This critique looks at the book, Reincarnation in the New Testament, by James M. Pryse, which was published by Elliott B. Page and Company of New York in 1899 and reprinted by Health Research, of Mokelumne Hill, California, in 1965. Health Research distributes books on the occult, and the author wrote this book to present his opinions about passages in the New Testament that, in his opinion, support reincarnation, the idea of aeons, and the mystic ideal. Throughout his discussions, he frequently crossed over into various aspects of Mysticism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism.

On page 3, Pryse quoted from Matthew 11:11-14. That passage says, "I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come."

According to the author, the above excerpt, and especially Matthew 11:14, suggests that Jesus was telling His disciples that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah. However, in reaching that conclusion, the author did not compare Scripture with Scripture or spiritual things with spiritual things (I Corinthians 2:13) to get at the correct meaning of what Jesus was saying.

In a related passage, John 1:19-21 says, "Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, 'I am not the Christ.' They asked him, 'Then who are you? Are you Elijah?' He said, 'I am not.' 'Are you the Prophet?' He answered, 'No.'" In another passage about John the Baptist where Jesus was again speaking, Luke 1:16-17 says, "Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

The above related passage from the Gospel of John clearly shows that John the Baptist denied that he was the reincarnation of Elijah. The related passage from the Gospel of Luke shows that John the Baptist was born for the purpose of going before the people in the same spirit and power as Elijah, but not as Elijah himself. In I Kings 18, Elijah had challenged the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal (I Kings 18:22) and won a great victory for the Lord. With that same kind of spirit and power, Jesus was telling His disciples that John the Baptist would come onto the scene and tell the people to repent because the Kingdom of God was at hand (Matthew 3:2).

The fact that the people of that time might have believed in reincarnation does not make reincarnation correct. They were wrong about Jesus and had him crucified. They were wrong about the identity of John the Baptist, and they could have easily been wrong about reincarnation. In this part of his discourse, Mr. Pryse chose to focus on expressions like "he is the Elijah who was to come" and "in the spirit and power of Elijah" to force his meaning into the text. But no credible evidence exists to show that either expression was intended to mean anything mystical. A good rule for biblical interpretation is to not read more into a passage than what is really there. In this instance, the author was probably wrong to believe that John the Baptist and Elijah was the same person.

On page 6, the author wrote, "The people who knew of the works performed by Jesus took it for granted that he was a reincarnation of one of the Seers, Prophets or Wonder-workers of olden times." On page 8, in reference to Matthew 16:13, the author even rephrased Jesus' question by suggesting that He was really asking, "Of whom do you say that I am the reincarnation?" But in crediting Jesus with having asked such a question, the author was actually denying the deity of Christ. Jesus cannot be deity and also have been a product of reincarnation because one of the attributes of deity is eternality. Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever."

The author indicated, on pages 7 and 8, that Jesus did not openly deny the so-called truth of reincarnation and that His silence on the issue must have been His form of concurrence. But while the author's reasoning might have been correct, it probably was not. The Bible does not record any words where Jesus spoke for or against His own reincarnation, but it does record numerous instances where He claimed to be deity, where He did the works of deity, and also where others recognized Him as deity. John 5:17-18 says, "Jesus said to them, 'My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.' For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." Matthew 8:28-29 says, "When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 'What do you want with us, Son of God?' they shouted. 'Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?'"

The above passage from John 5:17-18 shows His claim to be equal with God, and the passage from Matthew 8:28-29 shows that even the evil spirits of this world knew His identity and feared Him. In Matthew 9:6, Jesus had the power to forgive a man for his sins and to heal him of his infirmity, and in Matthew 12:8, the Bible says, "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." The Greek word used for "Lord" in Matthew 12:8 was "kurios", and that word meant "God the Messiah". Jesus knew that He was and is God, and He tried to show that great truth to everyone around Him.

On one occasion, after telling the people about the two great commandments of loving God above all and of loving one's neighbor as oneself, Jesus questioned the Pharisees. In Matthew 22:41-46, the Bible says, "While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 'What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?' 'The son of David,' they replied. He said to them, 'How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?' No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions." In this passage, Jesus told the Pharisees that He had existed before David. He did not say that He existed before David as someone else but that He had existed before David as Himself, God the Messiah (kurios). The Pharisees could not refute his claim of deity, so they simply kept their mouths shut.

In this discourse from Matthew, Chapter Twenty-two, with the Pharisees, Jesus was asking what they thought about the Christ and about the identity of His father. He wanted them to know that He was and is God. Therefore, contrary to Pryse's opinion about Matthew 16:13, Jesus was almost definitely not trying to teach His disciples any great truths about reincarnation. Instead, He was much more likely trying to make them realize that He was and is God in the flesh and that He was the One that had been promised throughout the Old Testament.

Even as early as the Book of Genesis, His coming had been promised, so it seems very logical that He was trying to make people realize that He was here. Genesis 3:14-15 says, "So the LORD God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.'"

