Why do so many Christian believers do not believe in the possibility of reincarnation?

[Not_Now.Soon]

I did? I don't remember that. Do you remember what I said?

Trying to find the post that I thought was from you and now can't find the post at all from anyone. Sorry. My bad

 

[OzSpen]

In summary, i believe people experience the sensation and real memories from past lives. But as I've said earlier, i believe it is memories of our ancestors bound within the fabric of our DNA.

SB,

Do I have this right? You DO believe in 'past lives' of people living today?

Oz

 

[KevinK]

You didn't ask me to give an 'accurate translation of the KJV from Greek

I know I didn't. I wasn't asking you specifically; it was a general inquiry.

 

[OzSpen]

The reality is this. If you want to assume on Hades, don't look toward the Jews. Instead, look back to Egypt and don't think that because the Jews understood shoel before hades that hades comes from the jews. First, shoel is simply the grave and has very little in common with hades. Again, do some homework and learn about Ben Hinnom and you will see the parralel between that and hades.

SB,

The term 'Hades' was used by the Jews in about the third century BC to translate the Hebrew, 'Sheol', into Greek. Translators of the Septuagint (LXX) were 70 Jews. Therefore, Sheol (OT Hebrew) and Hades (Intertestamental Greek) are synonymous terms.

What did they mean? Hades in the Bible means 'the underworld as the place of the dead ... in the depths, contrasted with heaven' (BAG Lexicon 1957:16) and not the final destination of the wicked, which is Gehenna.

In the OT, Sheol/Hades is translated as 'hell' in the KJV, based on the Textus Receptus Greek text.

While the NT Hades is taken from Greek mythology, where it means 'the god of the lower regions', it does not mean that in the NT or OT.

Sheol appears 65 times in the Hebrew OT where the KJV translates it 31 times as 'hell', 'the grave' 31 times, 'the pit' 3 times. The ESV transliterates Sheol, without translating it. The ESV does the same with Hades, a transliteration.

By the time of the Intertestamental period (between both testaments), Hades had 2 compartments, one for the believers and the other for unbelievers - as demonstrated by the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16).

Oz

 

[Michael74]

First, Orthodox Jews believe in reincarnation.

I was curious, so I researched a bit. This belief seems to have come into existence during the eighth century, became popular for awhile, then went out of popularity. The status today:

Otherwise the doctrine has had its day, and is believed in by very few modern Jews, although hardly any Orthodox Jew today will positively denounce the doctrine.

 

[for_his_glory]

I am not your enemy.

Now, let's set the record straight from an academic perspective.

Shoel and Gehenna are rooted in Jewish thought and language.
Shoel is simply the grave and holds little spiritual value.
Gehenna (Ben Hinnom) on the other hand has history in Jewish culture which started when Solomon offered his children to both Molech and Chemosh by fire. Gehenna is a physical place that is identified and im sure you can go walk on its soil today if you had the gumption to do so. But it's much more than a physical place because it carries a spiritual reality.

Meanwhile, in Greece Zeus is alive and well and his Brother Hades is a constant threat to Zeus as are a multitude of other Gods. Hades is cast down and makes his abode in the underground. In Jesus day, the gates of Hades which leads to the underworld as purported in many Greek myths, such as the time Hercules snuck in, actually was understood to be located in caesarea philippi.

Of course, hades is simply Greek mythology and the gates of hades is asserted without any physical historical real events unlike Gehenna which has historical events that concrete its existence.

These are facts and as far as Gehenna and Solomon, its all accounted for within the biblical texts. If you need help finding it, I'll pull something together this weekend.

To say that Shoel was mentioned before Hades doesn't really make much since to me because both words come from opposite cultures. Not only that, but Shoel and Hades have very little to do with one another. In actuality, Hades and Gehenna have much more theological in common which accounts for Jesus using Greek mythology in his words.

Yes, Jesus speaks of Hades and Gehenna aptly translated into the Norse word Hell which comes from Norse mythology. Thor has always been my favorite... What a disappointment to see him drunk and fat in End Game lol!

Let's ponder this.

Why does Jesus use Greek mythology in speaking about Hades? Why doesn't he refute their mythology as false?

I'm really curious if you will address my question. After all, there is much evidence of Greek gods through out the land when Jesus was walking about teaching the multitudes. Certainly, when he used the word Hades, they thought of the abode of Zeus brother. To think any other way would be to turn a blind eye to history and the abundance of historical evidence that supports my claim.

Jesus was talking to Peter as they stood on the physical rock in Caesarea Philippi which was a rock literally filled with niches for pagan idols, where ungodly values dominated.

