Resurrection and Sacrifice

According to the law of Moses--which is the law that all sacrificial offerings for sin falls under--and is found in the book of Leviticus, sacrifices must be burnt, if specified as such in the laws, in order to be approved by God so that their purpose is fulfilled and sin sacrifices are of this type. There are a few events testified to elsewhere in the OT which bears up this principle—when offerings outside of the temple were pleasing to God, He consumed them with fire. In the temple, however, the fire came from the priests, who were officially acting in God’s stead.
There are two prophets in the OT who witnessed the power of God’s fire—Elijah and Moses.
Elijah had a showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel—a contest which would prove that Elijah’s God was the real God—the living God of fire. This is what Elijah said:

And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answers by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
(1 Kings 18:24)

And this is what happened:

And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.
(1 Kings 18:36-39)

Now, in the case of Moses, we all know of the ‘burning bush’ incident—God manifested the flames of a bush that did not burn but was nevertheless, for the duration, consumed in (not by) the fire. Also, there was fire upon the top of Sinai when Moses went up to receive the law and instruction from God. Yet Moses was not consumed.

And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
(Exodus 24:15-18)

David, was able to call upon the LORD, who answered with fire upon David’s offering: 1 Chronicles 21:26. Solomon, also, did the same at the dedication of the temple when it was completed:

Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD'S house.
(2 Chronicles 7:1-2)

Keep these ideas in mind, because I need to skip to the idea of resurrection. Instead of going into great detail, I’ll just make the main points, and I’ve got several links that might help explain further without taking up excess forum space. I’m not posting these links as somehow being identical with either my own perspectives (or beliefs) nor with what I’m saying in this thread. I’m just providing some sources for information—and that’s all.

The Jewish idea of resurrection can be rather complex, but it is the ‘original’ resurrection idea that is promoted by Christianity these days. The Jews’ belief is largely concerned with preserving a person’s bones, for many of them believe, because of the dry bones passage in Ezekiel, that the bones of the deceased must be preserved. But John the Baptist said to the Pharisees that God was able to raise up children from stones. ‘Raise up’ always means the same as resurrection, in the OT, which, when literally translated, means ‘to stand up again.’ In the Greek of the NT it began to have two aspects to it—one meaning the same thing and the other meaning something more akin to ‘awakening.’

From:
www.near-death.com...

The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus stated that the Pharisees, the Jewish sect that founded rabbinic Judaism to which Paul once belonged, believed in reincarnation. He writes that the Pharisees believed the souls of evil men are punished after death. The souls of good men are "removed into other bodies" and they will "have power to revive and live again."

Reincarnation has been a belief for thousands of years for orthodox Jews. The Zohar is a book of great authority among Kabbalistic Jews. It states the following:

"All souls are subject to revolutions."
"Men do not know the way they have been judged in all time." (Zohar II, 199b)

That is, in their "revolutions" they lose all memory of the actions that led to their being judged.

Another Kabbalistic book, the Kether Malkuth states:

"If she, the soul, be pure, then she shall obtain favor... but if she has been defiled, then she shall wander for a time in pain and despair... until the days of her purification." (Kether Malkuth)

How can the soul be defiled before birth? Where does the soul wander if not on this or some other world until the days of her purification? The rabbis explained this verse to mean that the defiled soul wanders down from paradise through many births until the soul regained its purity.

In the Talmud, "gilgul neshamot" (i.e., reincarnation) is constantly mentioned. The term literally means "the judgment of the revolutions of the souls." In this view, people who had committed extraordinary sins were given an opportunity to return to life in order to set things right. More particularly, they were reincarnated in circumstances similar to those of their previous incarnation. Thus, Moses and Jethro, for example, were supposed to be the gilgulim of Cain and Abel.
Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) , one of the most revered Rabbis in Israel, states in his book entitled Nishmat Hayyim:

