John 3: The meaning of "You Must Be Born Again"

nightshadetwine · Apr 27, 2019

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Where does this concept of having to be born twice or "again" come from? It has a long pre-Christian history. In ancient Egyptian religion you were "born again" into the afterlife. You were born on earth through your human mother and then reborn through a "spiritual" mother or a goddess. Born of flesh and then of spirit.

“My Beloved Son, Come and Rest in Me”: Job’s Return to His Mother’s Womb (Job 1:21a) in Light of Egyptian Mythology, Christopher B. Hays:

Job’s return to his mother’s womb has consistently attracted special attention from interpreters of the book; it has been seen as a “bump” in the text requiring smoothing. Fifty years ago, Giuseppe Ricciotti argued with elegant brevity that the archaeological remains of ancient Near Eastern burials could shed light on this problem; the fetal positioning of many such burials could explain the image of “returning naked to [the mother’s womb].” “If this womb was not materially identical to that of the mother,” Ricciotti wrote, “it was so symbolically.”

A number of significant commentaries have followed Ricciotti in treating the imagery as a poetic reference to burial, but as far as I can see, no one has pointed out that there are very clear Egyptian precedents for such imagery, in which the sarcophagus and/or tomb are described as the womb of the goddess in which the deceased undergoes a rebirth into the blessed afterlife. The fact that Job is already acknowledged as demonstrating awareness of Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife such as the judgment of the dead supports the idea of Egyptian influence in 1:21.

In Egyptian funerary texts, there is “an astonishing consistency” to the imagery of death as a return to a goddess’ womb, from the Old Kingdom through the Hellenistic period. The image of the goddess Nut as the one who gives birth to the deceased king as her son—causing him to “revive and live”—is pervasive in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts. A few examples will suffice. Nut calls the king her son in Teti’s Spell 5a: “Teti is my son, whom I caused to be born and who parted my belly; he is the one I have desired and with whom I have become content.” The connection between this image of birth and the restoration of the body via the resurrection to the afterlife is well expressed by Pepi I’s Spell 337, which commands: “Nut, give your arm toward Pepi with life and authority, join together his bones, assemble his limbs, join his bones to his [head] and join his head to his bones, and he will not decay, he will not rot, he will not be ended, he will have no outflow, and no scent of his will come out.”...

Job 1:21a makes better sense when understood in light of the Egyptian idea of death as a return to the womb of the mother goddess.

The sun god in ancient Egyptian religion also had a second birth or resurrection.

The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Richard H. Wilkinson:

The great sun god Re was thought to grow old each day and to 'die' each night...
and then to be born or resurrected each day at dawn.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day edited by Eva Von Dassow:

Every evening the aged sun entered the underworld and travelled through it, immersed in Nun, only to emerge at dawn as Khepri, the newborn sun. Thus, the waters of Nun had a
rejuvenating, baptismal quality essential to rebirth.

The Pharaoh performed a ritual where he was reborn/resurrected or "born again".

Amenhotep III: Egypt's Radiant Pharaoh By Arielle P. Kozloff:

The royal jubilee, or heb-sed, was a festival of renewal rooted in Egypt's most ancient history...The Sed festival traditionally took place during the thirtieth year of the reign...Timing was crucial for the climax of the
festival deep inside the royal tomb. There Pharaoh faced the images of the gods represented on his tomb walls and remained for a period of time before going to his funeral bed, where he "died" and was "reborn" in a series of rituals, incantations, and offerings...This resurrection was the culmination of a process of deification that had begun with Amenhoteps III's coronation. At the time, like all Egyptian kings, he was the representative and high priest of each god on earth.

The primordial waters in ancient Egyptian religion were associated with the Nile waters and they represented rebirth, purification, and regeneration.

Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt by Jan Assmann:

Regeneration did not mean traveling a reversed path from death to birth, but rather, being born anew through death

It seems to me that there is another central motif here, one that Hornung has also connected with the idea of regeneration: the motif of the primeval waters...

Every morning, the sun god emerged from the primeval waters, and the annual Nile inundation that renewed the fertility of the land also fed on these netherworldly primeval waters...