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance: Hell
Hebrew # 7585 Sheol, Hades, or the world of the dead, grave, hell, pit
Greek # 86 place of departed souls, grave, hell
Greek # 1067 Gehenna, the Valley of the sons of Hinnom South of Jerusalem, figuratively and literal of place of punishment.
Greek # 5020. Tartaroo tar-tar-o'-o from Tartaros (the deepest abyss of Hades); to incarcerate in eternal torment:--cast down to hell.

Hades is the English of the Greek word ᾅδης, just as Gehenna is the English for the Greek word γέεννα and Tartaros is the English word for the Greek word ταρταρόω


The English word hell, back in 1611, meant about the same as Hades, that being covered or unseen as in grave/pit. We do not see those in the grave as they are unseen to the eye as they are covered with dirt, or some placed in a tomb. The word hell is derived from the Saxon helan, to cover, and signifying merely the covered, or invisible place. The habitation of those who have gone from the visible terrestrial region to the world of spirits.

Gehenna - Valley of Hinnom, Old Testament as Gai Ben-Hinnom, Tophet, in the Talmud as Gehinnam

The oldest historical reference to the valley is found in Joshua 15:8, 18:16 which describe tribal boundaries. The next chronological reference to the valley is at the time of King Ahaz of Judah who sacrificed his sons there according to 2 Chron. 28:3. Isaiah does not mention Gehenna by name, but the burning place, Isaiah 30:33 in which the Assyrian army are to be destroyed, may be read Topheth, and the final verse of Isaiah which concerns the corpses of the same or a similar battle, Isaiah 66:24 , where their worm does not die. Also read Jeremiah 19:6-8 as a reference to the dead bodies that are thrown over the wall of Jerusalem into Gehenna/Tophet.

Matthew 5:29, 30; Mark 9:43-48 Jesus uses the prophetic symbolic of Gehenna as calling it hell or fires of hell meaning the grave/pit where many were burned to death there as the worm did not die there, meaning that there were always new maggots going through their life-cycles, feeding on the dead corpse. Also note Isaiah 66:24.

 

[stovebolts]

SB,

Do I have this right? You DO believe in 'past lives' of people living today?

Oz

Hi Oz,
I'm not sure i understand what your asking.

We believe by faith in the resurrection because we believe the testimony given in the Bible that Jesus was raised from the grave. I have never met anyone who has been raised from the dead and according to science, once your dead, that's it. So again, we rely on the testimony of others who saw and touched Jesus raised from the dead.

The idea of reincarnation is different because to this very day, there are people who tap into these 'past lives' and are able to bring verifiable detail that they should have no knowledge about, or, like the person I knew, was able to speak another language.

We can invalidate the experiences of others based on our own views or ideologies, but for those who have experienced the memories of past lives, it is very real for them and what they learn is that they don't speak about it to those who are hostile to them or belittle or invalidate their reality.

There is an axiom that states what's true for you, is true. Of course, i am not speaking of truth, but rather, i am talking about perceived truth and these two can often be worlds apart.

For somebody who has experienced the memories of a past life, their perceived truth is that they have lived past lives. Please understand that their faith in the matter is based on their own experience as well as the testimony of others.

So, how do we address this? Do we invalidate ones perceived truth? Or, do we speak truth in love with understanding that what the other experienced was / is very real to them.

 

[stovebolts]

I was curious, so I researched a bit. This belief seems to have come into existence during the eighth century, became popular for awhile, then went out of popularity. The status today:

Thanks for the article, it was very insightful.

Chabad fully embraces reincarnation

 

[stovebolts]

SB,

The term 'Hades' was used by the Jews in about the third century BC to translate Hebrew, 'Sheol', into Greek. Translators of the Septuagint (LXX) were 70 Jews. Therefore, Sheol (OT Hebrew) and Hades (Intertestamental Greek) are synonymous terms.

What did they mean? Hades in the Bible means 'the underworld as the place of the dead ... in the depths, contrasted with heaven' (BAG Lexicon 1957:16) and not the final destination of the wicked, which is Gehenna.

In the OT, Sheol/Hades is translated as 'hell' in the KJV, based on the Textus Receptus Greek text.

While the NT Hades is taken from Greek mythology, where it means 'the god of the lower regions', it does not mean that in the NT or OT.

Sheol appears 65 times in the Hebrew OT where the KJV translates it 31 times as 'hell', 'the grave' 31 times, 'the pit' 3 times. The ESV transliterates Sheol, without translating it. The ESV does the same with Hades, a transliteration.

By the time of the Intertestamental period (between both testaments), Hades had 2 compartments, one for the believers and the other for unbelievers - as demonstrated by the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16).