The great truth of the New Testament was that Jesus, the Son of God, had come to save humanity from their sins, not that reincarnation might or might not be true. Luke 19:9-10 says, "Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.'" John 3:16-17 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." In short, Jesus did not talk about reincarnation because He had far more important things about which to talk.

On page 10, in the chapter entitled "The Philosophy of Reincarnation," the author wrote, "The views of the ancients with regard to reincarnation are inseparable from the fundamental propositions of the old philosophy, which asserts the identity of the spiritual principle in man and the spiritual principle pervading the whole universe, and predicates that man is a lesser world, manifesting in himself all the elements, forces, and processes of the universe in its entirety, material and divine. That philosophy affirms the spiritual unity of all beings, and does not regard Nature as separate from Deity. It holds that God is in and through all things, present in every atom of even the material world."

In the above quote, a couple of questions must be asked. The first pertains to the ancients and the fundamental propositions of the old philosophy. What guarantees that the ancients and the fundamental propositions were correct? Everyone from the past can unanimously believe in a particular thing and, without credible evidence, still be wrong. The author did not explain how or why the ancients arrived at or accepted their beliefs, and such an explanation would have been very helpful.

The second question pertains to the old philosophy and the Bible? If the Bible is correct, and much credible evidence exists to support the claim that it is, then one would be wise to study it and forget about the old philosophy. Therefore, if the Bible is correct, then who cares what the ancients might have thought or what the old philosophy might have taught? These things mean nothing. Conversely, even if someone could possibly show that the Bible is not correct, then why has the author written this book to try to show that the New Testament support reincarnation? Such an inconsistency is not logical.

Is the author really trying to show that both the old philosophy and the Bible are correct? If so, then why has he adopted a pantheistic viewpoint about God by saying "God is in and through all things?" According to the Bible, God and nature are not the same. God is the Creator, not nature. According to Scripture, He made nature. Acts 17:22-24 says, "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: 'Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.'"

On page 11, Mr. Pryse wrote, "Nature is Deity in manifestation," but he did not justify his remark. In the above paragraph, the passage from Acts 17:22-24 was provided to justify the remark about God being the Creator and not just the same as nature. The author of this text should have made similar efforts to provide supporting documentation for his comments. Otherwise, a person cannot have much confidence in what is being said.

Also on page 11, the author wrote, "Below this is the psychic realm, in which these ideas or souls become clothed in the ethereal elements, and from this realm emanates the material universe, that of the gross elements." The author made this statement, but he once again did not attempt to prove what he said. In front of each sentence, he should have been saying something like "in my opinion" or "I believe." At least that way, he would have been more open and honest with his reader. There are many unknowns about this existence, and no one has all the answers. Therefore, it is permissible to offer opinions and beliefs. But it is irresponsible and manipulative to present one's opinions and beliefs as facts when credible evidence is not available.

On pages 11 and 12, Mr. Pryse continued to talk about things that he could not prove, and he chose to not provide references so that the reader can do additional research and analysis. In this particular instance, he wrote, "Thus man has a physical body for the material world, a psychic body for the psychic world, and a spiritual body for the spiritual world. Even though he knows it not, man is in reality an inhabitant of the three worlds." The obvious question is how could the author speak so confidently about things that normal man does not know anything about? If Mr. Pryse was so well qualified, then perhaps he should have explained his qualifications so that the uninformed reader could also have similar confidence. On page 12, he talked about "existence being thus the outbreathing and inbreathing of the divine life," but once again, he did not indicate how he knew these things. Unproven, unsubstantiated writing of this caliber is targeted towards the naive and gullible.

Reading the opening two chapters of this book causes one to question the author's true objectives. What was he trying to do? He talked about the old philosophy on page 10 and about nature and Deity being the same on page 11. He talked about the cyclic progressions of man on page 12, about the wheel of birth and the long cycles of evolution on page 13, and about the memory of all incarnations on page 14. Why was he trying so hard to connect reincarnation to the New Testament since he used the unproven, unsubstantiated old philosophy of the ancients to write against many of the other truths of the New Testament? The New Testament does not teach that the self of man is eternal. The Bible does not teach that the soul is "indrawn" toward its real center of life at death or that the soul still dwells in the psychic world at death. The Bible does not teach the "wheel of birth" cycle, and it does not say that the soul retains the memory of all its incarnations.

Is it possible that the Old and New Testaments are somehow incomplete and that humanity still needs additional information to have the complete story? The writer of the Book of Hebrews would say no. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe." In Chapter One of his book, Mr. Pryse tried to make the reader think that Jesus believed in reincarnation and that He was a product of the same. But this excerpt from Hebrews, along with many other passages in the Bible, clearly say that Jesus, the Son of God who is also the Second Person of the Trinity, made the universe.

