the other New Testament writings, the fulfillment
in terms of the inwardizing of this principle of growth. One of the most
prominent images that Christ raises is that of the seed that falls into
the earth and "groweth up". The picture of growth, of the cycle of the
plant as a kind of miniature picture of the greater growth of the human
soul, is a kind of fulfilment of the Old Testament story, which again is
not linear but rather a picture of a descent, a kind of continuation of
the fall from Paradise, towards the point at which the awaited fulfilment
of the messianic promise would transform things. And as the Old Testament
ends with the prophecy of Elijah who is to come, the New Testament begins
with the coming of Elijah, whose cry from the wilderness is "turn your
thinking around."
This is the turning point of time in which the spirit of God, once
revealed to the ancient Hebrews from without, now descends into earthly
human existence and is transformed in the I of Christ within the I of man.
If this perspective can be grasped, then the whole picture of
reincarnation becomes alive in a new way. For now it is no longer a
matter of an ever recurring cycle, or simply "getting another chance to
get it right." And each human lifetime is not just another go-round whose
results are carried forward, but just as one phase of his life is a part
of his whole biography, so our greater human biography across the whole
span of time since Adam and stretching forward to the Last Judgement
consists of many lives, each of which is a part of the whole of our
developing existence. I like to think of a book by J.B. Phillips,
titled, "Your God is Too Small." So also there should be a book, "Your
Human Being is Too Small." When man is seen not only as he unfolds his
being in this lifetime at a particular point in human history but as
something much greater, then the apparent conflict between reincarnation,
seen in this light, and resurrection dissolves. The two are not mutually
exclusive ideas.
To return to the original post, I would also point out that when the
human being, the human race itself, is seen as in a process of growth,
which includes more and more the development of the capacity for freedom
and also for divine love, essential to which is true self awareness, then
it can also be understood why the ancient ideas of reincarnation faded
and disappeared, and could only really emerge in our time in a Christian
form. It is one of those things that Jesus had to say to us but, "ye
cannot bear it yet." And that is why the Bible is so silent about the
life between death and the Last Day.
Now, here is the promised commentary on Hebrews 9:27-28:
Whenever the question arises whether it is possible to reconcile
reincarnation with Christianity without sacrificing the essential
Christian beliefs about the uniqueness and divinity of Jesus Christ and
His relationship to the earth and man, and the veracity of the Bible, sin,
salvation, and the Last Judgement, someone invariably raises the
apparently justifiable objection that Hebrews 9:27 proves that
reincarnation is incompatible with Christianity. The verse and the one
that following it read:
27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men once to die
and then comes judgement:
28. So Christ also, having been offered once to bear
the sins of many, shall appear a second time, not to
bear sin, to those who eagerly await him, for
salvation. (NASB)
In the following paragraphs from "Christianity and Reincarnation", Rudolf
Frieling discusses this verse and the whole of Hebrews in context to show
that it (a) does not conflict with reincarnation and (b) reaffirms that
Christ Jesus incarnated only once and will never incarnate in a human body
again. He also emphasizes that Christ's Second Coming will not be a new
incarnation.
From "Christianity and Reincarnation" by Rudolf Frieling
"Something from the Letter to the Hebrews should also be mentioned
which is often carelessly quoted as a negation of the idea of
reincarnation: 'And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after
that comes judgement' (9:27). The text continues: 'so Christ, having been
offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time'. It is
the Letter to the Hebrews which again and again uses the word 'once'
(hapax or ephapax) in relation to the deed of Christ in order to make it
quite clear that Christ made the descent into the sphere of death, into
sarx, through Golgotha once and for all, and that His 'coming again' will
be a spiritual event occurring under entirely different conditions. The
idea of death is here used as indicative of something irrevocable and
decisive that concludes a man's life on earth and happens in the course of
it only _once_.
"A mortal on earth is thereby able to understand just what in the
highest sense is meant by 'once' in relation to Christ's deed. Repeated
earth lives are certainly not thought of in the Letter to the Hebrews any
more than elsewhere in the New Testament. The one death that definitely
ends a man's life on earth is brought in as a point of comparison.