Oz

Good stuff Oz

If we look at a modern doctrinal view of hell, we can see that our view is more in alignment with Norse mythology from which our translation derives as opposed to Greek mythology whence Hades derived. Today, our understanding of hell is removed from Norse mythology because Norse mythology does not inundate our culture as it did when the Bible was being translated. However, modern thinking is more in alignment with Norse mythology than Greek mythology or the history of Ben Hinnom.

We know that the Bible ( Septuagint) is a translation from Hebrew to Greek because, at the time, many Jews spoke Greek and not their native tongue. I'm sure you are well aware that the Septuagint was not welcomed in Orthodox circles. It reminds me of the KLV only versus the wicked NIV and "Message" Bible which followed.

So, while the Septuagint used the word Hades, it used it much in the same way the germans used hell. In other words, they took the closest word that they thought represented the idea the text was trying to convey.

When we look at the culture, there were Greek Patron gods in every city and altars were set up to receive offerings to Zeus and other gods as well prior to and during the time of Jesus. Paul writes about this as does Luke in Acts. So, you cannot detach the mythology from the word hades any more than you can detach the mythology of hell from the europeans at the time of translation.

 

[Truthfrees]

Satan is an expert at planting false ideas in people's minds. No surprises there. Christians need to be constantly on guard since the mind is the battlefield.

amen and the following is the reason people get confused about spiritual things

That would apply only if I use Scripture exclusively as a basis for my faith. I do not. Yes, that does make me a little different from other members here.

 

[Truthfrees]

Trying to find the post that I thought was from you and now can't find the post at all from anyone. Sorry. My bad

i think it was someone else - not edward - i thought it was JohnDB or WIP or StoveBolts who said they had experienced memories of what seemed like previous lives

 

[stovebolts]

i think it was someone else - not edward - i thought it was JohnDB or WIP or StoveBolts who said they had experienced memories of what seemed like previous lives

I have experienced out of body and past life experiences.

 

[KevinK]

amen and the following is the reason people get confused about spiritual things

If you'd like me to leave, I will.

I believe it's a forum guideline to address issues, not people.

 

[OzSpen]

The idea of reincarnation is different because to this very day, there are people who tap into these 'past lives' and are able to bring verifiable detail that they should have no knowledge about, or, like the person I knew, was able to speak another language....

For somebody who has experienced the memories of a past life, their perceived truth is that they have lived past lives. Please understand that their faith in the matter is based on their own experience as well as the testimony of others.

So, how do we address this? Do we invalidate ones perceived truth? Or, do we speak truth in love with understanding that what the other experienced was / is very real to them.

SB,

I cannot find anything in the NT that supports what you've stated here. So the source of these visions of 'past lives' cannot be the Almighty God. It is from another source.

That makes it very dangerous activity for a believer, in my view.

Oz

 

[OzSpen]

Good stuff Oz

If we look at a modern doctrinal view of hell, we can see that our view is more in alignment with Norse mythology from which our translation derives as opposed to Greek mythology whence Hades derived. Today, our understanding of hell is removed from Norse mythology because Norse mythology does not inundate our culture as it did when the Bible was being translated. However, modern thinking is more in alignment with Norse mythology than Greek mythology or the history of Ben Hinnom.

We know that the Bible ( Septuagint) is a translation from Hebrew to Greek because, at the time, many Jews spoke Greek and not their native tongue. I'm sure you are well aware that the Septuagint was not welcomed in Orthodox circles. It reminds me of the KLV only versus the wicked NIV and "Message" Bible which followed.

So, while the Septuagint used the word Hades, it used it much in the same way the germans used hell. In other words, they took the closest word that they thought represented the idea the text was trying to convey.

When we look at the culture, there were Greek Patron gods in every city and altars were set up to receive offerings to Zeus and other gods as well prior to and during the time of Jesus. Paul writes about this as does Luke in Acts. So, you cannot detach the mythology from the word hades any more than you can detach the mythology of hell from the europeans at the time of translation.

SB,

One of the significant problems we run into with the KJV is that three Greek words were translated by the one word 'hell': hades, gehenna and tartaras.

I have attempted to understand this in my article, Hell in the Bible.

Oz

 

[stovebolts]

SB,

I cannot find anything in the NT that supports what you've stated here. So the source of these visions of 'past lives' cannot be the Almighty God. It is from another source.

That makes it very dangerous activity for a believer, in my view.

Oz

Oz,
As I've stated multiple times, i do not believe in reincarnation.

I have not spoken anything about visions, so im not sure what your talking about there.

As you have stated in a different way, these experiences of past lives are not from being reincarnated. However, it makes them no less real.

So, how do i explain my experiences that i cannot deny occurred? Perhaps some will believe an evil spirit entered my body and fooled my senses. While plausible, i don't think that's the case.