Reincarnation for Jesus could have only been true if He had been the Son of God at Creation, if He had become some other being or beings after Creation, and then, if He had become the Son of God again after He was born to Mary. However, since the Bible clearly says that Jesus was at Creation, the implication, from a reincarnation perspective, would have to be that He had already reached the ultimate plateau of existence. How much higher can someone get than Creator? Therefore, why would He have to have gone backwards to the reincarnation "wheel of birth" cycle if He had already reached the top? The answer is that He did not go backwards. Jesus has always been God, the Son. He was God the Son at Creation, and He has been God the Son ever since.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews also said that God has chosen to speak to His people in these last days by His Son. If this is correct, then one's only guaranteed source for good information would have to be Jesus. Those closest to Him have already conveyed His message to humanity through the pages of the New Testament. The early church was very diligent to retain the truth of those teachings and to get those teachings to all that wanted them. Mr. Pryse's instruction on reincarnation in Chapter Two of his book is a total perversion of the simple Gospel message that was taught and executed by Christ. In speaking about Jesus, Acts 4:12 says, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Like it or not, those who get to God will only do so through the finished work of Jesus on the cross at Calvary.

In Chapter Three, the author's logic was not valid on three separate occasions. On page 16, when talking about Jesus' teachings, he wrote, "It is only by a painstaking study of such scattered material that the teachings on any particular subject can be synthesized; and however well the work of piecing together the disconnected statements may be done, gaps will remain that can only be filled in by inference and analogy."

In this remark, the author was possibly implying that the New Testament teachings of Christ are not complete, so the reader must fill in the gaps by inference and analogy. The technical term for what he was talking about is speculative theology, and that is the process by which the reader tries to add to the existing Bible text in order to gain more insight. The problem with speculation, however, is that one has no guarantee that his or her inferences and analogies are correct. At best, the individual is making guesses and assumptions that could turn out to be totally incorrect.

Better logic is to accept Psalm 23:1 as it is written and to believe that a loving God has given us all the truth we need in order to understand Him and have a right relationship with Him. Psalm 23:1 says, "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want." In biblical times, a shepherd took care of his sheep and gave them everything they needed. Believing that the important truths of God can only be discovered by making speculations about His Word is not logical. It is not consistent with the nature of a shepherd. It is not consistent with the nature of God, and it is not consistent with One who is trying to give good guidance to His people.

On pages 15 and 16, Mr. Pryse indicated that Jesus only communicated His truths to His secret order. On page 16, he wrote, "The letters by Paul and others were, from their very nature, never intended to be read by persons not belonging to this secret order." The secret order to which the author must have been referring is called the Christian church, and the way to gain entrance has actually always been very simple. Acts 16:27-31 says, "The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, 'Don't harm yourself! We are all here!' The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household.'" Luke 19:9-10 says, "Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." The author might think that the order is secret, but it is actually very open and available to anyone and everyone.

On page 17, the author made his second illogical remark in this chapter. He wrote, "while belief in reincarnation was almost universal in the time of Jesus, and was an essential doctrine in all the so-called pagan religions, it is nowhere denied, disputed or questioned in the New Testament." Jesus also never denied that the moon was green, that two plus two is ten, or that all people would live to be one hundred. So, accepting something as truth just because Jesus never exposed it as untrue is logically very weak. Rather than focusing so much on what Jesus did not say, this author should have been focusing more on what Jesus did say.

On page 19, the author made his third illogical comment by saying that "Elijah in Greek is Helias" and that the Greek word for "sun" is "helios". He, then, said that John the Baptist could have misunderstood the question about him being Elijah and that that was why he indicated that he was not. According to Mr. Pryse, John might have thought that the people were asking him if he was the sun, so knowing that he was not, he simply said no. This kind of logic is ludicrous. The author also suggested that John the Baptist might have metaphorically associated "sun" with "anointed", but this would have been equally ridiculous. The Greek word "helios" is used thirty times in the New Testament, and in every instance, it is used to refer to the sun in the sky and never to Jesus as some kind of figurative "Sun". If the people of that day had been asking John if he were the Messiah or the Anointed One, then they would have used the word "Christos", which means Messiah or anointed. They would not have associated Jesus with the sun, as Mr. Pryse suggested, because they never did so at any other time.

When the Apostle John wrote about the above conversation between John the Baptist and the Jews that had come to visit him, he used the word "Helias" to show that he understood the question and the distinction between the sun and Elijah. For Mr. Pryse to suggest that John the Baptist did not understand what he was being asked was forcing the issue. How convenient it is that such an explanation could be so easily offered in this passage in a way that would seem to support the radical view of reincarnation. However, the author needs to find a stronger example of reincarnation in the New Testament than this if he expects to have a credible case.

On page 14, Mr. Pryse wrote, "The soul retains the memory of all its incarnatons, but this memory can be transmitted to the external consciousness only when the outer life is sufficiently purified." In the matter of John the Baptist not clearly understanding the question being asked him, the author would have presented a stronger argument for reincarnation if he had said that John the Baptist's outer life had not been sufficiently purified for him to know that he had once been Elijah. It should be noted, however, that the author did not even offer any kind of supporting documentation for the above statement about one's memory of previous incarnations. Because of that, the reader can only receive such statements relating to reincarnation if he or she chooses by faith to believe in the doctrine of reincarnation. Thus far, in my opinion, the author has not proven that there is any relationship, at all, between the New Testament and reincarnation.

