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How to get to heaven when you die
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JPPT1974
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Starr SDA Living Word said:believe in jesus and what he died for,"all humans"and repent , and u will recieve eternal life in heaven.
god bless all!
Amen my friend!!
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Jppt1974,
Thank you. I am sorry to hear about David Bloom. I am also excited for Him that He gets to see Jesus.
Scott
Thank you. I am sorry to hear about David Bloom. I am also excited for Him that He gets to see Jesus.
Scott
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My friend died Ron Knope a few months ago and he is with the Lord also. Ron and David are probably feeling sorry for us that we have to stay here.
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25 The woman said, "I know that the Messiah is coming." (Messiah is the One called Christ.) "When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus said, "I am heI, the one talking to you."
(NCV) John 4:25,26
That would be bad advice.
18(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) 20For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
Philippians 3
4Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, 5For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
Colossians 1
10And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 1
7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; 10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
1 Thessalonians 1
There are only two places to spend eternity, as is evident from these verses, and the place you end up directly hinges on whether or not you "obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ".
Well, here's why I want you to! :
15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3
Was that reasonably clear?? If not, please let me know.
Praying for you,
Joy
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Joy,
thank you for trying, but I am frustrated that I cannot get my point across to any Christian I have talked to all these years, no matter how clearly I think I have phrased my questions.
What I was trying to say in my earlier post was:
1. If rejecting Jesus is bad advice, telling me to reject Baha'u'llah is bad advice.
2. If someone who rejects Jesus will spend eternity in Hell, then if I reject Bahau'llah I will spend eternity in Hell, right next to the people who have rejected Jesus.
3. Why do Christians tell me to become a Christian before they disprove the religion I currently belong to?
I have some questions, if you are interested.
thank you for trying, but I am frustrated that I cannot get my point across to any Christian I have talked to all these years, no matter how clearly I think I have phrased my questions.
What I was trying to say in my earlier post was:
1. If rejecting Jesus is bad advice, telling me to reject Baha'u'llah is bad advice.
2. If someone who rejects Jesus will spend eternity in Hell, then if I reject Bahau'llah I will spend eternity in Hell, right next to the people who have rejected Jesus.
3. Why do Christians tell me to become a Christian before they disprove the religion I currently belong to?
I have some questions, if you are interested.
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revelations12_12
Jedi Sentinal
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 19:26:13 -0400
Reply-To: H-NET List for Bahai Studies
Sender: H-NET List for Bahai Studies
From: "Juan R. I. Cole"
Subject: Baha'u'llah's "Book of the Tigris"
Comments: cc: Denis.Maceoin@durham.ac.uk
To: Multiple recipients of list H-BAHAI
Here is a translation of a Baghdad-era work by Baha'u'llah entitled
Sahifih-'i Shattiyyih. Sahifih means scroll and is used in the Qur'an to
refer to the books of the biblical patriarchs (a reference to the Torah
scroll no doubt). Shatt can mean river but also can refer directly to the
Tigris river upon which Baghdad is situated. Since there are other more
common words for "river" and we know Baha'u'llah was speaking of the Tigris,
I think he is using it in the latter sense, and so have translated it as
"The Book of the Tigris." The text is from `Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari,
ed., Ma'idih-i Asmani, 4:142-149.
It is not a book, of course, but a short letter. It quotes a Hidden Word,
No. 1 of the Arabic (but with the grammatical difference that the plural
imperative is used, whereas in the text of the Hidden Words we now have the
grammar is singular). My guess is therefore that it was written around 1857
shortly before Baha'u'llah put the Hidden Words into final shape.
This work is the clearest indication I know of Baha'u'llah's self-conception
before about 1859, when he appears to have begun telling people like Fitnih
and Nabil-i Akbar that he was the promised one. Denis MacEoin pointed out
in his 1989 BRISMES article that Baha'u'llah in this work disclaims having
any "Cause" at that point, and my rereading it now in conjunction with my
translation convinces me that Denis is right. He has no "iqbal bar amri,"
is making no claim to have a divine Cause.
