₦airaland Forum

I think that idea is great. . but problem is that Yahoo boys will load your e-box with spam and all sorts of junk. It happens, trust me. Prolly that's why most people using online forums and blogs these days keep even email addy hidden - until someone requests them.

A few things to think through:

~ from this RT website that carried the story:

Meanwhile, doctors think otherwise. They are almost sure the signs have been written by Ali’s parents. Lyudmila Luss from Russia’s institute of immunology says the writings have been most likely made physically or chemically.

So far, Ali’s family has refused to make any meticulous dermatologic examination.

Perhaps one reason why the family refuses/refused such meticulous examination, from another news website:

A planned visit to Moscow of a wonder-child whose body displays word of Quran (read article) never happened. Nine-month old Ali Yakubov and his parents, Madina and Shamil, had to go back home in Krasno-Oktyabrskoye village after having traveled half way to Moscow

The meeting of mufti Ravil Gaynutdin and the Yakubov family was planned in Moscow on October 31st. However, the meeting was unexpectedly cancelled.

Why? They explained (rather excusingly?) -

“When we were on a private plane, we received a phone call. We were told that the idea of showing the baby to Moscow Muslims was not spiritually approved. Within the last two weeks not a single message from Allah appeared on the baby’s body. The baby did not travel well. He was teething and had a runny nose. The family went back home and imam Abdullah and I went to Moscow,” explained Akhmedpash Amiralaev.

Another linked story from to the above:

The child’s mother, Madina Yakubova, said that the boy was born with a hematoma on his chin, and when the bruise healed, the word 'Allah' written in Arab appeared.

Okay, so 'Allah' appears on the child - and no report was raised by any Muslim at that time? Why is it now that all the frenzy is going round? Anyways. .

The parents may not have used any substances or medications, if the child suffers from urticarial dermographism, also known as skin writing, – a skin disorder that occurs with five percent of the nation’s population. It is one of the most common types of urticaria, in which the skin becomes raised and inflamed when stroked or rubbed with a dull object. Therefore, if the child has such a disorder, writing anything on his skin is a piece of cake.

. . and the process is easily demonstrated by those who have dermographism - like what this guy demonstrates: http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/8/wierd-skin-348175.html (vid takes time to load, so be patient).

So, for the arabic scholars, (Abuzo-zo, you said you're a graduate of arabic studies - over to you) - could you show us what chapter and verse of the arabic quran this writing is displaying on that child? -- [img]http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/child-39.jpg[/img]

. . . what about this next one? Chapter and verse, please - https://rt.com/s/obj/2009-10-19/ali_in.jpg


For other pics of people who skin-write, enjoy below:

https://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00623/notebookmain_623461a.jpg

Viaro apologises to all threaders here - the derailment is regretted and e have taken our concerns to the appropriate thread to discuss reincarnation and no longer suffer this one to be hijacked.

Back to topic: 'Is Jesus God'.

Thank you for your patience and warmth.

Mavenb0x:
Viaro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL This viaro guy has never ceased to impress me, even when we disagree on a topic (though I confess I am not usually glad to debate him when I'm on the wrong side of his convictions)! You take a topic and like a log of wood you tear it apart to shreds, giving no room for weevils to hide! I throway salute o![/color]

Lol, the reincarnation argument was cheap - so nothing there, really. But debating you?? Oh c'mon!! Who dares marvellous Maven??

@Viaro: To confess, when I saw Deepsight's article, I was like "here's another of those articles written by misinformed christian bible-discussants in a bid to spread confusion and pollute the gospel with oriental myths and religions" and I refrained from responding because I knew you would return to do a good job. I couldn't have done that better, I guess!

It just beat me to read many people recycling that article from the NDE website without carefully going through to see that the author(s) were hardly making any sense - it does not even rise to the level of 'nonsense', which means that a complete idiot would have done a better job at it than someone confusing his history lessons! Oh dear me!

I do hope you're doing great? Enjoy.

nuclearboy:
@Viaro:

I just knew you wouldn't protest over the Jesoul thing! I see and have proved you lean towards a Solomonic mindset? I needed something over you in case I ever debate against you and I have it now - I'll disclose that mindset to the "someone important" who got you off this topic if you ever shred my arguments the way you like to do. Send her details

Oh shooks, man!! This is why I just grow cold feet around you, commander, anytime you call my attention to something! I just knew somehow that you were scanning me with a remote device - and trust 'her', I landed in deep trouble hours later! How many times I bought e-flowers to appease the 'gods' for devulging such info, I lost count!

Hehehe. . .I know now never to get into any debate with you! I will just swallow hard and refrain from going there!!

viaro:
. . . I shall perhaps take our concerns to another thread and ask that we meet up there, yes?

Deep Sight:
Ok, Bro. . .lets do that, open the thread.

Thread opened - enjoy.

But let me just say one thing - I only debate this subject out of my desire to deal with certain logical fallacies - I am not really interested in the biblical acceptance or rejection of reincarnation as i do not hold the bible as my creed and i personally have extended memories of previous lifetimes which of course i cannot prove to anybody, but which give me a living conviction about the reality of reincarnation.

That's okay, just that any definition of 'reincarnation' you proffer would immediately collapse as soon as you try to force-read it into the Bible.

These memories are the basis of my Poetry collection which i titled Memories of Eternity.

Here is the Prolouge of the Collection -

I have memories of Eternity
Things my mind just cannot place
Sights of ethereal rarity
Vibes of things of ancient face

Now and then the Picture floats
Of loves and lives past far and gone
Now and then the mind devotes
To ills recurred and loves forgone

Be my be, would you be
On and on this song I sing
It hoards my soul and rules my me
This ever, ever, ever thing…

I hope you like it!

I like it, yes.

Open the the thread sha - maybe you should open it by quoting extensively the main arguments made here so that we don't need to repeat them there for readers who may not have read this thread.

Oh well, I was a bit forward - please excuse me on that.

Now let us note something with careful certainty -

The persons who said that he was John the Baptist must have been, as you suggested, deluded lunatics. I say this for two reasons –

1. He could not be John the Baptist by reincarnation, since he was alive and already a full blown adult during John’s lifetime AND –

2. He could not be John the Baptist by resurrection for the very same reason: he was alive and already a full blown adult during John’s lifetime

Thus the suggestion that he was John the Baptist thus cannot pass EITHER the reincarnation or resurrection tests!

Which is the point I had tried to make - that "public opinions can be hugely misplaced!" I also said:
[list]"As far as this discourse is concerned, you DeepSight had excerpted the argument of an opinionated bavard who had no clue what he was arguing. Could you then do me the second fav of reconciling that bavard's controverted argument with this plain fact about resurrection in the Bible?"[/list]

How could anyone be claiming "reincarnation" where it is obvious that even the Jews who opined on these things were clearly alluding to RESURRECTION? Look again at Luke 9:7-8 --

[list]
Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed,

(a) because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead;

(b) And of some, that Elias had appeared;

(c)and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again.

[/list]
Note that the statements above were public opnions - and even at that, they ALL REFLECT RESURRECTION, not reincarnation. Otherwise, you DeepSight would have to show me how reincarnation has suddenly become a 'risen from the dead' - that is the one question I am most particular for you to show me.

However the suggestions that he might be Elias or Jeremiah CAN ONLY BE CONCEIVED UNDER ONE TEST – THE REINCARNATION TEST.

Rubbish! You conceive of it as such because viaro can't see the difference as he had smoked something worse than . . . what? Luke 9:7-8 is your answer, and I wait to see how you want to duck that one!

This is so simply because the very fact that the Jews were aware of Jesus birth: that he had a mother and family in Nazareth, and that he was the “Carpenter’s son” firmly shuts the door against the notion that they were considering resurrection when saying these things because resurrection does not happen through re-birth as an infant.

What then did they mean by "RISEN from the DEAD", mr DeepSight? Why are you sweating at nothing??