On page 26, Mr. Pryse indicated that Elijah "made wrong use of his Seership and magical power" and that he scorned the king's command. In referencing II Kings 1:8, the author suggested that Elijah was wrong when he called fire down from heaven to kill the two bands of soldiers that had come to take him. Concerning this incident, Matthew Henry wrote "Elijah called for fire from heaven, to consume the haughty, daring sinners; not to secure himself, but to prove his mission, and to reveal the wrath of God from heaven, against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" [1].

Earlier in II Kings, Chapter One, it is clear that King Ahaziah was asking for information from a false god. So, if anything, Elijah had struck down the two bands of soldiers because of God's anger against them, not because of his own. II Kings 1:10 says, "Elijah answered the captain, 'If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!' Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men." One can easily see that Elijah left God opportunity to not strike down the soldiers but that God sent down the fire anyway.

On page 27, in reference to John the Baptist, the author wrote, "Imprisoned - unjustly so far as that incarnation went, but with perfect justice in view of the misdeeds of the prior incarnation - he sends his pupils to Jesus to make inquiry." In making this comment, Mr. Pryse incorrectly said that John the Baptist was imprisoned because of the presumed evil deed of Elijah in II Kings, Chapter One. First of all, Elijah's deed was not evil, as was just discussed. He was simply acting as God's man against those that had forsaken God.

Secondly, the Bible is clear about John's imprisonment. Matthew 14:3-5 says, "Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for John had been saying to him: 'It is not lawful for you to have her.' Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet." King Herod was having an affair with his sister-in-law, and when John the Baptist spoke against it, he was arrested. John's imprisonment was unjust, but it did not have anything to do with the prior deeds of Elijah or whether or not those deeds were good or evil.

On pages 28-32, Mr. Pryse discussed how King Herod had thought that Jesus was either a risen John the Baptist or one that had been indwelled by the spirit of John the Baptist. On page 30, Mr. Pryse wrote about "Herod's superstitious dread of the man whom he had unjustly put to death." But the fact that Herod might have entertained such superstitions does not mean that those superstitions were correct. Believing in ghosts does not prove that they exist, and no part of Scripture even tries to suggest that Jesus was the reincarnation of John the Baptist. For one thing, John the Baptist had baptized Jesus, so the likelihood that one individual could have later possessed the soul of the other does not even seem possible.

On page 31, in talking about Matthew 8:31 where Jesus drove demons out of a man, the author said, "The daimon, mistranslated 'devil' in the received version, is nothing more nor less than the evil, earthbound soul (psuche) of a dead person, the ghost, or 'spook'." According to The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the word "daimon" means a "supernatural spirit (of a bad nature): - devil" [2]. In An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, by Mr. W. E. Vine, the author wrote that daimon should always be translated "demon" rather than "devil" [3]. According to Mr. Kenneth Wuest, in his book Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, the words "all the devils," which are used in Mark 5:12, do not even appear in the best manuscripts. However, Mr. Wuest did say that the daimons, or demons, based on the context of this passage, could have only found rest in a physical body, possibly either a human or an animal [4].

Mr. Pryse seems to have been correct when he said that daimon does not mean devil, but he still might have read more into the word than is warranted. A supernatural spirit has never been shown to be the soul of a dead person, ghost, or spook, and neither has a demon. If he had wanted to suggest that these beings were the souls of dead people, then he should have provided more explanation and better justification. Just saying that they were ghosts and goblins does not make them so. In Matthew 8:28, the Bible says, "When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way." The Bible in this verse is clear when it says that the incident recorded in Matthew, Chapter Eight, and again in Mark, Chapter Five, was concerned with demon possession rather than with ghosts and goblins, and many Bible commentators would agree.

In Matthew 4:23-24, the Bible says, "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them."

Jesus went throughout Galilee healing people, including the demon-possessed, and on page 32, Mr. Pryse further expressed Herod's superstitious beliefs about Jesus being the reincarnation of John the Baptist. According to him, Herod believed that Jesus' miracles were the result of His reincarnation. He wrote, "In Herod's opinion this accounted for his magical powers; as one newly risen from the dead, he was in touch with the ethereal world, and so the psychic Forces energized in him."

In making this statement, the author was correct about one thing, in particular. The idea of ghosts and goblins and dead human spirits inhabiting living humans was only Herod's opinion, and Scripture does not in any way support these superstitions about Jesus or John the Baptist. It also does not support the soul Mysticism that was being promoted by Mr. Pryse.

On page 41, Mr. Pryse began a discussion of the genealogies of Jesus that were recorded in Matthew, Chapter One, and also in Luke, Chapter Three. He then wrote, "Taken together, the two annunciations are easy to be understood. As John was to come into God's presence 'in the Spirit and Force of Elijah,' so is Jesus to be given the 'Throne of David,' that is, to occupy the place of David in the spiritual world, since the Spirit or true Self of David was to be incarnated in him." Based on these separate and different genealogical accounts, Mr. Pryse was saying that the Self of David was the reincarnated Self of Jesus.