This work gives us a humanist Baha'u'llah, who sternly denies being able to
work any miracles, who defers humbly to the Mirrors of the Babi
dispensation, who gives us a catechism that includes belief in God, the Bab,
Quddus, and the "Living Countenance" (Denis thinks this is Azal; I don't
know Babi terminology well enough to have an opinion). Indeed, the argument
seems to be made that just as plagues no longer break out in Iraq every 30
years as they had in past centuries (owing to Ottoman quarantines, by the
way), that after the Bab's death the age of miracles is over with. This is
in turn an announcement of a profound secularization of sorts, isn't it?
This brief letter seems to me proof that Baha'u'llah's "messianic secret"
(for which I have argued) probably should not be dated further back than
about 1859, from which time we begin getting independent eyewitness accounts
of his having privately put forth a claim. In short, it raises the most
acute questions about the nature of the "intimation" Baha'u'llah is said to
have experienced in the Siyah Chal. If one reads the account in Epistle to
the Son of the Wolf carefully, it appears that it consisted more of ilham or
inspiration than of wahy or revelation, and that Baha'u'llah began thinking
of islah or reform of Babism rather than of making any claim of his own. If
in fact the Book of the Tigris post-dates the poetry of the Sulaymaniyyah
period, I probably should retract my messianic reading of the Ode of the
Dove in favor of seeing it as an example of Sufi effusion or ecstatic
enthusiasm (shath).
On the other hand, Baha'u'llah is after all in this letter speaking rather
authoritatively and handing out spiritual advice. If the title "Sahifih"
goes back to the Baghdad period then he is using a word normally employed
for scripture. To put it bluntly, who does he think he is? A sort of Babi
Sufi shaykh? A manifestation of the attributes of Imam Husayn alongside
other Babi manifestations? What is clear is that his self-conception
changed mightily between the early 1850s and the later 1850s.
Sincerely,
Juan Cole
Dept. of History
Univ. of Michigan
more to come
Reply-To: H-NET List for Bahai Studies
Sender: H-NET List for Bahai Studies
From: "Juan R. I. Cole"
Subject: Baha'u'llah's "Book of the Tigris"
Comments: cc: Denis.Maceoin@durham.ac.uk
To: Multiple recipients of list H-BAHAI
Here is a translation of a Baghdad-era work by Baha'u'llah entitled
Sahifih-'i Shattiyyih. Sahifih means scroll and is used in the Qur'an to
refer to the books of the biblical patriarchs (a reference to the Torah
scroll no doubt). Shatt can mean river but also can refer directly to the
Tigris river upon which Baghdad is situated. Since there are other more
common words for "river" and we know Baha'u'llah was speaking of the Tigris,
I think he is using it in the latter sense, and so have translated it as
"The Book of the Tigris." The text is from `Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari,
ed., Ma'idih-i Asmani, 4:142-149.
It is not a book, of course, but a short letter. It quotes a Hidden Word,
No. 1 of the Arabic (but with the grammatical difference that the plural
imperative is used, whereas in the text of the Hidden Words we now have the
grammar is singular). My guess is therefore that it was written around 1857
shortly before Baha'u'llah put the Hidden Words into final shape.
This work is the clearest indication I know of Baha'u'llah's self-conception
before about 1859, when he appears to have begun telling people like Fitnih
and Nabil-i Akbar that he was the promised one. Denis MacEoin pointed out
in his 1989 BRISMES article that Baha'u'llah in this work disclaims having
any "Cause" at that point, and my rereading it now in conjunction with my
translation convinces me that Denis is right. He has no "iqbal bar amri,"
is making no claim to have a divine Cause.
This work gives us a humanist Baha'u'llah, who sternly denies being able to
work any miracles, who defers humbly to the Mirrors of the Babi
dispensation, who gives us a catechism that includes belief in God, the Bab,
Quddus, and the "Living Countenance" (Denis thinks this is Azal; I don't
know Babi terminology well enough to have an opinion). Indeed, the argument
seems to be made that just as plagues no longer break out in Iraq every 30
years as they had in past centuries (owing to Ottoman quarantines, by the
way), that after the Bab's death the age of miracles is over with. This is
in turn an announcement of a profound secularization of sorts, isn't it?