Can I scream it loudly enough – Rebirth as an infant is the exact definition of reincarnation! ! ! ![/b]

Please scream some more - and you'll only end up cracking your voice for less than nothing. The point is that none of those people were yapping at your 'infant rebirth' - that is not what they had in mind by "risen from the dead" (Luke 9:7-9 and Mark 6:14-16). You're just in a world of your own and you need to go find another book where your non-sequitor appears, not the Bible.

Thus it emerges by plain deductive reasoning that the claims that he was John the Baptist had no basis in either reincarnation or resurrection, but the claims that he was Elias or Jeremiah COULD ONLY BE CONCEIVABLE AS CLAIMS OF REINCARNATION GIVEN THAT HE WAS BORN AN INFANT.

Was that what they meant by 'risen from the dead'? Please deal with what they said, not what you want to put in their mouths.

Now note carefully: none of the claims are proof of anything, I agree: they are only indicative of what the persons claiming thought in their minds: and haven shown that some of the claims were absolutely inconceivable under any circumstances (the claims of Jesus being John the Baptist) – we can see that some other claims are conceivable only in terms of reincarnation given that the subject was born an infant.

That is simply because you are not reading the text but making up your own drama scripts - what sort of playwright are you by the way??

This affirms my assertion that the Jews of the time CLEARLY factored reincarnation into their worldview – and positively debunks your claim that they did not.

I repeat for the umpteenth time: how does anyone with an iota of living and functioning brain cells read "risen from the dead" as 'reincarnation'?? Please permute your magical deductions on that and let's see your abracadabra!

This is frankly meaningless: you missed the obvious fact that the claims were made by different people at different times, thus one person might think that Elijah has come as Jesus; another might think that it is not Jesus he came as, but John. Thus the issue of Elijah appearing as two people exists only in your mis-footed conjecture and is a non starter, as it is clearly not the same person that claims that both Jesus and John are Elias. The text in your won verse shows this –

Matt: 16:14 – “they replied some say John the Baptist, others say Elias, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets”

I hope you can now see how shockingly obtuse this statement of yours is.

I answer simply again with Luke 9:7-9 and Mark 6:14-16 --

[list][li]'it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead'[/li][/list]
[list][li]other people said: "that Elias had appeared"[/li][/list]
[list][li]and yet some other people said: "one of the old prophets was risen again"[/li][/list]

Now, how do those read as 'reincarnation' by your own definition of that word? I'm already bored to death (and the 'miracle' that I've survived up until now) with your hollow disquisitions that only twist simple statements and yet prevaricate when a direct answer would suffice.

What the claims do show though, is that incontrovertibly, the Jews thought that a man born as an infant could in fact be Elijah – and being born as an infant is defined as . . .reincarnation – not resurrection.

What do you make of their statement with the expression "risen from the dead" in Luke 9:8??

Meaningless again. The fact that resurrection is believed does nothing to discredit that obvious fact that another things – such as reincarnation – were also widespread beliefs at that time. Beliefs which Jesus had several opportunities to controvert, but never did.

Jesus made no allusions to 'reincarnation' but rather categorically taught RESURRECTION everywhere. Why teach resurrect at the same as teaching reincarantion? What do you make of the clear pointers to RISEN from the DEAD that even you cannot deny was Jesus' teaching? You're now sounding desperate - no wonder you wanted me to wait until you returned to spew more incoherence.

Of course: but this does nothing to help the case of your GOD, Jesus, who had several opportunities to correct such, but never did. Why didn’t he?

He absolutely did - you, on the other hand, have been yapping along dubious catachresis and prevarications in total disregard of what those texts say.

Shall I start with this last one and say something until you arrive? Good.

Deep Sight:
You are already aware that I have not made this claim, but I understand you say this for the purpose of making an analogy. But the analogy is tediously misconceived.

Nope, it was not an analogy but a direct statement to the point. Let the best of your reincarnation gurus step forward and argue their scholarship on that case - I would be most glad to make them eat back their every word. Try me.

The answers describing him as Jeremiah or Elias surely point to the fact that the persons giving these answers felt that such prophets could return to the world through birth as an infant – and they were aware that Jesus was born as an infant – as they knew his mother, brothers and family.

Being born as an infant is the definition of reincarnation.

Nope, the concept of reincarnation among Jews does not predate the Talmud - please do your research carefully and stop making these unfounded illations. Careful readers know that reincarnation was only popularised among the Ashkenazi Jews (aka "German Jews" who lived in the Middle Ages (5th - 16th centuries). Now you please tell me why such a recent date (middle ages) would now serve as more authentic and authoritative source than Jewish prophetic teachings that came much, much earlier and had NO TRACE of reincarnation in their body of scriptures?

Besides, the popular concept about public opinion concerning the Person of Jesus was not about reincarnation, but rather about RESURRECTION. Why? Please read again Matthew 16:14 and Mark 8:28 - why did the people also think that Jesus was John the baptist? Was that reincarnation? Of course not! You know why? Because Herod had spread that misconception, but even in his mistaken ideas, he predicated resurrection - "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead" (Mark 6:16). Why is it that you categorically fail to see that - and since when has 'rising from the dead' become reincarnation, DeepSight?

Even in the OT when prophets declared that a personage would reappear in the future, it was not on the basis of 'reincarnation', but rather on the basis of resurrection. An example is the prophecy that David the king would again rule Israel over - "And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them . . . and my servant David shall be their prince for ever" (Ezekiel 37:24 & 25).

Of course, several other prophets confirmed just about the same thing:
[list][li]Jeremiah in Jer. 30:9 - "But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them."[/li]
[li]Hosea in Hos. 3:5 - "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days. "[/li][/list]

At the time Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Hopsea gave these prophecies, was David yet alive? If not, how was David to come back and be king over Israel after he had died? Certainly it was not by reincarnation but by resurrection. How? For two reasons:

(a) We have shown again and again that 'reincarnation' was not a teaching of Biblical prophets; and researchers argue that reincarnation among the Jews did not predate the Talmud - which is that such a concept among the Jews was not earlier than the 3rd century. Please DeepSight, if you feel otherwise, just produce a single document from Jewish SCRIPTURE that speaks about reincarnation and let's discuss it (arguing your misfortune of reincarnation into texts that do not teach such is not gonna help, sorry). To force-read 'reincarnation' into the prophecies of the Bible is to act dumb and dubious in utter display of having no clues about Biblical prophecies.

(b) As we have seen, the OT prophets have categorically again and again made declarations about resurrection, and NOT reincarnation. To this end I set forth an answer in post #4 this thread showing what exactly they said - please go back, take another look, and then show me how those texts there are pointing to reincarnation.

Deep Sight:
I am struggling to see the relevance of this to anything. This is what i mean by meaningless but wordy posts that go off on a fabulously irrelevant tangent.

Is the reason you can't see its relevance perhaps because you choose not to do so, for convenience sake that your 'reincarnation' non-sequitor can remain default with you regardless of facts to the contrary? Even so, the relevance is simply that, contrary to what that NDE article argues, the JEWISH prophets had resurrection in mind, not reincarnation. That is what you should deal with, rather than whine about the point being tangential.

I am familiar with the biblical idea of resurrection. I agree with you that the idea predates Christianity. I never at any point stated that any of the Prophets discuss reincarnation. So i am at a stark loss as to how you pull the wool over the eyes of your adoring Christian audience by asking me to point out such.

I was not pulling any wool over anyone's eyes. Rather, I went directly to your source and burst their illiterate bubble.

You cannot just pull out a few quotes from that article to make it look like they had a genuine argument to make, whereas not many people would have understood what your author had said about Biblical resurrection - which was another reason I went directly to your source to show that they had absolutely NO CLUE what is taught in the Bible. To this end, I would also like to ask that you wash your face, remove any cataracts or wools, and answer me one simple question: why was your author hiding the FACT that Jesus was speaking about "rising from the dead" - since when has 'rising from the dead' become 'reincarnation', DeepSight??

Thus you waste my time when you quote these passages on resurrection.

