Richard Smoley

Jun 26, 2018 6:09 PM EDT

I am very much looking forward to reading much of your work after listening to Inner Christianity for a few hours today. Your scholarly approach confirms by experiential understandings. Thank you. And I also had the unfortunate experience of living in Waterbury for three years. I am a director of private special education programs, improvisational musician, and progressive Pentecostal, so much of this Gnosticism inquiry has been my experience without naming it as an influence.

- Frank Robacker

Oct 07, 2016 1:12 PM EDT

Your e-mail link was not working. So came this route. Read your article Is Your God the Devil and would like to share a point of view we have been given.

- Jenny Miner

Oct 07, 2016 1:37 PM EDT

Hmm...I'm not sure why my e-mail wouldn't be working. I just sent myself a test message, and it went through all right. Could you try sending it again?

- Richard Smoley

Dec 28, 2016 12:59 AM EST

I enjoyed listening to you on Coast To Coast. I have no expertise in regard to the New Testament but my reading of it makes me believe it is a political document which attempts to give legitimacy to those who want to create a religion based on a man who "came for the Jews" and ended up being crucified. I actually believe that Christ is an important person who falls within Jewish traditions and whose significance is denied because of his adoption as a god in another religion. I wanted to contact you as you stated that Christ was the "son" of David. In the Jewish belief the Messiah comes from the House of David which is what the gospels claimed to give him legitimacy. I do not believe that the Messiah has to come from a direct linage to David but there is a mystical interpretation (Kabbalic) that goes like this. Why was Adam, in Hebrew three letters, given his name by god? It is because the aleph represents the first man and the first soul created. The second letter represents (daled) represents David who the first soul was passed onto and the third letter (mem) represents the passing on of this soul to the Messiah who comes at the end of time to fullfill god's promise to the Jews. Thanks again for a very interesting discussion

- Sheldon Yivrakes

Dec 29, 2016 6:31 AM EST

Thanks for your comment, Sheldon. I'm glad you enjoyed the show. Yes, I remember the Adam-David-Messiah theme. I read about it years ago in Joseph Gaer's book "The Lore of the Old Testament," which is really a delightful read.

- Richard Smoley

Jun 29, 2016 4:50 AM EDT

Hi Richard,

I hope you don't mind a response not entirely related to this post. Apologies, if so.

I wanted to say that I picked up How God Became God a week or so ago at the local B&N and have been enjoying it. I have a quick question for you which was triggered by stumbling onto an article today about the work of Jim Tucker on reincarnation at the University of Virginia. In your new book, as I recall it, you note that there is little evidence to back up claims that early Christians believed in reincarnation. What scholarly sources can one turn to in order to get the final word on this matter? It has been a decade since I've read Tucker's first book on his research into reincarnation memories by children, but I vaguely recall a short section near the end of his book in which he speculates that Christianity may have originally taught reincarnation. Also, somewhere over the past five years, I read a book that Eben Alexander had recommended on his website which also made the claim that reincarnation was believed by early Christians. As you likely know, such claims are frequently based on passages in the NT with less than clear meanings and references to Christian Platonists in Christianity's first century or two. I often see the born again passages used to support reincarnation, some passages in Revelation and, most frequently, the statement by Jesus that Elijah had already come (Mt 17:12).

Perhaps you cover this in more detail later on in your book and I haven't gotten there, yet. If not, who is the most authoritative source for information on this issue?

Thank you,
Kevin

- Kevin H.

Jul 01, 2016 11:27 AM EDT

Kevin, there is little evidence that the early Christians believed in reincarnation, or, as it was called back then, metempsychosis or transmigration. Books on the subject include Geddes MacGregor's Reincarnation and Christianity, and Terryl Givens's When Souls Had Wings. The latter is a study of the doctrine of the preexistence of souls. This belief did occur among certain early Christians, notably Origen. But they did not believe that these souls had previously incarnated on earth, and argued against that view.

Of course, I am not making any claims for or against reincarnation by saying all this. I'm simply stating what, by all evidence, the early Christians believed.

- Richard Smoley