To further justify his contention about David and Jesus being the same Self, the author next quoted the passages in Matthew 22:41-45, Mark 12:35-37, and Luke 20:41-44. All three of those passages were based on Psalm 110:1, and that verse says, "The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'" On page 44, Mr. Pryse wrote, "If the real Self of David was distinct from that of Jesus, the latter could not be David's son in the mystic sense of the word; nor was he descended from him physically unless through Mary, and it is nowhere stated, or even intimated, in the Evangels that Mary was a descendant of David."

In the way that he presented these genealogies and discussed Psalm 110:1, the author indicated his belief that Jesus was not and is not eternal deity. He also showed that he either did not understand or did not accept the importance of the virgin birth and the right of succession to David's throne. In his commentary, Matthew Henry indicated that the Gospel of Matthew genealogy account of Jesus was intended to show the line from Abraham through David to Joseph. This would mean that Jesus could have been seen as a descendant of Abraham and also as in line to "inherit" the throne of David. In the account from the Gospel of Luke, Mr. Henry said that Luke had wanted to show Jesus as the seed of his mother, Mary. This would mean that He could have been recognized as being of the house and lineage of David and also as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 [5].

Dr. Merrill Unger, in agreeing with Mr. Henry, wrote that Matthew had shown the line to Jesus from Joseph's side of the family and that Luke had shown the line to Jesus through Mary's side of the family [6]. In showing these two different genealogies, Matthew would have shown Jesus' legal right to the throne by adoption through Joseph, and Luke would have shown that Jesus was truly a blood descendant of David. Jesus could only have been correctly called a son of David because his mother was of the House of David, not because of Joseph, who was also of David's lineage.

Even though Mr. Pryse did not seem to know that Mary was of the House of David, the Old Testament Law would have required that two people marry within their own tribe. Numbers 36:6-7 says, "This is what the LORD commands for Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within the tribal clan of their father. No inheritance in Israel is to pass from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers." Jewish people were required to marry within their own tribe so that the distribution of land that had occurred under Joshua would remain intact.

The belief that Joseph and Mary would have obeyed the Law concerning marriage within their own tribe is an almost certainty, so the explanations given above about the two different genealogies are reasonable. In agreeing with these explanations, Mr. Walter L. Liefeld, in the Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary, wrote that Matthew showed the legal line of Jesus and that Luke showed the actual line of descent [7]. The conclusion is that many commentators recognize the two accounts as being relevant to Joseph and to Mary, respectively. The evidence shows that the two genealogical accounts were recorded for different purposes, but how do those two different accounts show the eternal deity of Christ or the necessity of the virgin birth?

Concerning His quoting of Psalm 110:1, Jesus was telling His listeners that He had existed as Lord before David was ever born. In another passage, John 8:56-59 says, "'Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.' 'You are not yet fifty years old,' the Jews said to him, 'and you have seen Abraham!' 'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!' At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds." In the passage where He quoted Psalm 110:1, Jesus was clearly showing Himself as eternal deity. In John 8:56-59, He was again emphasizing His eternal deity, and the people, who understood exactly what He was saying, tried to stone Him for blasphemy. One can only conclude that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or that He was and is exactly Whom He claimed to be. He is the Lord.

The significance of the virgin birth is seen from Romans 5:12, Ephesians 2:3, and I Corinthians 15:22, which talk about all people as being guilty and as having a sin nature because of Adam's transgression. Because of Adam's rebellion, all people born of man are born with Adam's sin nature and also with the guilt that he had incurred for all humanity in the Garden. For those reasons, it would not have been possible for Jesus to be born of man's seed. If He had been, then He, too, would have been born with the same sin nature and the same original guilt that had come to everyone through Adam.

In this part of his book as well as in most other parts, Mr. Pryse failed either to understand or to accept the real identity of Jesus. The lines of descent that are provided in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are consistent with the rest of Scripture, and they support the proposition that Jesus is the Lord.

On page 46, the author showed some tendencies towards Gnosticism. In continuing his discussion about Jesus and David having the same reincarnated Self, he wrote, "The imagery could hardly be clearer. The 'Root of David' is the ever-living Self, which before the descent into the cycles, or AEons, of generation was the 'First,' the archetypal man; while the 'Offspring' is the 'Last,' the perfected man, who has emerged triumphantly from the 'spheres of becoming,' returning with added knowledge and power to the realm of true Being."

In this passage, the author seems to have been saying that David was the archetypal man and that Jesus was the perfected man. The "Root of David," according to him, which had been ever-living and existed in aeons past, went from its less perfect state in David to its totally perfect state in the "Last" man. Then, that perfected "Last" man returned triumphantly "with added knowledge and power to the realm of true Being."

