I’m happy to announce that my article “Did Jesus Allow for Reincarnation? Assessing the Syntax of John 9:3-4” has finally appeared. It is the first article for the new online peer-reviewed Scandinavian Evangelical E-Journal for New Testament Studies. Check it out.
Jesus and Reincarnation
Cool paper Dr. Heiser. Most of the syntax is beyond me, but the Rabbinic idea that children could have sinned in the womb is fascinating. That alone offers a lot of insight into John 9:3-4. Thanks for the link!
Congratulations on this article being published…as Jeremy Suess said, a lot of that grammar stuff went over my head, but the points you raised were excellent and I’m so glad that it’s now out there for people to review, compare and contrast. Reincarnation indeed!
I recommend highly a film called “Blindsighted” about Tibetan children that climb Mount Everest. This helped them build self esteem, even though they were taught all their life that it was evil deeds in their previous life that caused them to be born or to acquire blindness (and others treated them as bad people).
I also like to point out that the man born blind responds to the Jews’ questioning of him with the assertion EGW EIMI. They don’t stone him, showing the lie that it was Jesus using the words EGW EIMI in reference to himself that provoked the Jews. Of course, Paul also says “By the favor of God EGW EIMI hO EIMI.” Jesus never claimed to be God.
this is the wrong area to ask this but I was wondering if you had done any research on Easter and if Jesus was resurrected on Saturday or Sunday and if the pagan holiday was merged with Easter. If you can help, please do. Thanks for all you do. Praise God.
The best sources on the chronology are Beckwith’s book on ancient calendars and Hoehner’s book, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ.
Centuries after the events of what we now call Easter, the church of Rome (later to be called Roman Catholic Church) did overlay Christian events with pagan (Roman) events. I really don’t see why that has any importance, personally. The effort wasn’t to be pagan; it was to get pagans to mentally substitute Christian events. Kind of a misguided sort of (pseudo) evangelism in my view.
Thank you so much. so so much
you’re welcome; we try to be useful.
Feb 11, 2012
Hi MSH,
Can you tell me how it was considered dieing for our sins when Jesus gave his life on the cross. Is it not that a divine Jesus existed before his human form and knew well that he would continue to exist after the crucifiction and if so, other than experiencing the pain before death of the body ( which would be considerable ), would it not be so that one could say he might have given less than say one of the disciples who were crucified with out being 100% sure that they would live on beyond the bodies death ( not being divine )?
This has always puzzled me.
Thankyou,
There are a number of trajectories here. Hebrews 1-2 (esp. 2) gets into how the son of God needed to share in humanity as part of atonement. Then there is also the typological fulfillment of OT sacrificial imagery (Passover lamb, goat for Azazel in Lev 16, that sort of thing). Since it was humans who were under wrath and deserving of death, the substitutionary sacrifice had to be human since humans were under wrath. Hence the issue was a human life, not the snuffing out of a divine being’s existence.