"The belief or the doctrine of the transmigration of souls is a firm and infallible dogma accepted by the whole assemblage of our church with one accord, so that there is none to be found who would dare to deny it ... Indeed, there is a great number of sages in Israel who hold firm to this doctrine so that they made it a dogma, a fundamental point of our religion. We are therefore in duty bound to obey and to accept this dogma with acclamation ... as the truth of it has been incontestably demonstrated by the Zohar, and all books of the Kabalists." (Nishmat Hayyim)

In contemporary Judaism, the traditional, mainstream view of resurrection is maintained by the orthodox, but generally not by the non-orthodox. Outside the orthodox fold, ordinary believers often accept the notion of an immortal soul, not unlike the notion held by most Christians. Many also accepted reincarnation. And many secular and Reform Jews continue to view themselves as part of the tradition of Judaism, without adhering to any sort of afterlife belief.

This is from www.aish.com...

The resurrection of the dead is a basic principle of the Torah of Moses. Anyone who does not believe it has no connection with the Jewish Nation. But [resurrection] is only for the righteous, as it states in Bereishis Rabbah: "Rain is for both the righteous and the wicked but resurrection is for the righteous alone." For how can the wicked be brought back to life when even during their lives they are considered dead? But the righteous, even when they die, are considered alive.
 Maimonides, 13 Principles of Faith

Further commentary from the same page:

The relationship of body and soul is like that of a blind man and a lame man (Sanhedrin 91b). The lame man sees delicious fruit in a nearby orchard but can't reach it. The blind man can reach it but doesn't see it. Thus, the lame man instructs the blind man to carry him across the field, with the lame man directing him to the fruit. The blind man happily agrees and anxiously they advance into the orchard and take the fruit.
Soon afterward, the outraged orchard owner appears and begins to question them. The blind man says, "I couldn't have taken the fruit -- I can't see." The lame man says, "I couldn't have taken the fruit -- I can't walk."
The owner thinks a moment and then forces the lame man to hop onto the shoulders of the blind man. Only then, when they are together, has the owner found his culprit, so he beats them both.
Just as there could be no punishment for the lame man alone, there can be no reward or punishment for the soul. Alone, it cannot sin. A soul only sins in its body. Reward and punishment can only apply to the entity that is the person, the body and soul together. Only thus can justice be meted out. The soul cannot enter the World to Come without the body. Is it possible that once the entity of body and soul achieves a place in the World to Come, the body is discarded? A soul is not an image of God. A body is not an image of God. The soul doesn't have free will. Only the two together have free will, only the two together are the image of God.

[continued...]

Hasidic Tales concerning resurrection (this is not scripture but mythos and lore passed down through generations)
www.pinenet.com...-poor

Burial Traditions and the Resurrection of Jesus
craigaevans.com...

This is a guy I don’t usually agree with, but my purpose of posting this link is that he presents sound ideas about why there is no body and truly there is an empty tomb to this day:
www.carm.org...

Some ideas about being awakened and being raised up (from both sides, Christian and Jewish) —whether it is bodily, spiritual, or of the soul:
www.geocities.com...
www.myjewishlearning.com...
moshiach.com...

If you recall, Elijah did not die, he was taken up by the LORD while still living. Also, Elijah raised three persons from the dead in the OT, just as Yehoshua did in the NT. Moses, too, after dying outside the land of Canaan, was not placed in a tomb anywhere—in Jude we read of his bones being contested over—obviously there was a reason Moses’s bones were of great value… To this day there is no known burial place for Moses, although there is one for Aaron on Mt. Hor, where the bible says he died—and there are well-known tombs for most of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the OT all throughout the holy land, including the one for Rachel near Bethlehem, and some of the prophets’s resting places remain as monuments, Zechariah’s being one of them. King David, too, is buried in a crypt in the city of Jerusalem. But Moses died on Mt. Abarim but no grave or bones has ever been found.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered. (Numbers 27:12-13)

Now, if you recall, on another unnamed ‘high mountain apart’, in the NT, Yehoshua, with three of His disciples, went up one day and an amazing thing took place.