Quoting directly from any source and showing their coherence is not wasting time for intelligent readers. The reason you write it off that wasy is because you now see that your arguements are such a waste of everyone's time - including yours. I contained my answers within YOUR OWN definition of reincarnation and then asked you how that is the same thing as 'rising from the dead'? Even if I otherwise had quoted those texts and argued nothing, how does any intelligent reader make the convoluted argument that 'reincarnation' is a 'rising from the dead'?? Just how?

No one can deny the doctrine of the resurection within the whole of the bible. Nor was i attempting to do so.

Then stop bleating reincarnation into the Bible when it is so clear that is not what the Bible teaches!

I was talking about what the Jews at a particular time had in mind when asking a particular question. Thus i see no reason to respond further to your quotes above.

Even those Jews had RESURRECTION in mind, not reincarnation. Follow the Bible on what the Jews said on so many occasions in the NT - and you will still find them all referring to RESURRECTION. I guess you would not even bother to see the point if I were to quote some examples, but I shall nonetheless do so for readers to examine for themselves:

[list]Luke 9:7-9
⁷Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed, because that [size=14pt]it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead[/size];
⁸And of some, that Elias had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again.
⁹And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but who is this, of whom I hear such things? And he desired to see him.[/list]

[list]Mark 6:14-16
¹⁴And king Herod heard of him; (for his name was spread abroad and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.
¹⁵Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.
¹⁶But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.
[/list]

These are just a few examples, but note particularly those highlighted words and what they point out:

(a) people were saying all sorts of things; but NONE of them ever said any thing alluding to reincarnation - NONE!

(b) where they made allusions to someone in the past that had come to them, they used exapressions that pointed to RESURRECTION - see the examples again:

[list][li]'it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead'[/li][/list]
[list][li]other people said: "that Elias had appeared"[/li][/list]
[list][li]and yet some other people said: "one of the old prophets was risen again"[/li][/list]

Please, DeepSight, without excusing these clear pointers and claiming wild statements of 'tangential' this and that, just point out where any of these phrases and clauses are the same as reincarnation:
   * "had appeared"
   * "risen from the dead"
When did reincarnation get to the point of being twisted to mean a rising from the dead or an appearing?

You see, when you meet with clear statements, don't waste your time making frantic efforts to force your non-starters into those texts. Deal directly with the meaning of "risen from the dead", and please don't be evasive on it or prevaricate, thank you.

That the prophets taught resurrection is very well agreed and not at issue for me.

^{(the large fonts are mine)} - if the prophets taught RESURRECTION, why have you been arguing reincarnation into the Bible? Aren't you a very, very funny fellow?

The next time you bring this wasted argument of yours to harangue anyone, I shall waste no time to take you to task - trust me.

Deep Sight:
Viaro -

Sometimes it perplexes me how you go off on a very wordy but absolutely directionless tangent that completely misses the very simple and essential points of a discourse.

DeepSight, my initial response on this subject of your catachresis of 'reincarnation' was concise, and I thought such brevity would have served the purpose where I reposted it again in this thread (post #103). But seeing that you wanted to maintain the impossible and keep going on and on with non-sequitors, it seemed you left me no other option than to waste yours in just five short points. The whole point is that reincarnation does not appear in those texts where you had tried to force them there - and I was going to open a thread and show you exactly what reincarnation is, as well ask you very simple questions that would put paid to that whole subject. . . but I chose to just set you gently in this thread (my apologies to bee444 for the derailment - things happen on Nairaland).

I will have to set you straight, but this time i will not do it over and over again as often is the case with you.

I will do it only once -

My dear sir, arguing the same thing repeatedly or once where you missed the whole point makes absolutely no difference. I was hoping you would carefully consider the points raised and then draw yourself up to answer the questions in my summations. Did you? Nope - and I was not surprised at all. If you missed anything, don't miss this one:

[list]

viaro:
Please DeepSight, since when is reincarnation defined as a 'rising from the DEAD'? Your own definition is contrary to this when you asserted:. . . and you also noted loudly: 'LET'S NOT VIOLATE SIMPLE DEFINITIONS.' So, please tell me: when has "risen from the dead" or 'rising from the dead' become 'reincarnation' for those NDE folks who were too busy forcing their misfooted arguments into the Bible, huh? Do these words not clearly indicate RESURRECTION?!?

[/list]

Where in Jewish scholarship did you read any idea to translate a 'rising from the dead' into 'reincarnation'? You see, when you conveniently duck the REAL issue on such a topic, then something is really suspect about the way you argue your case.

Deep Sight:
No need to quibble on this - I agree that it was not a part of Jewish Prophetic transmissions. I did not at any point infer that - I stated rather that the Jews of Jesus' time who were questioning him had it as part of their worldview. We carry on.

False again - thrice holy and patently false! The folks at the NDE website (from where you probably had ferreted that article with misplaced arguments) actually had no clue about Biblical prophecies. Even so, they went as far as twaddling that the concept of Biblical resurrection was the 'result of a great schism' in Christian history - that is so, so shameful to read!! That was why I showed you the sequence in history and also quoted resources to show you that the reincarnation thingy appeared in Jewish thought much, much later! Let me ring it out again:

[list](a)

Reincarnation appeared in Jewish thought some time after the Talmud.

(b)

[size=14pt]There is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings.[/size]

(c)

The idea of reincarnation, called gilgul, became popular in folk belief, and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews.

source: http://www.crystalinks.com/reincarnation.html [/list]

The point in all this is that if you took time to carefully check what you were excerpting, you would find a whole pot of mess on that NDE article. Please look carefully at the three points above and see why your source was giving beautiful fibs that go nowehere.

. . quoting you from here:

Deep Sight:
Viaro, i am off to the bank now - PLEASE DO NOT UTTER A WORD UNTILL I COME BACK AND FINISH RESPONDING TO THE REST OF YOUR POSTS.

I don't want confusion, let me finish, and you can have at it.

Having brought the discussion over here, I regret to say that you would have to slow down in your own confusion. Your tarradiddle is not going anywhere because you are being evasive and force-reading your catachresis into those texts to argue for your non-sequitor of reincarnation. So, before you come back, I shall have to address a few of your own misgivings once again and set you straight.

. . . from here:

[quote author=Deep Sight link=topic=381774.msg5360927#msg5360927 date=1264085020]

[quote author=viaro link=topic=381774.msg5358103#msg5358103 date=1264030614]
3. Was Jesus Christ a reincarnation of an OT prophet?[/quote]You are already aware that I have not made this claim, but I understand you say this for the purpose of making an analogy. But the analogy is tediously misconceived.

You cannot trail off arguing linearly about others and yet miss the case of Jesus Christ. He had asked His own disciples who men thought that He was. Please read Matthew 16:14 and Mark 8:28 and see that the answers were varied - some said that He was either 'Jeremiah' or 'one of the prophets'. But did you notice that the answers also alleged that Jesus Christ was 'Elias' (that is 'Elijah'), and that the same Jesus Christ was John the Baptist?!?

The answers describing him as Jeremiah or Elias surely point to the fact that the persons giving these answers felt that such prophets could return to the world through birth as an infant – and they were aware that Jesus was born as an infant – as they knew his mother, brothers and family.

Being born as an infant is the definition of reincarnation.

Now let us note something with careful certainty -

The persons who said that he was John the Baptist must have been, as you suggested, deluded lunatics. I say this for two reasons –

1. He could not be John the Baptist by reincarnation, since he was alive and already a full blown adult during John’s lifetime AND –

2. He could not be John the Baptist by resurrection for the very same reason: he was alive and already a full blown adult during John’s lifetime

Thus the suggestion that he was John the Baptist thus cannot pass EITHER the reincarnation or resurrection tests!

However the suggestions that he might be Elias or Jeremiah CAN ONLY BE CONCEIVED UNDER ONE TEST – THE REINCARNATION TEST.

This is so simply because the very fact that the Jews were aware of Jesus birth: that he had a mother and family in Nazareth, and that he was the “Carpenter’s son” firmly shuts the door against the notion that they were considering resurrection when saying these things because resurrection does not happen through re-birth as an infant.

Can I scream it loudly enough – Rebirth as an infant is the exact definition of reincarnation! ! ! !