"we live again anew,
after we enter the primeval water,
and it has rejuvenated us into one who is young for the first time.
The old man is shed, a new one is made. "

Compare that previous quote to how Paul describes baptism:

Romans 6

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life

The initiates into the mystery cults would perform a death and rebirth ritual. They were reborn into a new life after joining the mystery cult.

Milk as a symbol of immortality in the “Orphic” gold tablets from Thurii and Pelinna by Stian Torjussen:

"Now you have died and now you have been reborn, thriceblessed, on this day
Say to Persephone that Bakkhios[Dionysus] himself has released you
A bull you rushed into milk
A ram you fell into milk
You have wine as your fortunate honor"

In both tablets the formula follows a change in the status of the deceased from mortal to god... The phrase's connection with status change was further emphasized with the publication of the Pelinna tablets, where we find the same thing: first the subject is dead, then reborn making her thriceblessed. Then her status as released is confirmed, followed by the "immersion-in-milk" formula. As others have argued, it seems
probable that this part of the text, or rather the formula itself, refers to some kind of initiation ritual. Initiations often use symbolic death and rebirth in order to emphasize the initiate's new status...

Metamorphoses of Myth. A Study of the Orphic Gold Tablets and the Derveni Papyrus by Stian Sundell Torjussen:

The simultaneous life-death experience in the first line of the Pelinna tablets thus seems more firmly connected to initiation. Line two, where Bakkhios[Dionysus] himself has released the dead woman, must also be taken from an initiation. The release referred to here is not only connected with the symbolic death and rebirth of the first line, but also the future of the initiate as laid out in the concluding lines of the texts...Thus, death and rebirth should be understood symbolically and taken as a reference to a ritual we know, from ancient authors, was connected to death and rebirth, and where the two, as symbols, could happen simultaneously: an initiation.

The previous two quotes are referring to initiates into the mysteries of Dionysus. Dionysus himself was reborn or born twice.

Nelvin Vos, Inter-Actions: Relationships of Religion and Drama:

The song also celebrated the new birth of the god, Dionysus. However, Dionysus was not represented as an infant, but as a young man. Therefore, the emphasis is as the etymology of the word, Dithyrambos, indicates, on the second birth of Dionysus, his adoption by Zeus. He was twice-born, once of his mother, like all men, once of his father’s thigh, like no man.

Dionysus also died and was resurrected.

Dionysos By Richard Seaford:

Dionysos, like Jesus, was the son of the divine ruler of the world and a mortal mother, appeared in human form among mortals, was killed and restored to life.

In myth and religion rebirth and resurrection are closely related, sometimes even interchangeable. So your first birth is through your human mother, and your second birth is either through the initiation ritual(like baptism) or the "rebirth"/resurrection of your soul or "spiritual body" after death. Or, your initiation could be considered your first birth and your second birth would be your resurrection/rebirth after death. The second birth is always the "spiritual" birth which Jesus refers to in John as being "Born of the Spirit". Either way, the concept of being "reborn" or "born again" is found throughout different pre-Christian religions.

sooda · Apr 27, 2019

nightshadetwine said:
Where does this concept of having to be born twice or "again" come from? It has a long pre-Christian history. In ancient Egyptian religion you were "born again" into the afterlife. You were born on earth through your human mother and then reborn through a "spiritual" mother or a goddess. Born of flesh and then of spirit.

“My Beloved Son, Come and Rest in Me”: Job’s Return to His Mother’s Womb (Job 1:21a) in Light of Egyptian Mythology, Christopher B. Hays:

The sun god in ancient Egyptian religion also had a second birth or resurrection.

The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Richard H. Wilkinson:

The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day edited by Eva Von Dassow:

The Pharaoh performed a ritual where he was reborn/resurrected or "born again".

Amenhotep III: Egypt's Radiant Pharaoh By Arielle P. Kozloff:

The primordial waters in ancient Egyptian religion were associated with the Nile waters and they represented rebirth, purification, and regeneration.

Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt by Jan Assmann:

Compare that previous quote to how Paul describes baptism:

Romans 6

The initiates into the mystery cults would perform a death and rebirth ritual. They were reborn into a new life after joining the mystery cult.