As i said earlier, my wife does genealogy and just recently ( the day before i saw this thread ) she told me how they discovered what DNA experts say are memories of relatives in our DNA strands. I have not had time to research this, let Google for an article on it but i have no reason to believe my wife misunderstood what she read let alone lied to me.

Also, i said that when i was in $cientology who's core objective through 'auditing' is to go back through all past lives i came up with the idea that past lives were just mass (memories) in our minds from our ancestors and that what we thought were past lives, aka reincarnation were nothing more than these genetic memories.

What i found ironic with what my wife said, was she said the memories were generally tragic memories that were passed through DNA, which is essentially what $cientology audits which are the 'easiest' memories aka past lives to bring out of your subconscious mind and into your conscious mind.

I know, it's more than you expected. But I hope you don't walk away with a false idea of what i believe or why.

In summary, i don't believe we have lived past lives, but i do believe what i and others have experienced is real. So what i have tried to do is make since of my experience.

I understand that not everyone has experienced what I and others have. And for those that have not, i do not seek counsel from because it has been my experience that what people don't understand, they fear.

I hope you and others think no less of me for being candid on this issue.

 

[stovebolts]

If you'd like me to leave, I will.

I believe it's a forum guideline to address issues, not people.

SB,

One of the significant problems we run into with the KJV is that three Greek words were translated by the one word 'hell': hades, gehenna and tartaras.

I have attempted to understand this in my article, Hell in the Bible.

Oz

ill take a loom in the morning
Thanks!

 

[DiscipleDave]

Apointed to die once. If reincarnation is true then one dies many times.
We have to judge everything through scripture and if hebrews 9:27 says we die once not many times, then there is no reincarnation.

Also the idea behind reincarnation is that one does better in the next life, earning a better reincarnation untill perfection is reached.

Christianity teaches we do not earn or deserve salvation.

We accept it as a gift.

i DiscipleDave am appointed to die ONCE. Talking about me, and my flesh that is absolutely True, But are you suggesting the spirit that is in me dies too? Hebrews 9:27 is talking about MAN, NOT spirit. please try to understand that.

 

[DiscipleDave]

Dave,

Here you teach the doctrine of pre-existence or premortal existence that

'refers to the belief that each individual human soul existed before mortal conception, and at some point before birth enters or is placed into the body. Concepts of pre-existence can encompass either the belief that the soul came into existence at some time prior to conception or the belief that the soul is eternal. Alternative positions are traducianism and creationism, which both hold that the individual human soul does not come into existence until conception' (Wikipedia, Pre-existence).​

Origen taught it, quoting Romans 9:11-14 and Jeremiah 1:5 to support his view in Origen. De Principiis. I.VII.4.

Ancient Greek thought and Islam affirm pre-existence, but it is generally denied in Christianity. It is a fundamental teaching of Mormonism. See Joseph Smith's King Follett discourse.

Hinduism teaches it, 'Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be': Chapter 2 Verse 12 Bhagavad-gītā As It Is.

Pre-existence of the sould was condemned as heresy at the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 553.

Oz

You are way to smart for me, i don't know about anything you just said above. i only know what God told me and what Scriptures teach. Didn't God know Jeremiah before He was even in the womb?

Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

The above verse if to be believed teaches that Jeremiah was KNOWN, existed, prior to ever being formed in the womb as Jeremiah.

People, please listen to the Truth. Before the Earth was ever created, YOU existed. NOT you that is flesh, but the spirit that is in YOU.

 

[OzSpen]

You are way to smart for me, i don't know about anything you just said above. i only know what God told me and what Scriptures teach. Didn't God know Jeremiah before He was even in the womb?

Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

The above verse if to be believed teaches that Jeremiah was KNOWN, existed, prior to ever being formed in the womb as Jeremiah.

People, please listen to the Truth. Before the Earth was ever created, YOU existed. NOT you that is flesh, but the spirit that is in YOU.

DD,

This is a message about the call of Jeremiah to be a prophet:

The word of the Lord came to me:
5 I chose you before I formed you in the womb;
I set you apart before you were born.
I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:4-5 HCSB)

God is omniscient (all-knowing) and he exists outside of time. He created time. God's plan for Jeremiah incorporated the time before he was conceived. This applies to all of us.

In essence, God told Jeremiah that His knowledge of him was from a long way back - before birth when he was only a thought in God's mind. I find it beyond my comprehension that Jeremiah and all believers have a position/place in God's mind before our birth. It's a mystery to me, but that seems to be the teaching of Jer 1:4-5.

However, the Creator of time is not saying in this verse that we all have a pre-existence. It says more about God and His infinite knowledge, understanding, wisdom and insight. It is out of this world.

Before the earth was created I DID NOT exist. I was supernaturally known by the God, who is outside of time. It is God's omniscience in action.

Oz