Scriptorium In the previous issue of TAJ, Dr. James Trimm discussed whether Dr. George Lamsa taught reincarnation, utilizing Dr. Lamsa's commentaries and scriptural translation. Dr. Trimm concluded, in the TAJ article,that Dr. Lamsa did not teach reincarnation, also termed 'transmigration of the soul'.
Robert Allen, Director of the Aramaic Bible Society, takes issue with Dr. Trimm, affirming that Dr. Lamsa could be interpreted otherwise. Mr. Allen believes there must be some law or principle in the universe which requires accountability for our actions and reincarnation makes a good case. TAJ was asked to address the topic...reincarnation.
The question could be asked, following the assumption that Dr. Lamsa has beliefs deeply held within the context of the Aramaic language and an Assyrian Christian world view, is reincarnation an authentic belief-construct in the Aramaic thought system and/or the Assyrian Church of the East? And from where did reincarnation originate, if such a belief occurs in Aramaic rooted teachings?
Several historical and cultural perspectives need to be developed before an adequate answer can be broached. We will not develop these perspectives in this article as this would consist of composing a text beyond the scope of our TAJ issue. Our purpose here is to offer ideas for your consideration. The following considerations, summarized, are not prioritized:
One is able to read the list of considerations to the question and decide on either side of the question. Yet other questions arise as a direct response to the decision.
Many contemporary Americans who hold a belief in reincarnation are not always consistent with their understanding of reincarnation. Many do not believe in 'inter-species' transmigration...ameoba to reptile to mammal to human to mammal to reptile to bird to human, and so forth depending on 'karmic material.' Most (with whom we are familiar) indicate a propensity for 'intra-species' transmigration...human to human. And of these, most believe transmigration occurs 'until we learn our lesson.' This learning of 'our lesson' is a simplified expression for the hard realities of the law of karma (accumulating and discarding karmic material).
The law of karma, often called the law of cause and effect, taught in Buddhism as 'Codependent Origination', is the near endless wheel of life consisting of twelve spokes which we are intended to reduce or eliminate by disentanglement and detachment. The simpliest way to put the law of karma and reincarnation in English is a merit system which rewards the doers of good and punishes the doers of evil. Everyone willing enough to respect the law of karma is hoping they will progress with each incarnation to eventually escape the cycle of birth and death.
When we read the Judeo-Christian Scriptures we do not readily hear this karmic-reincarnation process taught. We do hear consequences for our actions, yet these consequences are not clearly and forthrightly rebirth in and on this very same plane of existence. Rather we hear the scriptural witnesses teach separation from the body, separation from God, annihilation, going down to sheol, going up to paradise, absence from the body present with God, resurrection to new life, and so forth. A cycle is not defined. Semitic historians have commonly understood the Semitic (Aramaic/Hebrew) world view of time to be linear and not cyclical. Semitic speakers would have need to greatly re-adapt linguistic constructs to present an Indus Valley understanding of reincarnation.
Elijah did not die, as we know death. The deterioration of his physical body is not indicated in Scripture and this bodily deterioration is the traditional location of personal suffering and escape of the soul. Those who believe reincarnation is taught in the Bible will utilize the words "you reap what you sow" for confirmation of the law of karma. The law of karma is the brain and spine of reincarnation teaching, without which reincarnation has no root nor appeal. Aramaic and Semitic researchers typically understand the 'reap-sow' process to be consistent with the linear reference of time. The consequences of your actions are during this age and are visited on your children and theirs for seven generations. And the Hebrew prophetic tradition teaches the consequences are yours and yours alone (Jeremiah and Ezekiel).
The more compelling evidence rests in an understanding of the Aramaic words, rukha and naphsha, starting from the position that Jesus taught in Aramaic, understood his physical world in Aramaic constructs and those who heard him speak understood him and their world in Aramaic.
Rukha is translated into English as 'spirit, wind or breath.' Naphsha is translated 'soul or self.' The Latin originated English word 'spirit' does not adequately represent the Aramaic 'rukha.' Wind and breath do not stand alone as a definitive term for rukha. The three Enlgish terms translating rukha, taken together, intimate something metaphorical or analogous with the Aramaic rukha. Rukha indicates much more. Even theological works defining the biblical view of spirit must explicate beyond its etymological origins.
When considering the import of these English concepts, spirit-wind-breath, rukha is either an abstract, ethereal substance, person or energy, an unseen natural force, or an analogy of physical respiration. In theology, spirit is the preferred term and understanding what spirit is or might be fails the mind and romances the heart. For the Aramaic speaker rukha is not subsumed by the construct 'spirit', rather our understanding of spirit is one dimension of rukha. Rukha has force and is evident in nature, human life and divine or transcendent life. Rukha can be good or evil. Rukha can be expelled, commanded to calm, expired onto another human. Rukha from God, Rukha d'koodsha, is a gift, a seal, a promise, a teacher of truth, a substitutionary emanation for Jesus Christ upon his departure, a reception from Jesus' breath, an indwelling, a location or reality of the act of baptism, a movement. Rukha goes beyond an unidentifiable personage from an incomprehensible Creator to a multi-functioning force which moved over the waters in the beginning and moves about in nature and humans by the influence of authoritative commands and the will of the Creator. There is little, in Aramaic, to depend for a discrete, locatable, identifying mark such as a soul or the individualistic life of a human in the concept rukha.
Naphsha appears more as soul or self-hood than rukha and naphsha is not the word used for Elijah's and John the Baptist's spirit. There is no teaching of transmigration of the soul in Malachi and Jesus based on the words rukha and naphsha.