"This uniqueness of the experience of death would not be affected by
thoughts of reincarnation. As a particular person, a man dies only once.
In a following incarnation, the eternal individuality that goes through
all of them builds up another person, through which it 'sounds' (per-sonat
- The word comes from the latin 'persona', an actor's mask. Translator's
note.) But death is something that happens _once_ to each person. After
that--judgement. This would also be affirmed from the point of view of
reincarnation. Death is followed by the experience of the sternest
trials.
"Besides, the original text of that Letter to the Hebrews does not
say 'the judgement', but only 'judgement' (krisis). There is indeed also
in the New Testament the concept of a Last Judgement but that does not
exclude 'judgement' being experienced 'already now' in each case after
death. There are also moments even in earthly life when one can be
profoundly shaken by the experience of a 'judgement'. It meant judgement
for Peter when he said to Christ: 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
O Lord' (Luke 5:8).
"Thus, this sentence from the Letter to the Hebrews contains nothing
that would stand in the way of the possibility of repeated lives on earth.
But how is it with the other eschatological passages of the New Testament?
What do they look like if the idea of reincarnation is brought into the
picture?"
[Note: In the following chapters Frieling discusses in depth the reality
of the Last Judgement and its treatment in the New Testament. Just as
this Christian view of reincarnation differs with the oriental one in that
it acknowledges the divinity of Christ and the central and world changing
significance of his incarnation, death and resurrection, so it also takes
seriously the idea of the Last Judgement -- an idea that even many modern
Christians deny or at least would rather not think about. G.P.]
-----------------------------------------------------------
Rudolf Frieling, "Christianity and Reincarnation". copyright 1977 Floris
Books. Edinburgh. (Available from Anthroposophic Press). Excerpt is from
Chapter III, Reincarnation and the Bible: Old and New Testament. Pages
80-81. Translated by Rudolf and Margaret Koehler from the German,
"Christentum und Wiederverkoerperung". copyright 1974, Verlag Urachhaus,
Stuttgart.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Christ is not the teacher, as one is wont to say, Christ is not
the inaugurator, He is the *content* of Christianity."
- Schelling.
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Gerry Palo Denver, Colorado
pa...@netcom.com
Gerry Palo
In article <533q3r$k...@netsrv2.spss.com>, garyj <ga...@empirenet.com> wrote:
>In article <52ujpq$r...@netsrv2.spss.com>, dhu...@topgun.tamu.edu says...
>>
>
>We have texts that are far before these mentioned dates and none of them
>mention anything about reincarnation. There are several views on the subject
>of "lifetimes". The Bible clearly teaches one life one judgment (Hebrews
>9:27).
Hebrews 9:27-28 is not a clear refutation of reincarnation or an asertion
that the human being lives only once on earth. I have posted on this
before and include some considerations of this at the end of this post.
>
>The question is weather to believe in life as cycles, or life as linear
>happenings. The Bible is clear on the later, but many believe the first. A
>cyclical view of history not supported by any scholarship that the Bible is
>other than linear.
This is a kind of sweeping judgement of the Bible that has an element of
truth to it but also is misleading. There is a linear quality to the Old
Testament in the sense that it is the biography of a whole people. But it
also has its cyclical, repetitive elements, with many themes repeating
themselves over and over, but always in different forms. One theme is
that of separation, of exile. There is the expulsion from paradise, the
selection of Noah, the calling out of Abraham, the sojourn in Egypt, the
division of the Kingdom of Israel, the two exiles. Another is the
selection process, which also goes back to even the creation. The
important thing is that it is not a matter of an eternally repeating
cycle but more of a kind of spiral and that, to be sure, in a downward
direction. The characters descend from lofty spiritual grandeur, where
they are described in more mythical terms at the beginning to more and
more worldly characters, or rather people we can relate to as real
historical personalities. Compare for example Abraham to Solomon, or
better to his successors. The whole picture of the continuing descent of
man that began with the story of the fall is embodied in the Old
Testament history of the Hebrew people. Approaching the nadir, you have
though once again the rise of a new kind of spiritual relationship in the
rise of the prophets. They point to something coming, something of the
future that from a Christian point of view we can see fulfilled in
Christ's Incarnation and ultimately in his Second Coming and the Last Day
far into the future.
