I am one of the 4 billion people of the world who believes in reincarnation. That I am a soul with a body.
Jesus was an Essene, a Jewish sect that did believe in reincarnation. So did the Pharisees. The Sadduccees did not know what happened to the soul upon death.
In the fourth century A.D. Emperor Constantine appointed Pope Damascus and formed the Council of Nicea in which all teachings of reincarnation were dropped from the New Testament. Pope Vigillus protested and refused to participate.
The Catholic Church’s problem with reincarnation was that this belief takes away their control of the salvation of the masses and puts it in each individual’s hands. Remember indulgences?
Origen and St. Augustine, the most eminent of the Church’s fathers, believed in reincarnation. Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic text, quotes Jesus as saying, “Souls are poured from one into another of different bodies of the world.”
Excellent historical synopsis of reincarnation in the Catholic Church can be found here -
http://www.fromthestars.com/page48.html
Reincarnation to me has always made logical theological sense. It explains all those times we wonder, ‘How could God have allowed this or that tragedy to happen?’
What nonsense. There is ZERO evidence Jesus was an Essene (He was from Galilee, the Essenses were in south Judea, the other end of the country). Even so, no Jewish sect believed in pagan/Hindu style reincarnation. RESURRECTION at the Last Day is what Jews and Christians believed, not recycled lives...over and over and over again. The whole basis of individual rights in Western civilization is based on the idea of the individual, responsible for his life before God, once...not a re-used soul over and over with infinite chances to get it right.
There is also ZERO evidence that the books of the New Testament we have were changed after (or before) Nicea, or that somehow Hindu-reincarnation was edited out...that is simply utter nonsense, which no reputable New Testament scholar believes.
Origen--a very early Christian, was heretical about a number of things (universalism being one of them)--and is only given a pass since he lived so early. Augustine did not believe in reincarnation--that is so much New Age poppycock.
Judaism and Christianity do not, and have never, believed in the pagan/polytheistic concept of reincarnation.
I don't mean to be offensive, but Dan Brown' Da Vinci Code sounds conservative compared to you....you really should stop taking your theology from late night AM radio.
I am one of the 4 billion people of the world who believes in reincarnation. That I am a soul with a body.
Jesus came here to do just what he did, and we know the story.
If God is real and i am sure in my faith that he is, and Jesus being just as real there is no way that anything could have been taken out of the scriptures unless God wanted them taken out.
Some of the meanings of words have been changed to mean something which suits the professors but this they can legally do on account of words that can have more than one meaning.
I do not believe Jesus taught reincarnation because that was not what he came here to teach.
Jesus said: you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
Free from what?
Not limited to religion, but free from religion for an example.
Reincarnation is in fact a religion and misses the whole point of the Gospel, which is Jesus himself.
The Gospel of Christ has been turned into a religion but is at times based on the gospel of Jesus.
When some one tells me that the Bible has been changed, my question is what did it say before it was changed?
I have never gotten an answer.