Milk as a symbol of immortality in the “Orphic” gold tablets from Thurii and Pelinna by Stian Torjussen:

Metamorphoses of Myth. A Study of the Orphic Gold Tablets and the Derveni Papyrus by Stian Sundell Torjussen:

The previous two quotes are referring to initiates into the mysteries of Dionysus. Dionysus himself was reborn or born twice.

Nelvin Vos, Inter-Actions: Relationships of Religion and Drama:

Dionysus also died and was resurrected.

Dionysos By Richard Seaford:

In myth and religion rebirth and resurrection are closely related, sometimes even interchangeable. So your first birth is through your human mother, and your second birth is either through the initiation ritual(like baptism) or the "rebirth"/resurrection of your soul or "spiritual body" after death. Or, your your initiation could be considered your first birth and your second birth would be your resurrection/rebirth after death. The second birth is always the "spritiual" birth which Jesus refers to in John as being "Born of the Spirit". Either way, the concept of being "reborn" or "born again" is found throughout different pre-Christian relgions.

Are you familiar with the jar burials of Byblos? I saw them years and years ago.. I think they are found all over the Levant. I am not speaking of ashes interred in a jar, but adults in fetal positions in jars. Sort of womb like.

Zita · Apr 27, 2019

There are several ways "born again"could mean, I believe in reincarnation, I've always felt what you believe in life is what you will experience in death.

Windwalker · Apr 27, 2019

Born again is a metaphor for Awakening. We Awaken to the same world we were born into from our mother's womb, except born again into it through Awareness. It is pointing to Enlightenment.

nightshadetwine · Apr 27, 2019

sooda said:
Are you familiar with the jar burials of Byblos? I saw them years and years ago.. I think they are found all over the Levant. I am not speaking of ashes interred in a jar, but adults in fetal positions in jars. Sort of womb like.

No I'm not. Maybe that's what one of the scholars I quoted was referring to. I'll look into them

Ellen Brown · Apr 28, 2019

sooda said:
Are you familiar with the jar burials of Byblos? I saw them years and years ago.. I think they are found all over the Levant. I am not speaking of ashes interred in a jar, but adults in fetal positions in jars. Sort of womb like.

I was just looking at a picture of one, and the bones were broken, so not before rigor mortis then?

Spartan · Apr 28, 2019

Zita said:
There are several ways "born again"could mean, I believe in reincarnation, I've always felt what you believe in life is what you will experience in death.

From a Biblical standpoint, reincarnation is a false doctrine: “It is appointed for man to die ONCE, and after that to face the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

“The most famous case of alleged reincarnation is that of Bridey Murphy. In 1952 one Virginia Tighe was hypnotized. She reported details of a previous life in Cork, Ireland, as ‘Bridey Murphy.’ While supposedly hypnotized, she spoke in a distinct Irish accent that she did not have normally and described her life in Cork in great detail. Her case was reported as proof of reincarnation in Bernstein’s (1956) best-selling book, "The Search for Bridey Murphy." The case was thoroughly investigated several years later. It was discovered, however, that as a child, Mrs. Tighe had had a neighbor across the street who had grown up in Ireland and used to tell her stories about life there. The woman’s maiden name? You guessed it – Bridey Murphy. Further, it was revealed that Mrs. Tighe had been involved in a theater in high school and had ‘learned several Irish monologues, which she had delivered in what her former teacher referred to as a heavy Irish brogue.'” - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, Terrance Hines

In some Hindu teachings, if a person is "bad" in the present life, they may well wind up as a protected 'temple rat" in the next life. Which begs the question: If one is a 'bad' temple rat in that life, do they further regress to a temple cockroach, with an infinite regression back to a corrupted amoeba? What's more, who was the first person on earth reincarnated from, and which power on earth or in heaven facilitates those supposed rebirths?

Reincarnation voids the necessity of Christ for salvation and eternal life. If one can simply 'live again,' then what is the need to believe in Jesus? Therefore, the idea of reincarnation is Satanic.

The Bible makes it clear that Satan has been around since before the Garden of Eden. He knows what occurred in the lives of such people as Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Hitler, and every other person who has lived since the creation of mankind. It is certainly not a “reach” then to believe that he and / or his demonic spirits can place false memories of “prior lives” into the unregenerated minds of modern man, especially when those individuals are making an effort – such as in a seance – to establish “contact” with a former self or higher spiritual powers.