Thus it emerges by plain deductive reasoning that the claims that he was John the Baptist had no basis in either reincarnation or resurrection,[b] but the claims that he was Elias or Jeremiah COULD ONLY BE CONCEIVABLE AS CLAIMS OF REINCARNATION GIVEN THAT HE WAS BORN AN INFANT.

Now note carefully: none of the claims are proof of anything, I agree: they are only indicative of what the persons claiming thought in their minds: and haven shown that some of the claims were absolutely inconceivable under any circumstances (the claims of Jesus being John the Baptist) – we can see that some other claims are conceivable [b]only in terms of reincarnation given that the subject was born an infant.

This affirms my assertion that the Jews of the time CLEARLY factored reincarnation into their worldview – and positively debunks your claim that they did not.

[list](a) In saying that Jesus Christ was Elijah, then John the Baptist could not be the same Elijah at the same time - because reincarnation does not teach that one person could appear as two different people at the same time;[/list]

This is frankly meaningless: you missed the obvious fact that the claims were made by different people at different times, thus one person might think that Elijah has come as Jesus; another might think that it is not Jesus he came as, but John. Thus the issue of Elijah appearing as two people exists only in your mis-footed conjecture and is a non starter, as it is clearly not the same person that claims that both Jesus and John are Elias. The text in your won verse shows this –

Matt: 16:14 – “they replied some say John the Baptist, others say Elias, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets”

I hope you can now see how shockingly obtuse this statement of yours is.

What the claims do show though, is that incontrovertibly, the Jews thought that a man born as an infant could in fact be Elijah – and being born as an infant is defined as . . .reincarnation – not resurrection.

Herod had spread the misconception that Jesus Christ was John the Baptist, but even in that, he did not speak of reincarnation but rather of resurrection: "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead" (Mark 6:16).

Meaningless again. The fact that resurrection is believed does nothing to discredit that obvious fact that another things – such as reincarnation – were also widespread beliefs at that time. Beliefs which Jesus had several opportunities to controvert, but never did.

The import of this is simple: public opinions can be hugely misplaced!

Of course: but this does nothing to help the case of your GOD, Jesus, who had several opportunities to correct such, but never did. Why didn’t he?[/quote]

. . . from here:

[quote author=Deep Sight link=topic=381774.msg5360557#msg5360557 date=1264080107]

[quote author=viaro link=topic=381774.msg5358094#msg5358094 date=1264030526]
2. Biblical resurrection predates Christianity

In my initial reply to your reincarnation argument (reposted in #103 this thread), it was made plain that the Jewish Scriptures already spoke of resurrection long before the emergence of the NT, and hence even before the emergence of Christianity and the Church! Therefore, for the author of your article to place it as late as an unidentified 'great schism' in Christian history is a bold and shameless whopper! Could I remind you of some of the Old Testament references to resurrection among Jewish prophets? See below:

              *  And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
                 some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
                 Daniel 12:2

             *  Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
                 Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
                 and the earth shall cast out the dead
                 Isaiah 26:19

             *  Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD;
                 Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
                 come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
                 Ezekiel 37:12

The interesting thing here is that the OT prophets quoted above were solidly making a case for resurrection. Please, DeepSight, could you do me the fav of pointing out reincarnation from those Jewish prophecies? Does reincarnation (as you defined earlier) speak about the rising of people from the grave? Or were Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel members of the 'great schism' of your author's unidentified Christian history? Why do people have to resort to these fibs just to sell their misfooted NDE arguments for 'reincarnation'?[/quote]I am struggling to see the relevance of this to anything. This is what i mean by meaningless but wordy posts that go off on a fabulously irrelevant tangent.

I am familiar with the biblical idea of resurrection. I agree with you that the idea predates Christianity. I never at any point stated that any of the Prophets discuss reincarnation. So i am at a stark loss as to how you pull the wool over the eyes of your adoring Christian audience by asking me to point out such. Thus you waste my time when you quote these passages on resurrection. No one can deny the doctrine of the resurection within the whole of the bible. Nor was i attempting to do so. I was talking about what the Jews at a particular time had in mind when asking a particular question. Thus i see no reason to respond further to your quotes above. That the prophets taught resurrection is very well agreed and not at issue for me.[/quote]

. .  [url=http://]from here[/url]:

[quote author=Deep Sight link=topic=381774.msg5360519#msg5360519 date=1264079581]

[quote author=viaro link=topic=381774.msg5358085#msg5358085 date=1264030431]
1. Jewish Prophets taught about resurrection, not reincarnation

Let's go back to that quote from the NDE website where the author claims that:
If you only did a bit of search for yourself, you will find that your author was spewing out what is patently and shamefully false. The fact is that reincarnation was not originally part of Jewish prophetic thinking.[/quote]No need to quibble on this - I agree that it was not a part of Jewish Prophetic transmissions. I did not at any point infer that - I stated rather that the Jews of Jesus' time who were questioning him had it as part of their worldview. We carry on.[/quote]

viaro:
. . . and then ask that you follow through with same by posting your rejoinders following them, and then we take it in that sequence - so we can keep track of the flow of discussion.

Perhaps I might just be able to do that for you and trouble you less:

---

From here:

[quote author=Deep Sight link=topic=381774.msg5360398#msg5360398 date=1264078269]
Viaro -

Sometimes it perplexes me how you go off on a very wordy but absolutely directionless tangent that completely misses the very simple and essential points of a discourse.

I will have to set you straight, but this time i will not do it over and over again as often is the case with you.

I will do it only once -

Next post -[/quote]

5. What Happened in the Transfiguration in Matthew 17?

Perhaps reincarnation gurus often forget a very important point in all this, so that certain verses are either ignored in Matthew 17 or otherwise twisted to force-fit them into their theories. When Jesus said in verse 12 that 'Elias is come already', the disciples understood that He was speaking about John the Baptist - but as we saw for point #4 above, He did not by that mean it in a literal sense.

Why?

The answer is simple: because in the transfiguration, two people appeared on the mount - Elijah and Moses (see verse 3). They were thus recognised as such, for which Peter proposed preposterously to build three tabernacles - one for Christ, another for Moses, and the third for . . who?? ELIJAH (verse 4).

Now, if John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah, would the same Peter not have used the name 'John' instead of 'Elijah' in verse 4?? Could it be the reason he did not think about 'reincarnation' was simply that it was a non-sequitor in the whole unfolding of events in the transfiguration?

More to the point was that in verse 9 when Jesus spoke to His disciples about that incident, He made no allusions to any semblance of reincarnation but rather an emphatic case for resurrection - "And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead."

Please DeepSight, since when is reincarnation defined as a 'rising from the DEAD'? Your own definition is contrary to this when you asserted:

Reincarnation is the scenario where a previously dead person is born again as a baby. This is entirely different from a resurection!

. . . and you also noted loudly: 'LET'S NOT VIOLATE SIMPLE DEFINITIONS.' So, please tell me: when has "risen from the dead" or 'rising from the dead' become 'reincarnation' for those NDE folks who were too busy forcing their misfooted arguments into the Bible, huh? Do these words not clearly indicate RESURRECTION?!?

Why is it that your gurus often miss this simple point and twist verses completely out of their contexts and simplicity to argue their non-sequitors into the Bible? Oh, I almost forgot that the NDE article you excerpted was patently lying on the issue of resurrection (it was the 'result of a great schism', they said), so should that be any surprises?




Bro, I've got 'someone important' in my life standing here and giving me hard looks, so let me summarise for the evening.

Your arguments are most futile. I do not mind my answers being 'killed off', but a patently false and misfooted excerpt from the NDE website would hardly scratch viaro - trust me, I know.

Aside the fact that your gurus have no clues about Biblical prophecies, they would stop at nothing to twist the meaning of 'rising from the dead' to become 'reincarnation' - please tell me: when did the definition of reincarnation suddenly become a 'rising from the dead'? Huh?

Most intriguing is that if reincarnation was what we should read in those verses rather than resurrection, then a pertinent question I have often asked is this: "who was Jesus Christ a 'reincarnation of; and who is the 'reincarnation' of Jesus Christ?" No subtle patent lies would cut it for the NDE and their ilk; but does it not strike you that none of your sources has ever established who was being reincarnated as 'Jesus Christ'?