The reference to "aeons" in the above quote was a reference to the first and second century belief of Gnosticism, a belief which was largely based on the Greek culture, the works of Plato, and the writings of a man named Valentinus, who had lived around 135AD. During the early years of the New Testament church, Gnosticism arose because many people were struggling with the presence of evil in the world. Following the Greek traditions of that time, the Gnostics thought that evil existed in physical materials. They were more philosophical than theological, and they believed that it was more important to find a worldview for living than to try to better understand the Bible. Their heretical beliefs lasted during the entire first two centuries of the church

Gnosticism was anti-Jewish. It maintained that God was unknowable, that evil existed in material things, and that Jehovah God, being material, must have had some evil in Him. Gnostics believed in aeons, which was a movement of spirit beings in the universe from one spirit to another. They taught that Jehovah God had been the result of a miscarriage by Sophia because she had tried to associate with the abyss, or the good spirits, when she should not have. They embraced an aesthetic approach to life, which meant that they believed in denying self and in being as spiritual as possible, plus they put high importance on spiritual things above all else. They believed in applying an allegorical view of Scriptures, and they interpreted many things about Jesus allegorically. Remnants of this belief still exist to this present day.

According to the online Sixth Edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia about Valentinus, "[He] viewed ultimate reality as a procession of aeons, 33 in all, issuing in pairs from the primal aeons, abyss and silence. From these came mind and truth, in turn engendering word (logos) and life. The thirtieth aeon, Sophia, by her inordinate desire to penetrate the abyss, caused great disorder within the pleroma (divine realm). Her passion was banished to a formless existence outside the pleroma. It is for the restoration of order and the salvation of the progeny issuing from the expelled passion that the last three aeons are produced--Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus the Savior, who is the 'common fruit' of the pleroma" [8].

In another reference to aeons, the Columbia Online Encyclopedia says that "Demiurge" was the "name given by Plato in a mythological passage in the Timaeus to the creator God. In Gnosticism the Demiurge, creator of the material world, was not God but the Archon, or chief of the lowest order of spirits or aeons. According to the Gnostics, the Demiurge was able to endow man only with psyche (sensuous soul) - the pneuma (rational soul) having been added by God. The Gnostics identified the Demiurge with the Jehovah of the Hebrews. In philosophy the term is used to denote a divinity who is the builder of the universe rather than its creator" [9].

If Mr. Pryse were a kind of modern-day Gnostic of his time, then he would not have recognized the Trinity since he would have believed that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were really parts of the final three aeons. He would have seen Jesus the Savior as one aeon and the Christ as another. He would have probably denied the virgin birth, Christ's sinless life, and also His resurrection, since those beliefs are directly connected to Jesus as eternal God. As a Gnostic, he would have probably also seen God the Father as either unable to rid the world of evil or as not good enough to even care about ridding the world of evil. The author's slant towards Gnosticism, at this point, further explains his non-biblical view of the relationships between David and Jesus, between John the Baptist and Elijah, and between Jesus and John the Baptist.

In Colossians 2:6-12, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Colosse to warn them about believing false theories. He wrote, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead."

In commenting on the above passage, Mr. Henry wrote, "The Jews governed themselves by the traditions of their elders and the rudiments or elements of the world, the rites and observances which were only preparatory and introductory to the gospel state; the Gentiles mixed their maxims of philosophy with their Christian principles; and both alienated their minds from Christ" [10]. The Bible teaches faith in Jesus, the Christ, the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Lord of David, the son of David, the sinless, resurrected Savior to all that will receive Him, and also the One that was born of a virgin.

According to the Apostle Paul, Mr. Henry, and many credible Bible scholars, teaching any message other than Jesus, the Christ, the Savior and Lord, is heretical. But rather than exalt Christ to the place where He belongs, Mr. Pryse has managed to fit further mentions of aeons into this book on pages 46, 48, 50, 58, 71, 77, 90 and 91. On page 77, he wrote, "But the language used is such as to imply that the soul toils in the fields of earthly existence throughout the AEon, which could only be through a long series of incarnations." Mr. Pryse was more interested in pushing his own agenda than in teaching the truth about the Lord.

On page 41, Mr. Pryse made a statement with respect to the meaning of the words "son of." He wrote, "In mystical works it is a common figure of speech to refer to a man as the 'son' of one of his preceding incarnations, which is his 'father' in the sense that the past produces the present."

Using this logic on page 44, he called Jesus the reincarnation of David, as was discussed above, and on page 50, he said that Jesus called Peter the son of Jonah, hence implying that Peter was the reincarnation of Jonah. His Scriptural reference came from Matthew 16:16-17, which says, "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus replied, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.'"

The first comment about the author's interpretation of "son of" concerns Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God in Matthew 16:16. If Jesus were literally the Son of the living God, then Mr. Pryse would have had to conclude from his own explanation of figures of speech in mystical works that Jesus was also the reincarnation of the living God. But to this point in his book, he has not explained how one person can be the reincarnation of another living Being. All of his examples have been of one person being reincarnated from a dead person. Therefore, reincarnation, by definition, seems to be mutually exclusive among living Beings. But Peter said and Matthew recorded that Jesus was and is the Son of the "living" God. That leads to the fairly clear conclusion that believing in reincarnation, itself, is difficult enough based on the arguments in this text. But believing that one living person can be the reincarnation of another living Being, at the same time that both are alive, does not even seem plausible or reasonable.