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. 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.
(Matthew 17:1-9)

If you notice, there is mention of tabernacles—and thinking back over what I’ve said above, we have some common denominators becoming apparent:

Elijah, Moses, and Yehoshua.
Tent tabernacles, temple dedications, and a living temple.
Mountains—Carmel, Sinai, and a yet unnamed mountain.
Moses was not consumed by fire, and his face shone after meeting with God upon Sinai.

For Yehoshua to qualify as an accepted and pleasing sacrifice, it would make sense that His body was consumed by God’s fire. If it weren’t, then it wasn’t accepted—because there is no hint of His body being torched by any of the disciples. If you read any of the links I provided, you might have read views on why it’s not likely the body was stolen by the disciples and why it is not feasible that the Pharisees took the body. Another thing which might not have been mentioned is that the Pharisees wouldn’t have desired to become unclean for 7 days from touching the body—they didn’t think about resurrection the way it is thought of in the present time—and it doesn’t appear that the disciples did, either—since they were Jews.

Then throw something else into the mix. The shroud of Turin. I know that it is highly disputed, but I have done a lot of research on that subject, in the past and again in the recent past. The carbon 14 dating originally done turned out to be done on a newer piece of cloth…and there has not, to this day, ever been a completely satisfactory explanation offered on how the image got onto the cloth.

No one alive has seen God’s fire burning a bush yet not consuming it. We would not recognize the evidence of such a ethereal source of flame that not only didn’t destroy but also made the face of Moses so illuminated that no one could look at him for a while. But maybe there is one piece of evidence remaining that both proves the resurrection and proves the sacrifice. I doubt that the current world situation would ever facilitate such an investigation—just like the Pharisees and Sadducees in those days, today we have Christians and Jews and the chasm is just as wide as ever between the two. Both would have to give up some of their treasured and comfortable beliefs in order to make sense of the only thing that truly unites as one….

And I can’t speak for Jews, but I have little doubt that many Christians would be totally and adamantly unwilling to let go of the idea of bodily resurrection and open their minds to the possibility of reincarnation—even as a portent of God’s true mercy and ultimate fairness. But if the atonement of sin depended upon it, what then? What if God was not as anyone has ever defined or explained? Which is more important to any one soul? Stick to the old false ideas and suffer the consequences? Or prove the faithfulness of God by sacrificing long-standing, but incomplete, ideas of partial understandings?

Only time will tell, this I do know.

[edit on 7/3/2006 by queenannie38]

That was very interesting queenannie38.

I had no clue that there was a root for Jewish belief in reincarnation. This really confused me though:

Since christianity is based on Judaism, how is it that they are so against reincarnation?

I can't recall, but thought there were quotes in the modern translations(transliteration?) of the bible that say not to believe in reincarnation?

Is that related to errors in translation or hidden motives or both maybe?


X

Originally posted by Xatnys
I had no clue that there was a root for Jewish belief in reincarnation. This really confused me though:

Since christianity is based on Judaism, how is it that they are so against reincarnation?

Well, to be blunt, christianity is more like a bastardized judaism--at least as far as that which we know, these days. After Paul died, things drifted away, in part because most of the truly faithful had been killed by Jews and Romans---but then Constantine took hold of the 'faith' because it was gaining in momentum, regardless--and having such a big empire (Rome) to control, he saw it as a definite advantage in helping him keep the people in order. To have God on one's side makes even being a bad king (which I don't know what kind he was, this is just a general statement) totally respected--it is God, not a man, that people really fear.
The christianity today has little to do with the truth--it's stolen, in many respects.

But that's another topic...

The reincarnation thing, I've heard (don't know, though--can't be proven) was understood by the earliest church 'fathers' such as origen--I think they deemed him a heretic later on. But it got hidden and weeded out of the people's minds over time. The main reason being that it is hard to enforce political control through religion if there is no ultimatum or fear factor involved. Hence the 'once chance or straight to hell you heretic' doctrine so loved by many today!

Reincarnation is actually the only way that the bible doesn't come out as incongruent--saying there is punishment yet God will save all men...it won't work within the framework of having to 'accept jesus' and 'be saved' this lifetime--or suffer in hell forever and ever eternally tormented by a jeering sadistic God...