Deeje · Apr 28, 2019

nightshadetwine said:
The second birth is always the "spiritual" birth which Jesus refers to in John as being "Born of the Spirit". Either way, the concept of being "reborn" or "born again" is found throughout different pre-Christian religions.

Who did it first eh?

I believe that the devil has always known what God's original purpose was in connection with his human creation, which is why I think he could preempt so many of the religious notions we see in the world down through the centuries. There appears to be a common thread running through all of them.....immortality...or the ability to live again in some bodily form after death. The bodily form varies, but the expectation that death just interrupts life and changes it for that person, seems almost universal. The change is sometimes good for those who led a good and virtuous life...but not so good for others.

In the beginning, if we go back to Eden, we find that in the garden there were two trees representing life and death. The humans could partake of the tree of life, (and live forever) but only if they obeyed the instruction not to partake of the other tree.
That tree opened up the only way to death. Since humans have free will and (unlike animals) have no 'program' for death, they can't just cop it on the chin and keep going as if nothing has happened. Humans don't accept death at all. They deeply grieve the loss of loved ones, sometimes for decades. What better way to cope with death than to make believe it doesn't really happen? That you transition to some other form of life....

It comforts some people to think that their loved ones who have passed away, are somehow still close, watching over them. Its a nice thought, but is it true?

Is this what being born again means? Not according to the Bible.

We have an inborn expectation to go on living because death was not supposed to happen. Without interference from a rebel angel (who came to be known as satan the devil), nothing would have prevented God's original purpose for this earth and its inhabitants from doing exactly what God told them to do....

Genesis 1:27-29
"And God went on to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 Further, God blessed them, and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many, fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving on the earth.”

Had they obeyed their God concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (Genesis 2:15-17) there was nothing in the construct of humans that would lead to death. No natural cause of it. They were to multiply and spread their paradise all over the planet. The more 'helpers' they had for the task the better. No one would age, get sick or die. Imagine.....

But nowhere in the Bible does it teach that humans were made immortal because they were threatened with death if they disobeyed. An immortal cannot die.....so what is the truth here?

Many confuse immortality with everlasting life.....these are not the same. The angels too are gifted with a life that does not end, but they are not immortal either, since God can punish the wicked ones who followed satan with death...eternal destruction.

So what has this got to do with being "born again"?

When Christ came to give his human life for us, he was assured that God would resurrect him. How was he going to be resurrected? Unlike any others already mentioned in the Bible.....those ones were given back their physical lives of flesh and blood. But the resurrection of Jesus was different...he was the first to be raised back to spirit life. It was this kind of resurrection that was promised for those chosen to rule with him in his kingdom. So being "born again" meant dying as a human of flesh and blood, and being raised as the same person but with a spiritual body, able to go to heaven to stand in the presence of God. That is what being "born again" means.....they are born through death into a whole other creature.

That is what I believe being "born again" means.....its not for everyone, but only for those who are chosen by God for that special role. The redeemed ones of mankind will be ruled by them in the "new earth" (2 Peter 3:13)

Kenny · Apr 28, 2019

nightshadetwine said:
The second birth is always the "spiritual" birth which Jesus refers to in John as being "Born of the Spirit". Either way, the concept of being "reborn" or "born again" is found throughout different pre-Christian religions.

Yes, the concept of the need of a rebirth began with God.

IMV, what man did with it as he created other gods is just that, what man did.

However, being born from the Spirit is still a necessity IMV

1213 · Apr 28, 2019

nightshadetwine said:
...Either way, the concept of being "reborn" or "born again" is found throughout different pre-Christian religions.

But the meaning seems to be very different.

In Bible the meaning is that person is born of God’s words, they cause change in person so that he becomes righteous.

It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.
John 6:63

He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God doesn't commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can't sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
1 John 3:7-10

John 3: The meaning of "You Must Be Born Again"

nightshadetwine

New Member

sooda

Veteran Member

Zita

Solitary Eclectic Witch

Windwalker

Veteran Member

nightshadetwine

New Member

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member

Spartan

Well-Known Member

Deeje

Avid Bible Student

Kenny

Face to face with my Father

1213

Well-Known Member