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Reincarnation
and Israel
From
time to time in Jewish history, there was an
insistent belief that their prophets were reborn.
Evidence of this can be found in the Hebrew
scriptures, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Christian
and Jewish Gnostic writings, the New Testament,
and the writings of ancient historians. At the
time of Jesus, there were many competing ideas
concerning death and what happens afterward.
Greek and Neo-Platonic concepts of reincarnation,
Persian resurrection, ancient Hebrew ideas of
"She'ol", beliefs in no afterlife at all, and
religions and philosophies from other sources,
all existed among the Jews in those days.
The origin of resurrection
in Jewish and Christian doctrine began with
the Babylonian exile, a period when the Jews
in Israel were conquered and taken captive to
Babylon. Later, in 539 B.C., Babylon itself
was conquered by the Persians who installed
a Zoroastrian theocracy throughout the defeated
Babylonian empire. It was then that the Zoroastrian
religion and its doctrine of resurrection began
exerting a tremendous influence on Judaism.
Christianity, in turn, inherited the concept
of resurrection from Judaism. In fact, it was
the Zoroastrian religion that was the source
of resurrection, the belief in angels (including
that of Satan), the afterlife, rewards and punishments,
the soul's immortality, and the Last Judgment.
Before the influence
of Zoroastrianism on Judaism, the Jews believed
in "Sheol," a pit beneath the Earth where people
went after death. As time went on, many Jews
greatly resisted the imposition of Zoroastrianism
masquerading as Judaism. Whatever the Persian
governors and priests were doing in Jerusalem
in the name of Judaism, caused a great schism.
A sect of purists, called the Sadducees, which
was made up of over 97% of the population, rose
up. They rejected all Persian concepts such
as resurrection, angels, or spirits. The Sadducees
did not emphasize life after death at all according
to the New Testament (Matt. 22:23).
The first-century
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote that
the Pharisees, the Jewish sect that founded
rabbinic Judaism to which Paul once belonged,
believed in reincarnation. He writes that the
Pharisees believed the souls of evil men are
punished after death. The souls of good men
are "removed into other bodies" and they will
"have power to revive and live again." Josephus
records that the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls
lived "the same kind of life" as the followers
of Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher who taught
reincarnation. According to Josephus, the Essenes
believed that the soul is both immortal and
preexistent, necessary for tenets for belief
in reincarnation.
Because Israel was
located at a strategic crossroad where several
continents come together, Jews in those days
were exposed to many religions and philosophies.
Some Jews were Gnostics of the Platonic tradition
and were believers in "transmigration," a form
of reincarnation held by the Greeks. Other Jews
held to the Persian concept of resurrection.
Jewish ideas included the concept that people
could live again without knowing exactly the
manners by which this could happen. Today, believers
in traditional Judaism firmly believed that
death was not the end of human existence. However,
because Judaism is primarily focused on life
here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism
does not have much dogma about the afterlife,
and leaves a great deal of room for personal
opinion. Today, it is possible, for example,
for an Orthodox Jew to believe the "resurrection"
refers to a time when souls of the righteous
dead go to a place similar to the Christian
heaven. It is also possible for an Orthodox
Jew today to believe the "resurrection" refers
to the reincarnation of a soul through many
lifetimes.
In the Talmud, "gilgul
neshamot" (i.e., reincarnation) is constantly
mentioned. The term literally means "the judgment
of the revolutions of the souls." Rabbi Manasseh
ben Israel (1604-1657), one of the most revered
Rabbis in Israel, states in his book entitled
Nishmat Hayyim:
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"The belief or the doctrine of the
transmigration of souls is a firm
and infallible dogma accepted by
the whole assemblage of our church
with one accord, so that there is
none to be found who would dare
to deny it... Indeed, there is a
great number of sages in Israel
who hold firm to this doctrine so
that they made it a dogma, a fundamental
point of our religion. We are therefore
in duty bound to obey and to accept
this dogma with acclamation... as
the truth of it has been incontestably
demonstrated by the Zohar, and all
books of the Kabalists." (Nishmat
Hayyim)
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Reincarnation
has been a belief for thousands of years for
orthodox Jews. The Zohar is a book of great
authority among Kabbalistic Jews. It states
the following:
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"All souls
are subject to revolutions. Men
do not know the way they have been
judged in all time." (Zohar II,
199b)
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That
is, in their "revolutions" they lose all memory
of the actions that led to their being judged.