Okay, I gat to go - she calls. Cheers.

4. But what about John the Baptist's own answer in John 1:21?

It is quite remarkable indeed that John the Baptist was categorically asked the question of who he was. We read in John 1:21 - "And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No." Please observe well: directly from John the baptist's own mouth, he categorically said that he was NOT Elijah. I wonder why those arguing 'reincarnation' upon John's head have never carefully considered this verse!

Clearly, if John the Baptist was Elijah by any stretch, why would he categorically reply to that same question that he was NOT Elijah?!? The answer is simple: because some people were making a literal case for Elijah's re-appearance in Jesus' day, whereas that was not the meaning intended by the OT Jewish prophets.

Another thing to particularly note is that when Jesus spoke to His initially about John the Baptist, He tersely said: "And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come" (Matt. 11:14). The point here of placing a conditional (IF) in His statement is that He did not intend to draw a literal interpretation of Malachi 4:5 between Elijah and John. Let us observe that Malachi gave his prophecy in chapter 4 mostly in metaphoric language, so that we see that it is not only once, but at least twice that the same Malachi makes reference to John the Baptist - the second reference appears earlier in Mal. 3:1, which we shall consider in a moment.

But back up for just a minute as to Jesus' conditional 'IF' which was not intended as a literalism. Note that the metaphoric language in Malachi's prophecy concerning the Elijah-John connection is demystified in Luke 1 where the angel Gabriel appeared to John's father, Zachariah. In the prophecy of the birth of John, the angel refers to Malachi's prophecy in identical declarative, but notice that he did not refer to John the baptist as 'Elijah' - rather, he said that John would go 'in the spirit and power of Elias'. Why not simply rather identify John to be the reincarnation of Elijah?

The above brings us to the other reference in Malachi for John the Baptist - 'Behold, I will send ⁽¹⁾my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even ⁽²⁾the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts' [Mal. 3:1].

There are two messengers in that verse: ⁽¹⁾my messenger is not the same as ⁽²⁾the messenger of the covenant - the former refers to John, the latter refers to Christ (who incidentally is also called 'the Lord' who comes to His Temple).

The point in all this is that John clearly understood that he was NOT a reincarnation of Elijah, but rather that he would attend upon his ministry in 'the spirit and power of Elias' (Luke 1:17). That was why when he was asked directly if he were Elijah, his emphatic answer without contradiction was "I am not" (John 1:21). It was also in this distinction that Jesus did not force a literalism for John when He said "IF ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come" (Matt. 11:14).

We shall next see why Jesus was not making a literal interpretation of Malachi's prophecy for John the Baptist.

3. Was Jesus Christ a reincarnation of an OT prophet?

DeepSight, you remember arguing the scenario of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ on the question of reincarnation and resurrection, yes? Let me remind you of a recent quote of yours:

Thus it is abundantly clear that since the Jews knew Jesus and John were born and grew up, RESURRECTION COULD NOT BE ON THEIR MINDS WHEN THEY ASKED THAT QUESTION. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Now, leaving aside your argument of reincarnation for John, let's talk about Jesus Himself - who was He a "reincarnation" of?

You cannot trail off arguing linearly about others and yet miss the case of Jesus Christ. He had asked His own disciples who men thought that He was. Please read Matthew 16:14 and Mark 8:28 and see that the answers were varied - some said that He was either 'Jeremiah' or 'one of the prophets'. But did you notice that the answers also alleged that Jesus Christ was 'Elias' (that is 'Elijah'), and that the same Jesus Christ was John the Baptist?!?

This has several implications:

[list](a) In saying that Jesus Christ was Elijah, then John the Baptist could not be the same Elijah at the same time - because reincarnation does not teach that one person could appear as two different people at the same time;

(b) again, in saying that Jesus Christ was John the Baptist, it is obvious that such an opinion was misplaced - because the people knew and well understood that John the Baptist was NOT Jesus Christ and they had testified to that fact (see John 10:41). Herod had spread the misconception that Jesus Christ was John the Baptist, but even in that, he did not speak of reincarnation but rather of resurrection: "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead" (Mark 6:16).[/list]

The import of this is simple: public opinions can be hugely misplaced! As far as this discourse is concerned, you DeepSight had excerpted the argument of an opinionated bavard who had no clue what he was arguing. Could you then do me the second fav of reconciling that bavard's controverted argument with this plain fact about resurrection in the Bible?

2. Biblical resurrection predates Christianity

In my initial reply to your reincarnation argument (reposted in #103 this thread), it was made plain that the Jewish Scriptures already spoke of resurrection long before the emergence of the NT, and hence even before the emergence of Christianity and the Church! Therefore, for the author of your article to place it as late as an unidentified 'great schism' in Christian history is a bold and shameless whopper! Could I remind you of some of the Old Testament references to resurrection among Jewish prophets? See below:

* And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2

* Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
and the earth shall cast out the dead
Isaiah 26:19

* Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
Ezekiel 37:12

The interesting thing here is that the OT prophets quoted above were solidly making a case for resurrection. Please, DeepSight, could you do me the fav of pointing out reincarnation from those Jewish prophecies? Does reincarnation (as you defined earlier) speak about the rising of people from the grave? Or were Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel members of the 'great schism' of your author's unidentified Christian history? Why do people have to resort to these fibs just to sell their misfooted NDE arguments for 'reincarnation'?

1. Jewish Prophets taught about resurrection, not reincarnation

Let's go back to that quote from the NDE website where the author claims that:

The orthodox concept of resurrection as the "Night of the Living Dead" is also the result of a great schism which occurred in early Christian history concerning pre-existence and the nature of Jesus.

If you only did a bit of search for yourself, you will find that your author was spewing out what is patently and shamefully false. The fact is that reincarnation was not originally part of Jewish prophetic thinking. Rather than argue a long thesis on this, let me just quote you an excerpt from another source:

Reincarnation appeared in Jewish thought some time after the Talmud. [size=14pt]There is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings[/size]. The idea of reincarnation, called gilgul, became popular in folk belief, and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews.

Gilgul refers to the concept of reincarnation, emanating from the Kabbalistic framework within Judaism. In Hebrew, the word gilgul means "cycle" and neshamot is the plural for "souls." Souls are seen to "cycle" through "lives" or "incarnations", being attached to different human bodies over time. Which body they associate with depends on their particular task in the physical world, spiritual levels of the bodies of predecessors and so on. The concept relates to the wider processes of history in Kabbalah, involving Cosmic Tikkun (Messianic rectification), and the historical dynamic of ascending Lights and descending Vessels from generation to generation. The esoteric explanations of gilgul were articulated in Jewish mysticism by Isaac Luria in the 16th century, as part of the metaphysical purpose of Creation.

Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in a number of Kabbalistic works from the 1200s, and also among many mystics in the late 1500s. Martin Buber's early collection of stories of the Baal Shem Tov's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives.

Among well known (generally non-kabbalist or anti-kabbalist) Rabbis who rejected the idea of reincarnation are Saadia Gaon, David Kimhi, Hasdai Crescas, Yedayah Bedershi (early 14th century), Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, the Rosh and Leon de Modena.

Saadia Gaon, in Emunoth ve-Deoth, concludes Section vi with a refutation of the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation). While refuting reincarnation, the Saadia Gaon further states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs.

The belief is common in Orthodox Judaism. Indeed there is an entire volume of work called Sha'ar Ha'Gilgulim[36] (The Gate of Reincarnations), based on the work of Rabbi Isaac Luria (and compiled by his disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital). It describes the deep, complex laws of reincarnation. One concept that arises from Sha'ar Ha'gilgulim is the idea that gilgul is paralleled physically by pregnancy.

Many Orthodox siddurim (prayerbooks) have a nightly prayer asking for forgiveness for sins that one may have committed in this gilgul or a previous one, which accompanies the nighttime recitation of the Shema before going to sleep.