God is infinitely patient--obviously many go to their graves still not submitting to His will--way more than do! 70 years (at most, in the best circumstances) is not much of a chance.

I can show you some verses, too, but I'll have to look them up.

I can't recall, but thought there were quotes in the modern translations(transliteration?) of the bible that say not to believe in reincarnation?

Nope. Not in there. That is conjecture and established christian dogma/doctrine but it is totally unfounded as far as scripture goes.

Is that related to errors in translation or hidden motives or both maybe?

Well, the origins I explained a bit, above. As to why people willingly believe God is merciless and short-fused, I think it helps them out of having to face the fact that they aren't any better than anyone else. They say that reincarnation is wrong because it makes one think they can save themselves. But how can you help yourself if you don't recall a thing? You can't! But it does seem like any true righteousness you've attained to, in previous lives, adheres to your soul, without you knowing why or from where. Regardless of how many times we live, there is only one way to get through that door--and it is still Christ, no matter what. It's God's patience that is demonstrated, not man's ability to save self. No such ability exists!
But we don't get a free ride, either!

What would be the purpose or value if we weren't supposed to learn a lot of important things? That also would make God seem cruel and fond of toying with us because He's bored or something...

Originally posted by queenannie38
, after dying outside the land of Canaan, was not placed in a tomb anywhere—in Jude we read of his bones being contested over—obviously there was a reason Moses’s bones were of great value…

It doesn't say bones, it says body in the verse.

Jude 9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

One reason his body was hidden from people and satan, was so that it wouldn't be found because people would worship it and or make an idol out of it.


Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

The Bible tells us reincarnation doesn't happen. Resurrection, yes reincarnation, no.

[edit on 5-7-2006 by dbrandt]

[edit on 5-7-2006 by dbrandt]

Originally posted by dbrandt
It doesn't say bones, it says body in the verse.

I know what it says, dbrandt. Thanks.

One reason his body was hidden from people and satan, was so that it wouldn't be found because people would worship it and or make an idol out of it.

And why do you say that?

He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.
This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.
And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.
And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
(Numbers 19:11-16)

There is no way the Israelites would have worshipped the dead body of Moses...a golden calf, okay. A brazen serpent--that, too. But a dead body? Of anyone, even Moses? Not a chance. Did you even read any of the links I posted? Or the sources I included in my post?

Posted by yours truly:
The Jews’ belief is largely concerned with preserving a person’s bones, for many of them believe, because of the dry bones passage in Ezekiel, that the bones of the deceased must be preserved.

Because if you had, you would understand what the significance of the bones were--and you wouldn't make unfair accusations about anything.

[quoteThe Bible tells us reincarnation doesn't happen. Resurrection, yes reincarnation, no.
Guess what? That's not your bible--if it weren't for Israel, you wouldn't have it, OT or NT either one--don't boast against the branches, and please don't presume to superimpose your religion upon these people.

I know what christians believe--and that's fine. I'm not addressing christians on this subject specifically--if you want to discuss it, that's fine. But I'm talking about it from the perspective of Israel, not churchianity. If you have some insight on the Hebrew words or idioms, anything like that, then go right ahead. But please don't derail the thread--especially if you're not even courteous enough to read the information provided for the purpose of discussion.

The Sadducees didn't believe in a resurrection, but the Pharisees did. Resurrection, to the Pharisees in Yehoshua's time, meant something altogether different than what christianity has made it into.

Okay, here are a few verses:

Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.

And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
(Malachi 3:16-18)

The word 'return' can mean 'turn back' or 'go again,' depending upon context. It is therefore, in this case 'go again,' considering the time frame.
To put this in context, Malachi wrote these prophecies somewhere around 420 BC according to scholars. After he passed through to silence, no more prophet's voices were heard in Jerusalem or Israel until Yehoshua's arrival--somewhere around 415 years later. So, at the very earliest, those, who the LORD said He would spare, would be set to return about 10 generations later.

If you keep that in mind, that 'return' can mean more than one type of 'return' (and also 'repent') then when you read, you will start to see another layer in the story.