“Evidence” for Reincarnation

I’m a long time fan of your writing. I really appreciate to hear a voice of reason in what I see as a society full of extremes with no moral compass.

I often have discussions on Facebook with a friend of mine who is of the Sikh religion. He tries repeatedly to show that Christianity has changed drastically over the ages and that it’s not a dependable source of truth. In response to a discussion we were having regarding reincarnation, he offered me an article in which the author supposedly proves that early Christians including Jesus and certain sects of Jewish people fully suported the idea of reicarnation. It goes on to “prove” that us modern Catholics and Christians have simply disregarded what Jesus showed to be true.

After taking a quick glance at the article it is very evident that the author is totally misinterpreting scripture and is likely incorrect about most of the other “facts” that he claims to expose.

I thought you might enjoy the article. What do you think of this supposed
evidence? Have you ever heard of anything like this? I think it’s articles like this that may take someone that’s trying to learn more about Christianity and totally confuse them.

Hmmm… yeah. That was pretty much of a train wreck. It’s a classic example of what happens when you go into Scripture bound and determined to hear what you want rather than what it says. So the whole “it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment” thing is studiously overlooked while an extremely dubious collections of misquotes and poorly construed misinterpretations is built up.

So some cardinal nobody has ever heard of is quoted as saying that reincarnation can’t be disproven by reason. True, but so what? It’s disproven by revelation.

Likewise, the words of Proverbs are read as being Solomon’s past life autobiography instead of what they are: the words of anthropmorphized Wisdom.

And on and on it goes. The misquotes from source I know make me highly doubt the accuracy of from the sources I don’t. Is it possible Philo believed in the transmigration of souls? I s’pose. But I know for a fact that St. Jerome didn’t and when I check the supposed letter where he says he does, I find it was written by the heretic Pelagius and *preserved* by Jerome. Likewise, the extremely dubious exegeses of gospel texts I know (“Jesus says Elijah was reincarnated in John the Baptist”) makes me doubt greatly the citations of Church Fathers I don’t.

The simple fact is: Christianity is utterly unintelligible apart from the Resurrection. Appealing to early Christians as believers in reincarnation is something only somebody who stands outside the Christian tradition in complete ignorance of its inner contours could belief.

Moral: if you want to understand a religious tradition, get inside it and listen to what the people inside it think it means. Don’t grab random texts and tell those inside what they mean. You will, infallibly, be wrong.