The Kabala, the ancient mystical teachings of the Jewish faith is filled with references to reincarnation that are thousands of years old.

source: http://www.crystalinks.com/reincarnation.html

Please note: Rabbi Isaac Luria was a Jewish mystic who lived in the 16th century (1534 – July 25, 1572). His works are a late entry to Judaism and cannot serve as authority over the revelations of Jewish prophets such as Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Also interesting is that Rabbi Se`adiah ben Yosef Gaon who lived earlier in the 9th century (b. Egypt 882/892, d. Baghdad 942) notes that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs - and we shall see why that is so in just a moment. Rabbi Saadia Gaon is reputed to have penned the first systematic work on the philosphy of the Jewish religion, and besides being credited with having produced the first translation of the Bible for Arabic-speaking Jews, is considered one of the greatest writers of post-Biblical Judaism (see here).

The body of your repost at #108 has to be wrapped up before we can begin to consider anything else. Let me again quote you:

In very explicit language, Jesus identified John the Baptist as the reincarnation of Elijah. Even the disciples of Jesus understood what Jesus was saying. This identification of John to be the reincarnation of Elijah is very important when it comes to Bible prophecy. By identifying the John with Elijah, Jesus identified himself as the Messiah. The Hebrew scriptures mentions specific signs that would precede the coming of the Messiah. One of them is that Elijah will return first.

There are many sources that have recycled that misplaced article from which you posted that excerpt, an example being the NDE website's "Reincarnation and the Bible". It is understandable that the article appeals to those who would like to force reincarnation into Matthew 17; but they tend to do this on a false premise, especially when the author has absolutely no clue about Biblical prophecies. It's quite a long piece, but the salient points set forth there are quite shoddy and newspeak.

Let's take just one: resurrection. It is in fact appalling to see what jabberwocky the author makes of resurrection in the Bible. An excerpt directly from that NDE source:

[list]

This doctrine is the orthodox Christian doctrine called "resurrection" and it is the result of a misunderstanding of the higher teachings of Jesus concerning the reincarnation of the spirit into a new body and the real resurrection which is a spiritual rebirth or "awakening" within a person already alive. The orthodox concept of resurrection as the "Night of the Living Dead" is also the result of a great schism which occurred in early Christian history concerning pre-existence and the nature of Jesus.

[/list]

You see already that the author first twists the meaning of Biblical resurrection by claiming it is a misunderstanding of Jesus' "higher teaching"; then goes on to twaddle about the concept of resurrection being the result of a 'great schism' in early Christian history ('great schism' and 'Christian history' which, expectedly, he does not identify - just the way anyone who tends to duplicity would write an online article).

DeepSight, if you had your thinking cap on and used it, you ought to have noticed that the author was shamelessly lying - and he bought you completely cheap. . with change left over!

Please allow me to show you why that article is teeming with living falsehood in the series of observations and discourses that follow.

viaro:
First, I'd like to repost my previous answers here,

. . so here goes:

---

@DeepSight,

Deep Sight:

[size=16pt]Thus it is abundantly clear that since the Jews knew Jesus and John were born and grew up, RESURRECTION COULD NOT BE ON THEIR MINDS WHEN THEY ASKED THAT QUESTION. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.[/size]

For the sake of comedy, it's no longer sufficient to force your conjectures into the Biblical texts you argue for reincarnation, but you must needs shout in blazing red uppercase fonts? Am I seeing things?

Deep Sight:

And the disciples asked him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"


But he answered them and said, "Elijah indeed is to come and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also shall the Son of Man suffer at their hand."


Then the disciples understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist." (Matt. 17:10-13)

- Which seals the point and kills off Viaro's surmise that resurrection was at issue. That is ENTIRELY WRONG.

Relax, let me clear up some of your misgivings on this subject and then bring you round to see that neither John nor Jesus nor the Jews querying them were assuming reincarnation - rather, they had resurrection in mind, and that was the principal subject on their minds in those texts. We shall see this in a moment, but let us begin with the definition or meaning of reincarnation, which you gave:

Deep Sight:
Reincarnation is the scenario where a previously dead person is born again as a baby. This is entirely different from a resurection!

LET'S NOT VIOLATE SIMPLE DEFINITIONS!

No, we shall not violate simple definitions; but we call on you to stop violating the simple Biblical texts by forcing them to say what they clearly DO NOT say! This is what I shall try to untangle for you in subsequent posts, which regretably would be quite detailed.

Perhaps it would be better to talk about these things here rather than derail the other thread.

First, I'd like to repost my previous answers here, and then ask that you follow through with same by posting your rejoinders following them, and then we take it in that sequence - so we can keep track of the flow of discussion. I apologies upfront for the inconvenience of asking you to repeat yourself here from the other thread (we understand not many people like to be bothered in that manner either).

Thank you in anticipation.

Deep Sight:
Viaro, i am off to the bank now - PLEASE DO NOT UTTER A WORD UNTILL I COME BACK AND FINISH RESPONDING TO THE REST OF YOUR POSTS.

I don't want confusion, let me finish, and you can have at it.

I have been waiting patiently and can hardly resist not saying anything - my apologies. The reason why I would decline your request is simply because you are making circular arguments that have no bearing on the points I put across. And frankly, rather than let you go on and on in that manner, I shall perhaps take our concerns to another thread and ask that we meet up there, yes?

I'm making that request for the sake of leaving this thread to deal with its own topic ('Is Jesus God') and let other discussants have a breath of fresh air. Please watch for the new thread, and cheers.

nuclearboy:
@Viaro:

Again the Mighty Expounder rescues me from the big bad wolf call DeepSight . What do I owe you now? Obviously, we've gone past drinks. Sadly, Jesoul seems taken or it'd have been my life ambition to see that happen

Brilliant response, Chairman! I'm learning a lot at your feet.

Your honour, commander of the e-jails. . . Yes, we've gone past 'carbonated drinks' as it is. I don't have any ideas just now (never mind that Jesoul is the apple of God's eye ), so I won't protest! Soon. . very soon we shall strike on a reasonable deal that the jury can't refuse.

Anyways, how are you keeping? I trust that life is treating you great? Bless up.

5. What Happened in the Transfiguration in Matthew 17?

Perhaps reincarnation gurus often forget a very important point in all this, so that certain verses are either ignored in Matthew 17 or otherwise twisted to force-fit them into their theories. When Jesus said in verse 12 that 'Elias is come already', the disciples understood that He was speaking about John the Baptist - but as we saw for point #4 above, He did not by that mean it in a literal sense.

Why?

The answer is simple: because in the transfiguration, two people appeared on the mount  - Elijah and Moses (see verse 3). They were thus recognised as such, for which Peter proposed preposterously to build three tabernacles - one for Christ, another for Moses, and the third for . . who?? ELIJAH (verse 4).

Now, if John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah, would the same Peter not have used the name 'John' instead of 'Elijah' in verse 4?? Could it be the reason he did not think about 'reincarnation' was simply that it was a non-sequitor in the whole unfolding of events in the transfiguration?

More to the point was that in verse 9 when Jesus spoke to His disciples about that incident, He made no allusions to any semblance of reincarnation but rather an emphatic case for resurrection - "And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead."

Please DeepSight, since when is reincarnation defined as a 'rising from the DEAD'? Your own definition is contrary to this when you asserted:

Reincarnation is the scenario where a previously dead person is born again as a baby. This is entirely different from a resurection!

. . . and you also noted loudly: 'LET'S NOT VIOLATE SIMPLE DEFINITIONS.' So, please tell me: when has "risen from the dead" or 'rising from the dead' become 'reincarnation' for those NDE folks who were too busy forcing their misfooted arguments into the Bible, huh? Do these words not clearly indicate RESURRECTION?!?

Why is it that your gurus often miss this simple point and twist verses completely out of their contexts and simplicity to argue their non-sequitors into the Bible? Oh, I almost forgot that the NDE article you excerpted was patently lying on the issue of resurrection (it was the 'result of a great schism', they said), so should that be any surprises?




Bro, I've got 'someone important' in my life standing here and giving me hard looks, so let me summarise for the evening.