This brief letter seems to me proof that Baha'u'llah's "messianic secret"
(for which I have argued) probably should not be dated further back than
about 1859, from which time we begin getting independent eyewitness accounts
of his having privately put forth a claim. In short, it raises the most
acute questions about the nature of the "intimation" Baha'u'llah is said to
have experienced in the Siyah Chal. If one reads the account in Epistle to
the Son of the Wolf carefully, it appears that it consisted more of ilham or
inspiration than of wahy or revelation, and that Baha'u'llah began thinking
of islah or reform of Babism rather than of making any claim of his own. If
in fact the Book of the Tigris post-dates the poetry of the Sulaymaniyyah
period, I probably should retract my messianic reading of the Ode of the
Dove in favor of seeing it as an example of Sufi effusion or ecstatic
enthusiasm (shath).
On the other hand, Baha'u'llah is after all in this letter speaking rather
authoritatively and handing out spiritual advice. If the title "Sahifih"
goes back to the Baghdad period then he is using a word normally employed
for scripture. To put it bluntly, who does he think he is? A sort of Babi
Sufi shaykh? A manifestation of the attributes of Imam Husayn alongside
other Babi manifestations? What is clear is that his self-conception
changed mightily between the early 1850s and the later 1850s.
Sincerely,
Juan Cole
Dept. of History
Univ. of Michigan
more to come
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revelations12_12
Jedi Sentinal
Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 23:57:32 -0400 Reply-To: H-NET List for Bahai Studies Sender: H-NET List for Bahai Studies From: "Juan R. I. Cole" Subject: Re: Book of the Tigris
Comments: To: SManeck@BERRY.EDU
To: Multiple recipients of list H-BAHAI
Dear John:
Many, many thanks for all these good questions. I don't have answers to all of them, but let me take some stabs:
> to what alleged miracles is Baha'u'llah referring in the
>first paragraph? Do accounts of these alleged miracles
>exist? Why would miracles be falsely attributed to
>Baha'u'llah and by whom?
We do not have, or at least I do not have, any contextualizing memoirs or chronicles from the 1850s that would make clear exactly what is going on here. But apparently there were, as Tony says, Babis who had a special feeling for Baha'u'llah and who attributed miracles (mu`jizAt) to him. In Iranian folk religion miracles were attributed to all sorts of people, including great Shi`ite clerics, so this is not strange. Baha'u'llah denies that he can perform miracles, and says the days of miracles are past.
>-------------------------------------
> Third, I do not understand Baha'u'llah's meaning when he
>says:
>
>> Aside from revealing
>> verses, he {the Bab - JD} did not affirm anything.
The word in Arabic for verses is ayAt, which is the same word used for "signs," (i.e. miracles). I think Baha'u'llah is saying that the Bab did not claim to perform miracles, only to reveal verses.
>-----------------
> Fourth, do the parentheses and Qur'anic citations which
>appear in the translation form part of the original work of
>Baha'u'llah?
No, these are my additions and would be in footnotes in a printed text. The Book of the Tigris is in Persian, so the Qur'an citations, in Arabic, are quite conspicuous. However, Baha'u'llah notes that he does not have a Qur'an at hand to check the quotations, so he just paraphrases from memory.
In fact, some of these "verses" are pretty hard to identify with anything in the Qur'an, but I've given the best approximations I could. Inexact quotation of the Qur'an was far more common in Muslim works than is usually recognized. What is interesting here is that Baha'u'llah denies any kind of supernatural knowledge that would enable him to quote correctly in the absence of the text. Being a noble rather than a cleric, he had not memorized the Qur'an in a rigorous way, which is why he could only paraphrase.
>-----------------------
> Fifth, when you translate "God is he that created you,
>then he provided for you"=97do you not then see?