In other words, the history of the Hebrew people as told in the Old
Testament is the history, or rather the first part of the histor, of the
whole of humanity. I believe it is because of this that the Church,
including the oft-maligned Roman church, included the 66 books of the
Hebrew Scriptures as part of the Christian Bible, in spite of the fact
that the main thrust by the third century was to non-Jews who had no
interest in the arcane details and peculiar details of their religious
laws. I.e one would think that the so-called paganized Christianity of
the third century Church would have relegated the Old Testament to a kind
of secondary status like the Apocrypha, but not put it together on an
equal par with the New.
But the question is, why is the Old Testament so important for
Christians? It is just in this that its contemplation recapitulates the
spiritual evolution of the human race -- from a particular point of view
that is essential to grasping the full significance, over the greater
sweep of history, of the Incarnation of Christ. But what could be the
significance of this human past if those who live now had nothing to do
with it? It is here that the idea of reincarnation, not as an eternally
repeating cycle, or as a series of chances "to get it right", whether
that means achieving nirvana or accepting Christ, but rather as the life
cycles of the greater evolution and growth of the whole human being on
earth from the creation to the final day. So in this sense, one can see
the destny of the Hebrew people and the open-question prophetic vision of
the future of humanity of the Christian apocalyptic writings (E.g.
Gospels, Thessalonians, Revelation) as a kind of linear, but also cyclic,
biography of the whole race as Man in the greater sense, in which the
human individuality emerges, separates himself in time not only from God
(the expulsion from Paradise) but also from his fellow human being,
beginning with the murder of Abel. The healing of this wound of
separation and of murder is pointed to prophetically in the Old Testament
and fulfilled, or rather its fulfillment begun, in the singular event of
the one time Incarnation of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth, and moving on
now in a direction that begins to point upward to the reuniting not only
of individual human egos into a new kind of Humanity, as characterized by
the Church (in the greater spiritual sense, not at all as a matter of
doctrinal specifics) and of Man with God in the final culmination of the
Last Day and the descent of the New Jerusalem.
It is in this context that a Christian view of reincarnation can put that
ancient teaching in its right perspective. As the old Hymn puts it,
In Adam we have all been one, one huge rebellious man.
The hymn goes on to note how we killed our brother too, and points to the
reunification of brother and brother and of man and God thanks to the
working of Christ's deed. The important thing is that the sins of Adam
in paradise are not removed from us. We were there too, though not in the
individualized state of ego-consciousness in which we find ourselves
today. Indeed it is this fact that explains why we have so few memories
if any at all of our past incarnations. And it also explains why the
Bible does not have a clear teaching about reincarnation, not even in the
case of John the Baptist. For John, though he shows some hesitation in
the way he denies that he is Elijah, is not yet fully conscious enough,
or was not as Elijah, conscious enough of his human Individuality to be
able to recall it in his incarnation as John. But Christ did know it and
he said so unequivocally as Matthew -- interestingly enough the
evangelist most closely connected to the Jews -- records.
So also the early church fathers and writers who entertained some hazy
ideas of metempsychosis and the like but not a clear picture of the
reincarnating human individuality, were not yet fully within the age of
personal ego-awareness to the extent that they could grasp the idea of
reincarnation in its true Christian sense. That is something that could
only happen in the modern age. Hence the absence in the New Testament of
a distinct teaching about the destiny of the individual human being
between death and the Last Day. Rather a few indications are given and
then there is a mighty leap to the Apocalypse and the final culmination
of the earth existence of humanity.
And now I include the material promised about Hebrews 9:27-28: