The Surprising Theory That Claims Reincarnation Was Removed From The Bible

Reincarnation is a belief that when someone dies, they will be reborn and live a new life in a whole new living being. There are several religions that accept the concept, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, per Britannica. Obviously, this indicates the belief has been around for a long time. Yet, one of the oldest religious texts in the world seems to leave out the subject completely. The idea of reincarnation is not explicitly written in the Bible. There are, however, verses that relate to what happens to the soul and body after death (via Bible Study Tools).

For those most familiar with the Bible, they've likely never seen any section of that text discussing the matter, and there's a reason for that. Apparently, one religion — Christianity — plays a major role in why. Even though a small number, most Christians do not believe in reincarnation, per Christianity.com. Which means similar to other religions, once upon a time, they did. So what changed?

According to a Bible theory that reemerged in 2018, per Express, the Catholic Church is the reason why Christians do not wholly believe in reincarnation. The theory says that in their version of the Holy Bible, the Church intentionally removed all mentions of reincarnation from it.

The speculation is not new. The mind behind this theory is from author Geddes MacGregor and dates back some decades ago. In his 1978 book titled "Reincarnation in Christianity: A New Vision of the Role of Rebirth in Christian Thought," he makes the first mention of it. He debates that the belief in reincarnation was lost because not only did the Church allegedly work to scrap all traces of reincarnation, in the many rewritings and updating of the Bible, certain stories were lost. Additionally, when the time came to approve these updates, people of the approving council who did not believe in the concept ensured that it was not in the Bible. That doesn't mean that there also weren't believers of reincarnation on these councils. Several historians use the fact that in their attempts to scrub the Bible of reincarnation, there are still remnants within the text that show otherwise, which is how this theory was able to form.