>(Qur=92an 30:39)", my copy of Yusuf Ali's translation of
>the Qur'an has this as Sura 30:40, not 30:39. The same is
>the case in my copy of Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall's
>translation. However, in Richard Bell's 1937 translation,
>the above verse in listed as 30:39, while what appears as
>30:39 in Ali and Pickthall appears as 30:40 in Bell. There
>are obviously differing traditions regarding verse arrangements
>within Suras, Could you please explain a little?
I gave the citations according to the Fluegel edition, which uses the Egyptian numbering system. Yusuf `Ali uses a different numbering system common in South Asia. Some Islamicists cite both numbering systems like this: 30:39/40. But I think it is inelegant and confusing, and that it is better simply to announce that you are using the Fluegel/Egyptian numbering.
>----------------------
>
> Sixth, when B writes
>
>> Like this river, events=
>> flow
>> in their own station. But if something appears that is contrary to that
>> destiny, then conflict arises in the world. If you can grasp this abstruse
>> and recondite enigma, which is more hidden than any other secret, you will
>> be able to dispense with the question you posed, and with all such questions
>> in the future.
>
> Do we know what is the question posed by Javad which
>Baha'u'llah is responding to here?
No. This Tablet as it is reproduced by Ishraq-Khavari seems to me to start awfully abruptly, and it is possible that there is a longer version somewhere that includes an introductory paragraph quoting back the question.
If such a text exists, it would be in Iranian manuscript repositories and/or at the Baha'i World Center archives, but I have not seen such a thing.
> It is interesting to analogize the river, which can only
>flow downhill, to increasing entropy. What, then, is it
>which could be "contrary to that destiny"? Why is this an
>abstruse and recondite enigma? Is this some obscure
>allusion to the power of revelation to bring about a new
>creation and a restoration of a low-entropy condition?
The Mesopotamian river valley, unlike that in Egypt, is especially given to *violent* floods, not the relatively gentle inundation common in the Nile before the Aswan dam. Iraq is arid apart from the river valley, and Baha'u'llah is struck at the contradiction that the annual floods are very destructive on the one hand, but irrigate otherwise barren land on the other. Obviously, new religions are also characterized by this tendency to destroy old edifices but to make new spaces green.
>---------------
>
> B writes:
>
>> The winds of yearning begin gusting over the flooded river of essence that
>> flows from the north of unity.
>
> Why is north associated with unity? Is this just the
>general source of wind direction in Iran where Baha'u'llah
>lived? Or is there a symbology here connecting compass
>directions with other ideas?
Yes, apparently the North wind is a symbol in Baha'u'llah's works for the wafting of the divine breezes. The tib ash-shamAl or north wind also figures at the beginning of the Ode of the Dove. There is a symbology in Islamic mysticism of directions, and Baha'u'llah is probably drawing on it, but I don't have the citations at hand.
>---------------------
> Next,
>
>> But what shall I say?
>> I make no claim to a Cause. The intensity of the sorrow and grief that have
>> befallen me during these days has left me sorely tried between the Gog of
>> silence and the Magog of speech. I beseech God to send down an Alexander
>> who will erect a protecting wall. Hidden allusions have been concealed in
>> these phrases and sacred letters have been treasured up in these words.
>
> Juan, any comment on the "hidden allusions" B is talking
>about here?
Maybe he is alluding to the grief Azal and other fellow Babis have given him, despite the apparent collegiality among Babi Mirrors of the time. Your guess is as good as mine.
What's the connection between Alexander and a
>protecting wall?
The Islamic lore is that Gog and Magog were inner Asian hordes against whom Alexander built a protecting wall.
>--------------------------
>> No one besides
>> God has any goal nor any end.
>
> I do not understand what this means. Obviously it does not
>mean that only God is subjectively capable of intending and
>holding up a goal. Does it therefore mean, more literally,
>"No one {in objective reality} has any goal nor any end other than the goal of
>{union with, confrontation with} God?" Could you clarify what you think the
>meaning is here?
