The idea of reincarnation spans many belief systems especially those who believe in spirits or souls. An interpretation of verses in the Bible by some has shown reincarnation to be valid and logical. As well, life can show signs.
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Yes, the Bible does give evidenceVoted for by JenOwl.
I will give one passage to begin this debate. Mathew (17:12) "But I say unto you that Elise is come already and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them. The disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. " Elise (also Elijah and Elias) is said to be John the Baptist. Can this be interpreted as Elias "in spirit" was John the Baptist, not his reincarnation? But doesn't "in spirit" mean the same thing? That the spirit is the being, and the body is the conduit? Even Jesus rose from the grave and came in spirit form to his disciples, and Revelations speaks about his return. To me this concept would also describe the ideology that we are all here to experience, and in our experiences we learn how to be "better" people, and if we don't learn we are brought back to continue our learning. This would explain why some people are brought into this world with maladies. Either they are learning based off "karma" of a past experience, or they are experiencing learning their lessons in a faster pace than would seem normal.
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Reincarnation was an assumed belief in time of JesusVoted for by wisdomsearch.
Reincarnation was an assumed belief in the time of Jesus. This idea that references to reincarnation refer to the "spirit" is an attempt by some scholars to explain away the clear evidence (since they cannot bring themselves to consider reincarnation they invent some other possibiliity).
Some of the early church fathers, like Origen, believed in the pre-existence of souls, which certainly could be reincarnation. He was brutally tortured for this and other beliefs he held and died shortly after. The Fifth Ecumenical Council formally denounced Origen's teachings in 535 A.D. after which it was heretical to believe in reincarnation. Christianity to this day is still under the pall of this event. Most Christians won't take a serious look at reincarnation, preferring to invent scriptural justifications for debunking it.
Reincarnation has been a part of Judaism for centuries. Most orthodox Jews believe in it today. -
No to Reincarnation and Eternal RecurrenceVoted for by GaryCGibson.
No is the brief answer. The Universe is a one-off event. Each soul is a unique and individual personality alive just this one time. God is another story, God pre-exists everything.
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Obviously Jesus returns, and the Word created the Universe and etc. God always is, and God is a trinity so far as humanity is concerned.
*** Esaias is a Greek name for Isaiah. Isaiah described the Messiah to come.
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Esaias and Moses stood with Jesus transfigured in glory on the mountain. later his disciple asked about Elias and the scriptures. Jesus replied that Esaias had returned already. That reference to John the Baptist was to the role that needed to be fullfilled by a moral voice crying in the wilderness making the paths strait that were crooked before God. While God creates all souls, roles, lives, personalitiy and so forth in creating the Universe, Jesus is the only one as the Word perhaps that can return as is deemed right by God. Jesus is God.
*** Romans:12And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.
It would not be right to disregard the obvious possible referent of the reply of Jesus to the appearance of Elias and Moses the disciples witnessed. Elias and Moses weren't reincarnated, they were, I think, appearing from 'out of the universe' briefly as real yet virtual persons in this context. God exists at all points of eternity and brought them to confer with Jesus perhaps from the future Kingdom of God when all saved souls are resurrected.
Perhaps reading the enneads of Plotinus would serve to explain better one paradigm for a comprehension of the nature of God.***
I realize many may believe in an eternal recurrence of the universe, yek that is a consequence of perceptive pehnomenalities of cognition rather than an objective truth. At any rate cosmologically eternal recurrence simply elminates the need to explain how everything 'started' it is thought.
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In the eternal recurrence scenario the Universe is a sort of super-slinky in a circle made of space-time that waves at one place and moves on through future and past fortunately always restarting itself perhaps through colliding 'branes' or dimensions with nero zero energy. This is a way of avoid the question of how the eternal recycling slinky universe was created to start with...a problem of the criterion as Rodrick Chilsom might have put it.
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August 6, 2006
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reincarnation
Whilst the bible provides us with values, psalms, history, biography of past lives and events, I suggest that it does not provide any concrete and irrefutable evidence of reincarnation does or has existed in any form what-so-ever. It is more of a nonesense as myths about yeti's, skunk-apes, lockness monsters, ghosts, paranormal, supernatural, UFO's, fairies, Santaclaus, tooth- fairies, Easterbunnies etc. At least some of the creatures mentioned may have existed in one form or another at one time (i.e. Moby Dick, Lock Ness eel's). Crack pots still claim to see Tassy Tigers, but at least they did exist early last century. I probably am a sceptic, but I'm quite happy to be proven wrong - just provide me with clear, concrete and irrefutable evidence supported by expert opinion. What do others think?August 11, 2006
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Black and white proof not possible unless you are searching and wanting to know.
It would be very difficult to provide the irrefutable proof you demand, because most of it was destroyed. The "orthodox" church won the battle on this issue and successfully purged the record for the most part, although some allusions to it have been found in writings discoved at Nag Hammadji in Egypt. Some even died brutal deaths at the hands of "Christians" for believing in reincarnation. Trying to prove this to you would be kind of like trying to prove the guilt or innocence of someone by investigating a crime scene in which the evidence had been tampered with or destroyed. You could not do it. But we do know that reincarnation was an assumed belief in the time of Jesus. There isn't a great deal of written record on it, because it was not a highly literate society. Most of the religious writing related to day to day observance of rules for living. Average people were busy trying to survive, not writing books (or writing on the Internet). The belief in reincarnation has survived in Jewish tradition through the centures. Many orthodox Jews believe it to this day (there are frequent references to it in thhe Sacred Kabbala writings of orthodox Jews). I find many Christians enjoy debunking the belief and place the entire burden of proving it on others ("show me in black and white this is true or I won't believe it"). This is a childish. Unless you want to search and know for yourself you will never know. Since the record has been severely tampered with you have to do some hard digging and searching within yourself to know the truth on this. It won't be handed to you or anyone on a platter. You can choose to question and search and possibly learn something, or lump it in the category of fringe beliefs of whackos and not know anything until you die and are forced to face it. But that is entirely up to you.February 8, 2007
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If there is no reincarnation how do you account for the children who are two three and four years old (some who don't even know their alphabet yet) who are considered prodigies at that age. I firmly believe that they were prodigies in a previously life
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