The second comment concerns Peter as being the reincarnation of Jonah. The Prophet Jonah was referenced three times in the New Testament, and each time was by his name and the title of prophet. Those references occurred in Matthew 12:39-41, Matthew 16:4, and Luke 11:29-32. The man Jonah was referenced as the father of Peter in both Matthew 16:17 and John 21:15-17, but nowhere in Scripture were those two men, both named Jonah, ever said to be the same individual. The fact that Peter was not called the son of the Prophet Jonah makes the author's argument on this point much weaker. He was only called the son of the man named Jonah.

On pages 51-52, Mr. Pryse wrote, "The character of Peter, as he is portrayed in the Evangels, is certainly that of Jonah; he is simply Jonah redivivus." With this remark, the author was saying that one could look at the similar personalities of these two men and easily recognize the work of reincarnation. But anyone that is ever impulsive, quick to speak, or slow to think is showing the character and personality of Peter. Anyone that ever becomes frightened or intimidated by their opposition and denies that Jesus is the Christ is also showing in himself or herself the character and personality of Peter.

On page 58, Mr. Pryse wrote, "Peter, indeed, has been taken too seriously. He is in fact the clown among the Twelve, as Jonah played the clown among the prophets of old times."

Peter was definitely a very unique individual, but one would have to do a great deal more research about this man before calling him a clown among the twelve disciples. As the author pointed out earlier, Peter was the man shown by the Holy Spirit that Jesus was and is the Son of God. In the Gospel of John, Chapter Twenty-one, Peter was the man that Jesus told to feed His sheep, an indication that he would be the leader of the early church. In Acts, Chapter Two, Peter was the man that preached the sermon at Pentecost where, based on Acts 2:41, "about three thousand were added to their number that day." In Acts, Chapter Three, Peter was the man that healed the man crippled from birth. In Acts 4:12, Peter was the man that told the rulers of Israel that salvation could only come through Jesus. In Acts 4:19, after having been told to be quiet concerning his faith in Jesus, Peter was the man that told the council that John and he would obey God rather than be quiet about what they had seen and heard. In Acts, Chapter Ten, Peter was the man that God used to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles.

The Apostle Peter also wrote two epistles to the church to strengthen them in the light of their persecutions, and one would be hard pressed to find any foolishness or clown-type writing in those words. By tradition, Peter was crucified just like Jesus, only he insisted on being crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die as his Lord. Consequently, one would have to really be in the dark about this man to describe him as either a clown or a fool.

Concerning the relationship between Peter and the Prophet Jonah, Mr. Pryse seems to have been wrong about his understanding of Peter as the "son of the Prophet Jonah." He also seems to have been wrong in his determinations of Peter's character and of his importance to God and the early church.

Throughout this book, the author has shown a strong inclination towards Neoplatonism, Mysticism, and Gnosticism, but he has not provided any credible evidence to validate those philosophies other than a simple belief. On page 15, he spoke about the Apocalypse as a wholly mystical dramatic composition. On page 41, he indicated that the angel Gabriel had been speaking as a mystagogue. On that same page, he indicated how the figure of speech, "son of," could have been possibly interpreted in Mystical works. On page 44, he talked about the mystic sense of the expression "son of David." On page 50, he mentioned the mystical allusion to the Apostle Peter's Seership. On page 65, he made a reference to the mystical "Son" of God.

Mr. Pryse showed a very strong belief in Mysticism, which was a form of ancient Neoplatonism, but the question concerns which of the three types of Mysticism he actually embraced. Intuitive Mysticism meant having an inner light with the ability to know God. The Quakers were intuitive mystics, and this view was not considered entirely non-biblical. Metaphysical Mysticism was the belief that one could have mystical experiences now and in the future, but the real goal was to escape this awful reality and be with God. Those mystics were like the Buddhists in that they also denied the present reality. According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, "Buddhism characteristically describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity or substance" [11]. Finally, Biblical or Ethical Mysticism was the belief that one's union with God in Christ was mystical rather than physical, so this belief did not deny or attempt to flee reality.

Because of the author's intense focus on aeons and reincarnation, he seems to have been more of a Metaphysical Mystic than one of the other types. His positions on Neoplatonism and Mysticism were further revealed by his reference on page 51 to the writings of another Neoplatonist by the name of Porphyry. According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, Porphyry "wrote extensively against Christianity and on rhetorical and literary themes" [12].

History definitely does not remember Porphyry to be a friend of Christianity, and Mr. Pryse, it would seem, also was not a friend to Christianity. At no time in his book has he tried to exalt Jesus as the Son of God or to portray Him as the Savior of all those that receive Him. To the contrary, he seems to have tried much more diligently to use the Bible as a way to promote his own ungodly agenda, and that tactic was never more clear than on pages 89-91 when he provided some key definitions.

