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Bible Dictionaries
Transmigration
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or TRANSMIGRATION.—The idea of the pre-existence of the human soul seems to be assumed in the question which the disciples put to Jesus with reference to the man born blind (John 9:2). The pre-existence hinted at is presumably and at first glance an incarnated one, for it is possible to sin in it. But if this exegesis of the passage be correct, then, at least in the minds of the disciples who propounded the question, there was a doctrine of transmigration. In order to ascertain the correctness or the exegesis, it is necessary to look into the antecedents and broad setting of the thought.
The doctrine of transmigration, i.e. the idea that when the soul leaves the body at death it passes into another body, was held widely among the Egyptians, the Hindus, and the Greeks. Each one of these peoples, however, developed it in a peculiar form of its own. Through the long history represented by their combined life, it assumed a large variety of aspects. Broadly speaking, these may be reduced to two, the cruder and the more refined metempsychosis.
(a) In the crudest form, belief in transmigration was simply the belief that the moving principle of a living being. either immediately upon the death of that being or after a more or less prolonged interval, takes upon itself another organism. In! this form of it, the doctrine does not distinguish between human bodies and bodies of other living beings; or, to be more precise, of other material forms reputed to be living. The soul is supposed to pass into another organism of the same class, or of a higher or a lower class. A man might be reborn as a brute, or as a tree or stream, or even as a star. The ethical idea associated with this form of metempsychosis is in the belief that the kind of body taken by the soul depends on its realizing or failing to realize ethical ideals. Of this form of the doctrine, it is quite safe to say, there is not the slightest trace either in the NT or in the whole range of Hebrew literature, with its sequel of Jewish Rabbinical teaching of the earlier period. If it appear at all in Jewish thought, it does so as an importation in a much later stage than the Biblical.
(b) The more refined form of the doctrine of transmigration limits the sphere of movement to the human race. The human soul or personality is, according to this conception, capable of reappearing and taking part in the world. In the strictest sense of the word this is, of course, not transmigration, but reincarnation. But whatever it may be called, there are a number of expressions in the Gospels which point to the existence of the belief in the time of Jesus. Chief and foremost among these are the passages which refer to John the Baptist (Matthew 11:4; Matthew 17:12-13, Mark 9:13). Here the disciples are puzzled by the apparent inconsistency between the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and the fact that Elijah has not appeared, as, in accordance with an authoritative interpretation of the prophecy of Malachi (Malachi 4:5), he was expected, to precede and prepare the way for the Messiah. The disciples evidently accpted the teaching of the scribes. This belief, however, does not put it beyond doubt that the doctrine of transmigration or even reincarnation was current. Elijah had not died and been divested of his first body. His reappearance could only be conceived of as involving his descent from heaven with the same body which he took there at the time of his ascension. The difficulty in believing that John the Baptist was Elijah consisted. at least in part, in the fact that he was known to have had a natural birth; whereas the return of Elijah would necessarily exclude such birth. Jesus’ answer to the disciples simply removes the case from the physical into the spiritual sphere, and thus makes the question before their minds an irrelevant one. The prophecy had been fulfilled, but its fulfilment involved neither the reincarnation of Elijah nor his descent from heaven with his first body.
Another instance of belief which might be mistaken for transmigration is that suggested in Herod’s words (Matthew 14:1 f.) identifying Jesus with John the Baptist. But here, too, the words scarcely point to belief in transmigration. All that is necessary to assume is that the remorse-stricken Herod saw in the miracles reported of Jesus that John the Baptist had risen from the dead. It is belief in resurrection rather than in rebirth.
Still another case is that in which the disciples, in answer to the question of Jesus, report that some believed Him to he Elijah, others Jeremiah, and others one of the prophets (Matthew 16:14, Mark 6:14-17). The idea of transmigration is more natural in this passage, but even here it is not clearly set forth. As far as Jesus is concerned, it is certainly not only not held or encouraged by Him, but quite definitely set aside. At most, it can be only an idea entertained by the common people.
Outside of the Gospels, the traces that a belief in metempsychosis was held in Palestine at the time of Jesus are very scanty. It appears that among the Essenes it was held that the soul was immortal, and its life upon earth due to its being drawn from its native ether and entangled in the body as in a prison cell (Josephus BJ ii. viii. 11). The affinity of this belief with the Platonic teaching regarding the nature and origin of the soul suggests that the Platonic idea of transmigration, as its inevitable logical corollary, was held also by the Essenes.
In general, there was nothing in the nature of Jewish thought to prevent the adoption of the idea of transmigration as soon as the distinction between soul and body supplanted the older idea of the unitary character of the human being. On the contrary, there was very much to make the thought welcome in the Rabbinical system. The doctrine of pre-existence (of the Messiah, of the Torah, of the Tabernacle) would easily lend itself as a basis for the idea of the pre-existence in some form or other of human souls. Further, belief in the possession of the body by more than one spiritual being (demoniac possession) would tend to prepare the way for the belief in the return of disembodied spirits into human bodies. Finally, the idea of resurrection from the dead furnished an analogue to reincarnation. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if the notion should appear more or less clearly in the later Rabbinical theology (cf. Epiphanius Wilson, The Talmud, Preface). The question of its existence in the days of Jesus Christ must be left open, while the question of its being entertained by Him or taught in the Gospels must be answered in the negative.
Literature.—On the general subject of metempsychosis, cf. Alger, Hist. of the Doctrine of the Future Life, 14, Boston, 1889, pt. v. ii.; ed. D. Walker, Reincarnation: A Study of Forgotten Truth, Boston, 1888. On the allied doctrines of pre-existence of souls in Jewish thought, cf. Weber, Jüd. Theol.2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] pp. 212, 225 ff.; Drummond, Philo Judaeus, i. 336; Siegfried, Philo v. Alexandria, p. 242 ff. On the idea of transmigration in the NT, Pryse, Reincarnation in the NT, N.Y. 1900. [This last work, however, is scientifically of very little value].
A. C. Zenos.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Transmigration'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/t/transmigration.html. 1906-1918.