Another
Kabbalistic book, the Kether Malkuth states:
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"If she, the soul, be pure, then she
shall obtain favor ... but if she has
been defiled, then she shall wander
for a time in pain and despair... until
the days of her purification." (Kether
Malkuth)
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How can
the soul be defiled before birth? Where does
the soul wander if not on this or some other
world until the days of her purification? The
rabbis explained this verse to mean that the
defiled soul wanders down from paradise through
many births until the soul regained its purity.
When the Dead Sea
Scrolls were discovered in 1947, it was considered
the greatest archeological discovery ever found.
It revealed never before known information about
the Jewish sects at the beginning of the transformation
of a small sect of Jews that later developed
into Christianity. Two years earlier, in 1945,
early Christian Gnostic writings were discovered
which also provided important details about
the early sects of Christianity. Together, the
Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic discoveries
yielded more information in particular concerning
Jewish and early Christian mystic belief and
practice of divine union (i.e., attaining a
perfect human-divine unity). In fact, the Dead
Sea Scrolls prove that the Jewish mystical tradition
of divine union went back to the first, perhaps
even the third, century B.C.E. Jewish mysticism
has its origins in Greek mysticism, a system
of belief which included reincarnation. Among
the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the hymns found
are similar to the Hekhaloth hymns of the Jewish
mystics. One text of hymns gives us clear evidence
of Jewish mysticism. The text is called "Songs
of the Sabbath Sacrifice." Fragments of 1 Enoch,
which is considered the oldest text of Jewish
mysticism, were also found with the Scrolls.
Since evidence shows Jewish mysticism existed
in the third century B.C.E., as Enoch indicates,
then it would certainly have existed in first-century
Israel. As stated earlier, the ideas of divine
union and reincarnation can both be found in
early Christianity. One may easily conclude
it was the key to the very heart of Jesus' message.
One particular Dead
Sea Scroll entitled "I IQ Melchizedek Text"
which contains a sermon called "The Last Jubilee",
mentions reincarnation. This scroll is about
the "last days" during which time it says, a
"Melchizedek redivivus" (revived, reincarnate)
will appear and destroy Belial (Satan) and lead
the children of God to eternal forgiveness.
Below are parts of this message from this scroll,
parts of which are unreadable. The unreadable
parts will be denoted by this (...) symbol.
Here is it's message:
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"When, therefore, the scriptures
speaks of a day of atonement ...
What is meant, ... is that ... by
a day on which all the children
of Light and all who have cast their
lot with the cause of righteousness
will achieve forgiveness of their
sins, whereas the wicked will reap
their desserts and be brought to
an end. There is a further reference
to this final judgment in the continuation
of the verse from the Psalter .
. . the allusion is to Belial and
the spirits of his ilk -- that is
to ... defy God's statutes in order
to perfect justice ... King ...
Melchizedek ... will execute upon
them God's avenging judgment, and
... deliver the just from the hands
of Belial and all those spirits
of his ilk.
"With all the angels of righteousness
at his aid, he will blast the council
of Belial to destruction ... the
eminence in question being the destination
of all who are indeed children of
God ... It will be from Belial ...
that men will turn away in rebellion,
and there will be a reestablishment
of the reign of righteousness, perversity
being confounded by the judgments
of God.
"This is what scripture implies
in the words, 'Who says to Zion,
your God has not claimed his Kingdom!'
The term Zion there denoting the
total congregation of the 'sons
of righteousness' that is, those
who maintain the covenant and turn
away from the popular trend, and
your God signifying the King of
Righteousness, alias Melchizedek
Redivivus, who will destroy Belial.
Our text speaks also of sounding
a loud trumpet blast throughout
the land on the tenth day of the
seventh month. As applied to the
last days, this refers to the fanfare
which will then be sounded before
the Messianic King." (The Last Jubilee)
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As was mentioned earlier,
Melchizedek was the High Priest described in
the Bible who sounds remarkably like an incarnation
of Jesus. It was also mentioned how some early
Christians believed Melchizedek to be an early
incarnation of Jesus. If the above message of
the Dead Sea Scrolls can be believed, then the
passage is very likely referring to the coming
of a Messiah who will be a reincarnation of
Melchizedek.
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