Your arguments are most futile. I do not mind my answers being 'killed off', but a patently false and misfooted excerpt from the NDE website would hardly scratch viaro - trust me, I know.

Aside the fact that your gurus have no clues about Biblical prophecies, they would stop at nothing to twist the meaning of 'rising from the dead' to become 'reincarnation' - please tell me: when did the definition of reincarnation suddenly become a 'rising from the dead'? Huh?

Most intriguing is that if reincarnation was what we should read in those verses rather than resurrection, then a pertinent question I have often asked is this: "who was Jesus Christ a 'reincarnation of; and who is the 'reincarnation' of Jesus Christ?" No subtle patent lies would cut it for the NDE and their ilk; but does it not strike you that none of your sources has ever established who was being reincarnated as 'Jesus Christ'?

Okay, I gat to go - she calls. Cheers.

4. But what about John the Baptist's own answer in John 1:21?

It is quite remarkable indeed that John the Baptist was categorically asked the question of who he was. We read in John 1:21 - "And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No." Please observe well: directly from John the baptist's own mouth, he categorically said that he was NOT Elijah. I wonder why those arguing 'reincarnation' upon John's head have never carefully considered this verse!

Clearly, if John the Baptist was Elijah by any stretch, why would he categorically reply to that same question that he was NOT Elijah?!? The answer is simple: because some people were making a literal case for Elijah's re-appearance in Jesus' day, whereas that was not the meaning intended by the OT Jewish prophets.

Another thing to particularly note is that when Jesus spoke to His initially about John the Baptist, He tersely said: "And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come" (Matt. 11:14). The point here of placing a conditional (IF) in His statement is that He did not intend to draw a literal interpretation of Malachi 4:5 between Elijah and John. Let us observe that Malachi gave his prophecy in chapter 4 mostly in metaphoric language, so that we see that it is not only once, but at least twice that the same Malachi makes reference to John the Baptist - the second reference appears earlier in Mal. 3:1, which we shall consider in a moment.

But back up for just a minute as to Jesus' conditional 'IF' which was not intended as a literalism. Note that the metaphoric language in Malachi's prophecy concerning the Elijah-John connection is demystified in Luke 1 where the angel Gabriel appeared to John's father, Zachariah. In the prophecy of the birth of John, the angel refers to Malachi's prophecy in identical declarative, but notice that he did not refer to John the baptist as 'Elijah' - rather, he said that John would go 'in the spirit and power of Elias'. Why not simply rather identify John to be the reincarnation of Elijah?

The above brings us to the other reference in Malachi for John the Baptist - 'Behold, I will send ⁽¹⁾my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even ⁽²⁾the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts' [Mal. 3:1].

There are two messengers in that verse: ⁽¹⁾my messenger is not the same as ⁽²⁾the messenger of the covenant - the former refers to John, the latter refers to Christ (who incidentally is also called 'the Lord' who comes to His Temple).

The point in all this is that John clearly understood that he was NOT a reincarnation of Elijah, but rather that he would attend upon his ministry in 'the spirit and power of Elias' (Luke 1:17). That was why when he was asked directly if he were Elijah, his emphatic answer without contradiction was "I am not" (John 1:21). It was also in this distinction that Jesus did not force a literalism for John when He said "IF ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come" (Matt. 11:14).

We shall next see why Jesus was not making a literal interpretation of Malachi's prophecy for John the Baptist.

3. Was Jesus Christ a reincarnation of an OT prophet?

DeepSight, you remember arguing the scenario of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ on the question of reincarnation and resurrection, yes? Let me remind you of a recent quote of yours:

Thus it is abundantly clear that since the Jews knew Jesus and John were born and grew up, RESURRECTION COULD NOT BE ON THEIR MINDS WHEN THEY ASKED THAT QUESTION. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Now, leaving aside your argument of reincarnation for John, let's talk about Jesus Himself - who was He a "reincarnation" of?

You cannot trail off arguing linearly about others and yet miss the case of Jesus Christ. He had asked His own disciples who men thought that He was. Please read Matthew 16:14 and Mark 8:28 and see that the answers were varied - some said that He was either 'Jeremiah' or 'one of the prophets'. But did you notice that the answers also alleged that Jesus Christ was 'Elias' (that is 'Elijah'), and that the same Jesus Christ was John the Baptist?!?

This has several implications:

[list](a) In saying that Jesus Christ was Elijah, then John the Baptist could not be the same Elijah at the same time - because reincarnation does not teach that one person could appear as two different people at the same time;

(b) again, in saying that Jesus Christ was John the Baptist, it is obvious that such an opinion was misplaced - because the people knew and well understood that John the Baptist was NOT Jesus Christ and they had testified to that fact (see John 10:41). Herod had spread the misconception that Jesus Christ was John the Baptist, but even in that, he did not speak of reincarnation but rather of resurrection: "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead" (Mark 6:16).[/list]

The import of this is simple: public opinions can be hugely misplaced! As far as this discourse is concerned, you DeepSight had excerpted the argument of an opinionated bavard who had no clue what he was arguing. Could you then do me the second fav of reconciling that bavard's controverted argument with this plain fact about resurrection in the Bible?

2. Biblical resurrection predates Christianity

In my initial reply to your reincarnation argument (reposted in #103 this thread), it was made plain that the Jewish Scriptures already spoke of resurrection long before the emergence of the NT, and hence even before the emergence of Christianity and the Church! Therefore, for the author of your article to place it as late as an unidentified 'great schism' in Christian history is a bold and shameless whopper! Could I remind you of some of the Old Testament references to resurrection among Jewish prophets? See below:

              *  And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
                 some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
                 Daniel 12:2

             *  Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
                 Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
                 and the earth shall cast out the dead
                 Isaiah 26:19

             *  Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD;
                 Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
                 come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
                 Ezekiel 37:12

The interesting thing here is that the OT prophets quoted above were solidly making a case for resurrection. Please, DeepSight, could you do me the fav of pointing out reincarnation from those Jewish prophecies? Does reincarnation (as you defined earlier) speak about the rising of people from the grave? Or were Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel members of the 'great schism' of your author's unidentified Christian history? Why do people have to resort to these fibs just to sell their misfooted NDE arguments for 'reincarnation'?

1. Jewish Prophets taught about resurrection, not reincarnation

Let's go back to that quote from the NDE website where the author claims that:

The orthodox concept of resurrection as the "Night of the Living Dead" is also the result of a great schism which occurred in early Christian history concerning pre-existence and the nature of Jesus.

If you only did a bit of search for yourself, you will find that your author was spewing out what is patently and shamefully false. The fact is that reincarnation was not originally part of Jewish prophetic thinking. Rather than argue a long thesis on this, let me just quote you an excerpt from another source:

Reincarnation appeared in Jewish thought some time after the Talmud. [size=14pt]There is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings[/size]. The idea of reincarnation, called gilgul, became popular in folk belief, and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews.

Gilgul refers to the concept of reincarnation, emanating from the Kabbalistic framework within Judaism. In Hebrew, the word gilgul means "cycle" and neshamot is the plural for "souls." Souls are seen to "cycle" through "lives" or "incarnations", being attached to different human bodies over time. Which body they associate with depends on their particular task in the physical world, spiritual levels of the bodies of predecessors and so on. The concept relates to the wider processes of history in Kabbalah, involving Cosmic Tikkun (Messianic rectification), and the historical dynamic of ascending Lights and descending Vessels from generation to generation. The esoteric explanations of gilgul were articulated in Jewish mysticism by Isaac Luria in the 16th century, as part of the metaphysical purpose of Creation.

Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in a number of Kabbalistic works from the 1200s, and also among many mystics in the late 1500s. Martin Buber's early collection of stories of the Baal Shem Tov's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives.

Among well known (generally non-kabbalist or anti-kabbalist) Rabbis who rejected the idea of reincarnation are Saadia Gaon, David Kimhi, Hasdai Crescas, Yedayah Bedershi (early 14th century), Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, the Rosh and Leon de Modena.