On page 89, he said that the original sin was "the descent of the soul into the material world, and the generation of physical bodies, man being thenceforth a God dwelling in the animal form." His definition of original sin does not match Genesis, Chapter Three, and nowhere in the Bible is man described as a God in animal form.

Also on page 89, Mr. Pryse wrote that the curse is "the vast cycle of incarnations through which the soul must pass before it can regain the divine state." As a mystic, Mr. Pryse thought that man's purpose was to become spiritually pure enough to return to God and that his curse was to continually be reincarnated into this life until that purification process was complete. But based on the authority of Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 64:6, and Romans 3:23, Mr. Pryse was wrong.

Still on page 89, Mr. Pryse defined heaven as "the final state of bliss attained by the soul when freed from the 'wheel of birth.'" His belief was that the soul had been cast into the material world and forced to live here, over and over again through different incarnations as the case may or may not be, until he or she finally satisfied the criteria to break the wheel of birth. Jesus spoke often of heaven, but He never taught anything about being freed from anything like a 'wheel of birth.'

On page 91, Mr. Pryse defined salvation as "the freedom from the bondage of rebirth," and he defined faith as "intuitive knowledge." In the true sense of Mysticism, he seemed to view knowledge of the spiritual world as a key to obtaining his concept of salvation, but such views are never taught or promoted in the Bible. He defined baptism as "a ceremonial rite of purification," so he obviously saw that act as more than a simple ordinance, too. But this was not biblical, either.

Exegesis is the process by which one reads the Bible and tries to extract God's exact message from what was written. Isogesis, by contrast, is the process by which one tries to read their own meaning into the Bible. With the way that this author has tried to promote his own views about reincarnation, he clearly seems to have been guilty of isogesis. But why would a Neoplatonist or a Mystic try to use the Bible to promote his or her own views that are not biblical? Why not just stick to their own writings and leave the Bible alone?

Ironically, the Apostle Peter, about whom Mr. Pryse was so critical, had the answer concerning people like Mr. Pryse and also concerning how Christians should respond. I Peter 5:8-9 says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."

In this book, Mr. Pryse used a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus had said that John the Baptist would be like Elijah in order to say that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah. He argued that Jesus did not speak against reincarnation, so his conclusion was that He must have readily accepted it as truth. Mr. Pryse tried to suggest that the ancient philosophies were equal to the Bible and its teachings, and then, he conducted his entire analysis without giving priority to the Holy Scriptures. By letting himself make so many inferences to fill in some of the gaps in the Bible, he put himself at risk of misinterpreting many key passages from the Bible. But he did not inform his reader about the dangers of performing this kind of speculation. He pointed out that King Herod had thought that Jesus was the reincarnation of John the Baptist, but he did not emphasize that King Herod was wrong.

Mr. Pryse did not understand the eternal deity of Jesus, the Christ, and he did not understand the relationship between David and Jesus. He also did not understand why the genealogies in Matthew, Chapter One, and Luke, Chapter Three, were different. By speaking about aeons, he showed that he might have been a type of modern-day Gnostic and that he, like them, could not rationalize how God could be all good and all-powerful in a world with so much evil. Mr. Pryse did not see a distinction in the use of the phrase "son of" in the New Testament, and he probably confused the identities of the two men named Jonah. Clearly, he did not conduct a thorough analysis on the Apostle Peter before identifying him as the clown of the twelve disciples.

In spiritual matters, one will never know the truth if he or she holds all the philosophical writings in existence to be equal to the God-breathed, Holy Spirit-inspired Scriptures. A person will never know the truth if he or she fails to correctly acknowledge the deity of Jesus, the Christ. In the final analysis, Mr. Pryse began where each person should begin, by trying to evaluate the same question that each person must evaluate and answer. In Matthew 16:15-16, Jesus said, "'But what about you?' he asked. 'Who do you say I am?' Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.'"

While the Apostle Peter clearly gave the correct answer, one cannot feel the same confidence in what Mr. Pryse's answer would be based on what he has written in this book. He has focused a lot of his attention on the ancient philosophies of the world and on the beliefs of Mysticism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism. But he never explained why his reader should have a similar confidence in those things.

1. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary - Joshua to Esther (McLean, Virginia: MacDonald Publishing Company), page 710.

2. James Strong, "Greek Dictionary of the New Testament," The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), page 21.

3. W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985), page 166.

4. Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest's Word Studies From the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdsman Publishing Company, 1973), page 104.

5. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary - Matthew to John (McLean, Virginia: MacDonald Publishing Company), page 617.

6. Merrill F. Unger, The New Unger's Bible Handbook, revised by Gary N. Larson (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1984), page 406.

7. Walter L. Liefeld, Zondevan NIV Bible Commentary, edited by Kenneth L. Barker and John R. Kohlenberger III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), page 223.

8. Author not available, The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (Columbia University Press, 2001), Word "Valentinus".

9. Ibid, Word "Demiurge".

10. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary - Acts to Revelation (McLean, Virginia: MacDonald Publishing Company), page 757.

11. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Word "Buddhism".

12. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Word "Porphyry".

Tom of Bethany