Now we could argue that reincarnation is not strictly transmigration of the soul, yet also the 'reincarnation' of a person's spirit (rukha). The spirit or force here personalized and localized re-incarnates, having escaped the body upon the body's expiration into a new body, and the naphsha or self is discrete to each personage. What makes Elijah distinctly Elijah was re-incarnated in John the Baptist, John possessing his own naphsha. This could explain the peculiar differences between the two, while affirming the similarities. The difficulty with this pattern/approach is the conscious and willing interpretative departure from Aramaic constructs and is not supportable in the source material. The incidents of reincarnatable identities is so minute (Enoch, Elijah, Michael, Messiah) in Scripture an alternative understanding of Elijah's spirit in Elisha and John the Baptist is warranted.
Rukha, as seen above, is moving and moveable at command and not strictly upon the death of the body. Rukha is good or evil. Rukha is in nature, without or exterior to the human physical body. And rukha in the human, from God, descends in the form of a dove, fills John the Baptist's parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, moves Jesus into the wilderness to be confronted by the Adversary, et cetera. Re-incarnate rukha becomes unrecognizable or indistinguishable with no means of personal identity. Reincarnation as a spiritual or theological thought requires a greater specificity of location and identity-mark than Scripture ascribes rukha.
Naphsha on the other hand is locatable in the specific human and is restorable or destructable according to the person's actions or merit. This thought bends in the direction of karmic teaching.
We believe a Creator of this known universe, and every incomprehensible unseen reality, is quite capable of reincarnating spirits or souls at will. We are not convinced the Creator talked about, worshiped, from whom commandments and actions are declared, as taught in Scripture is also a Creator reincarnating spirits and souls. Not every doctrine and teaching acquired by human kind, from the Scriptures, is explicit in the Scriptures. When such lack of explicitness the teaching cannot fit the requirements of doctrine based on scriptural authority.
We would not take the position by American evangelical Christianity that reincarnation is of itself a demonic and hellish thought, though there is evidence that the propensity of the dual teaching of karmic material and reincarnation reduces the redemptive act of God in Christ Jesus to an unnecessary religious belief. Even the words of Jesus, as a foundation to the words of Peter and Paul, clearly indicate that following the commands of God through Jesus Christ frees a person from the law of sin and death. This reduces reincarnation to a human construct with little to no necessity and certainly no power over the believer. We would support the understanding that Scripture in Aramaic does teach the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the central and vital instrumentality of God's grace and mercy in buying back (redemption) our naphsha from sin and death.
The Aramaic Scriptures just do not support the endless cyclical birth-death-rebirth lession learning karmic dynamic...not without re-interpreting the Aramaic words out of context and stripped from the culture and spiritual underpinnings in which the Scriptures evolved.
Yet what of the prevalence of ancient Assyrian-Babylonian-Persian thought and culture? History may teach us that Aramaic speaking Judeans, Israelites, Galileans, Syrians, Arameans, who followed the teachings of Jesus did not integrate the beliefs which Abraham and his descendents left in the eastern spike of the fertile crescent; along with dependence on statutes, divination, necromancy, nationalistic astrology, conjuring of departed spirits, polytheism, equality of dualistic supra-human powers (good/evil), all of which characterize not only a Sumerian based Babylonian culture, also Indus Valley culture...not that reincarnation requires these other religious beliefs, only that reincarnation evolved in the milieu of these beliefs.
The evidence for a belief in reincarnation by Aramaic speaking peoples, akin to Judeo-Christian tradition, and more specifically peoples speaking a Canaanite-Aramaic dialect called Hebrew, is found in the Kabbalist traditions of Judaism. Kabbalah is the tradition of mystical Judaism, and while its writings and influence are widespread, representing a diversity of beliefs and spiritual approaches, we can not do Kabbalah justice in an article of this size. Interested readers can refer to the writings of Gershom Scholem and Warren Kenton.
We do not see Dr. Lamsa teaching reincarnation from the Aramaic Peshitta, nor acquiring such teaching from the Assyrian Christian world-view. His understanding of John the Baptist receiving Elijah's rukha appears as a developing piece in the realm of the administration of the 'Spirit' (Rukha d'koodsha) from the Israelite prophetic tradition. If rukha is incarnated in one historical figure and then another, representing a re-incarnation of like or similar 'rukha'attributes' one may say reincarnation is taught. Yet this would require redefining and re-educating everyone's understanding on the substantial reality of re-incarnation, delineating this form from the popular fom and its Indus Valley origins. This re-education process does not make a solid case for itself, particularly in view that the concept/term 'reincarnation' has no developed linguistic construct in the Aramaic context or the Aramaic speaker.
While the eastern cultures pushed westward and exchanged ideas and concepts with Hellenistic and Latin cultures, the Aramaic speaking culture which adopted Jesus' teaching did not also adopt the eastern religious and cultural orientation to moral accountability, ritualistic observance, and 'soul' identity. These Aramaic speaking peoples were frequently, if not predominantly at first, of Israelite descent. Reincarnation was not adopted. A contrary understanding would have to be evidenced by historical documentation or safeguarded by tradition.
Noncanonical historical documentation may be found to support the teaching of reincarnation and the law of karma, expecially in Pali and Sanskrit of the Indus Valley, yet there does not exist sufficient evidence of 'cross-fertilization' from these documents in the Aramaic Scriptures to depend. The Assyrian Christians of the Church of the East relied upon canonical texts for formation and structure of church doctrine and spiritual practice. While many of these practices diverged from western Catholicism and eastern Orthodoxy, the Church of the East stands firmly when in the milieu of canonical Christianity which rejects the teachings of reincarnation and karmic material.