Saadia Gaon, in Emunoth ve-Deoth, concludes Section vi with a refutation of the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation). While refuting reincarnation, the Saadia Gaon further states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs.

The belief is common in Orthodox Judaism. Indeed there is an entire volume of work called Sha'ar Ha'Gilgulim[36] (The Gate of Reincarnations), based on the work of Rabbi Isaac Luria (and compiled by his disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital). It describes the deep, complex laws of reincarnation. One concept that arises from Sha'ar Ha'gilgulim is the idea that gilgul is paralleled physically by pregnancy.

Many Orthodox siddurim (prayerbooks) have a nightly prayer asking for forgiveness for sins that one may have committed in this gilgul or a previous one, which accompanies the nighttime recitation of the Shema before going to sleep.

The Kabala, the ancient mystical teachings of the Jewish faith is filled with references to reincarnation that are thousands of years old.

source: http://www.crystalinks.com/reincarnation.html

Please note: Rabbi Isaac Luria was a Jewish mystic who lived in the 16th century (1534 – July 25, 1572). His works are a late entry to Judaism and cannot serve as authority over the revelations of Jewish prophets such as Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Also interesting is that Rabbi Se`adiah ben Yosef Gaon who lived earlier in the 9th century (b. Egypt 882/892, d. Baghdad 942) notes that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs - and we shall see why that is so in just a moment. Rabbi Saadia Gaon is reputed to have penned the first systematic work on the philosphy of the Jewish religion, and besides being credited with having produced the first translation of the Bible for Arabic-speaking Jews, is considered one of the greatest writers of post-Biblical Judaism (see here).

The body of your repost at #108 has to be wrapped up before we can begin to consider anything else. Let me again quote you:

In very explicit language, Jesus identified John the Baptist as the reincarnation of Elijah. Even the disciples of Jesus understood what Jesus was saying. This identification of John to be the reincarnation of Elijah is very important when it comes to Bible prophecy. By identifying the John with Elijah, Jesus identified himself as the Messiah. The Hebrew scriptures mentions specific signs that would precede the coming of the Messiah. One of them is that Elijah will return first.

There are many sources that have recycled that misplaced article from which you posted that excerpt, an example being the NDE website's "Reincarnation and the Bible". It is understandable that the article appeals to those who would like to force reincarnation into Matthew 17; but they tend to do this on a false premise, especially when the author has absolutely no clue about Biblical prophecies. It's quite a long piece, but the salient points set forth there are quite shoddy and newspeak.

Let's take just one: resurrection. It is in fact appalling to see what jabberwocky the author makes of resurrection in the Bible. An excerpt directly from that NDE source:

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This doctrine is the orthodox Christian doctrine called "resurrection" and it is the result of a misunderstanding of the higher teachings of Jesus concerning the reincarnation of the spirit into a new body and the real resurrection which is a spiritual rebirth or "awakening" within a person already alive. The orthodox concept of resurrection as the "Night of the Living Dead" is also the result of a great schism which occurred in early Christian history concerning pre-existence and the nature of Jesus.

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You see already that the author first twists the meaning of Biblical resurrection by claiming it is a misunderstanding of Jesus' "higher teaching"; then goes on to twaddle about the concept of resurrection being the result of a 'great schism' in early Christian history ('great schism' and 'Christian history' which, expectedly, he does not identify - just the way anyone who tends to duplicity would write an online article).

DeepSight, if you had your thinking cap on and used it, you ought to have noticed that the author was shamelessly lying - and he bought you completely cheap. .  with change left over!

Please allow me to show you why that article is teeming with living falsehood in the series of observations and discourses that follow.

@DeepSight,

Deep Sight:

[size=16pt]Thus it is abundantly clear that since the Jews knew Jesus and John were born and grew up, RESURRECTION COULD NOT BE ON THEIR MINDS WHEN THEY ASKED THAT QUESTION. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.[/size]

For the sake of comedy, it's no longer sufficient to force your conjectures into the Biblical texts you argue for reincarnation, but you must needs shout in blazing red uppercase fonts? Am I seeing things?

Deep Sight:

And the disciples asked him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"


But he answered them and said, "Elijah indeed is to come and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also shall the Son of Man suffer at their hand."


Then the disciples understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist." (Matt. 17:10-13)

- Which seals the point and kills off Viaro's surmise that resurrection was at issue. That is ENTIRELY WRONG.

Relax, let me clear up some of your misgivings on this subject and then bring you round to see that neither John nor Jesus nor the Jews querying them were assuming reincarnation - rather, they had resurrection in mind, and that was the principal subject on their minds in those texts. We shall see this in a moment, but let us begin with the definition or meaning of reincarnation, which you gave:

Deep Sight:
Reincarnation is the scenario where a previously dead person is born again as a baby. This is entirely different from a resurection!

LET'S NOT VIOLATE SIMPLE DEFINITIONS!

No, we shall not violate simple definitions; but we call on you to stop violating the simple Biblical texts by forcing them to say what they clearly DO NOT say! This is what I shall try to untangle for you in subsequent posts, which regretably would be quite detailed.

Deep Sight:
No: Why did the Jews keep asking such a question?

Clearly reincarnation was in their worldview!

Why would both Jesus and John the Baptist not seize the oppurtunity to correct their delusion if reincarnation was not true. Why would a teacher and truthbringer not correct them if it was wrong?

Even the answer "No, i am not he" presupposes the possibility of reincarnation, and states that in this instance, he is not the reincarnated Elijah.

DeepSight, we have been through this subject of reincarnation before, and it is clear that the points of reference in the Bible from which you argue reincarnation do not point to that at all. If it may help, let me repost my answers again from the other thread:

---

[list]

Deep Sight:
Surely, this shows that both John and Jesus reckoned with the idea of reincarnation?

Wwhat say you?

^^^Well, not necessarily.

It is true that neither Jesus nor John baptist categorically rejected the idea of reincarnation when approached. Yet, they did not explicitly endorse it either.

However, even there at that point we encounter a problem. The one question that crosses my mind repeatedly is this: were those who queried Jesus (Matthew 17) and John baptist (John 1:21) asking questions that suggest re-incarnation? In all probability, I deeply doubt that was the case, for the following reasons:

1.  I don't know much about Jewish ideology and way of thinking in context of the 1st century; but rather than the thought of reincarnation, it's my view that they had resurrection in mind.

2.  The fact that it was more a point of resurrection than of reincarnation is supported by some pointers in both the Bible and Jewish documents. A few examples:

             *  And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
                 some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
                 Daniel 12:2

             *  Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
                 Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
                 and the earth shall cast out the dead
                 Isaiah 26:19

3.  Long before the era of the New Testament, we can see from those references that the Jews were at the very least aware of the concept of people rising from the dead. This, for me, does not point to the idea of reincarnation (which, in Hinduism, is the belief that after you die you can be born again as a different person, animal, or thing); rather, those references point to resurrection of some sorts, where the dead are to rise again, fully recognizable for who they were.

4.  To strengthen this view, it was not only in those occasions (Matthew 17 and John 1:21) that the question was broached: there are other times when many in the audience had mistaken Jesus for either Elijah, or Jeremiah, or for one of the prophets (Matt. 16:14). However, this pointing back again and again to people in the past was not understood as reincarnation, but rather as resurrection. Particularly so is what we can understand from Herod's presumptive assertion to his servants in Matthew 14:2 -

        * 'This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead;
            and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.'

Or, as Mark 6:16 has it -

        * 'But when Herod heard thereof, he said,
           It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.'

5.  From the foregoing, we can see that it was not reincarnation that we see in these examples, but rather a resurrection or a rising from the dead.


However, what about the important point you raised, viz -

Deep Sight:
Jesus simply answered "no", and John evaded the question entirely by saying " i am the voice of one crying in the desert. . ."

No, I think it's not precisely so. John did not evade the question, for his answer to that question was categorical in John 1:21 -

        'And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not.'

As discussed above, you can see that neither Jesus nor John baptist reckoned with reincarnation, but rather a rising from the dead (strategically a different thing from the reincarnation idea).
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