Well, it could mean that no one has any goals that are *independent* of God's. This would translate in Aristotelian terms that he is the final cause of all things.
>-----------------
>
>> Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that yours may be a sovereignty
>> ancient, imperishable and everlasting. ... This is a
>light that is not extinguished, a treasure that is not
>> exhausted, a raiment that does not wear out, and a splendor over which no
>> curtain is drawn. By it many are led astray whereas others are guided.
>
> How could "Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart" could
>lead someone astray? They might ignore it, but it's hard
>to see how one could be led astray by it unless the
>kindliness and radiance being manifested were dishonest
>and a sham.
Again, your guess is as good as mine. But I'd guess that the *process* of *trying* to have a pure, kindly, and radiant heart is fraught with the dangers of spiritual pride and a feeling that you are infallible and others are lesser than you.
>--------------------
>
>> I have found nothing more
>> incontrovertible than this phrase, otherwise I would have shared it with
>> you.
>
> An interesting personal statement which indicates that B
>is an active comparer of pieces of wisdom, a searcher
>rather than just a kind of always passive blackboard on
>which God writes His Words.
Yes!
>---------------
>
>> With ears of sapphire listen to what has appeared
>> therefrom, in regard to the question you posed.
>
> Ears of sapphire? What is the connection between sapphire
>and ears or hearing?
This is part of a series of metaphors, in which legs are of iron, ears are of sapphire, etc. The reference to legs of iron may be to the Book of Revelation (this recurs in the Jawahir al-Asrar or Gems of the Mysteries, with an explicit quote from that book). I don't think the connection is intrinsic--it is just aesthetic.
Many, many thanks, again, for those thought-provoking questions and for such a close reading of the text.
Juan Cole
History
U of Michigan
References for Sahifih-'i Shattiyyih: Shoghi Effendi (Rabbani), God Passes By (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1970), pp. 141; Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah 4 vols. (Oxford: George Ronald, 1976-1987), 1:105-108; `Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari, Ganj-i Shayigan (Tehran: MMMA, 124 B.E.), pp. 24-25.
Appendix added 8-22-2000
From: Juan Cole
List Editor: Negar Mottahedeh
Editor's Subject: Baha'u'llah's *Book of the River*
Author's Subject: Baha'u'llah's *Book of the River*
Date Written: Wed, Apr 5, 2000, 11:49 AM
Date Posted: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 10:58:15 -0400
Thanks to the kindness of one of the subscribers, I have now had a chance to read Nader Saiedi's article, "Concealment and Revelation in Baha'u'llah's Book of the River," in the *Journal of Baha'i Studies* vol. 9, no. 3 (1999):25-56 .
The article is a study of Baha'u'llah's "Sahifih-'i Shattiyyih" or Book of the River. On one level, I read it with great pleasure, and am glad to see that Saiedi is pursuing such research and writing, which benefits us all.
The article, of course, consists in part in a polemic with my own translation and comments on this piece, posted here on H-Bahai and then on the Web Site at /~bahai/trans/shatt.htm
Several H-Bahai subscribers had earlier asked about my reactions to the piece. I fear I don't have many, and will probably exhaust them in this message. The article is simply not written within the same universe of discourse as I and most other academics operate in. It consists of three main propositions:
1) that all of Baha'u'llah's writings, earlier and later "employ exactly the same language and and express exactly the same message" (p. 29); and that "Babi" language is irrelevant to understanding the Baha'i faith.
2) That I have misread the Sahifih on some key points and that my dating of it is unsound
3) That Baha'u'llah's later writings of the Akka period can be used to demonstrate the complete continuity and unchanging character of his revelation right from 1852 all the way to 1892; and (implicitly) that historical contextualization is not a useful approach to studying Baha'u'llah.
The first of these convictions, which is stated over and over again throughout the article, is a theological doctrine. I personally find it 'fundamentalist' in its tone and implications. The author is welcome to have whatever theology he likes, of course, but it is impossible for me to engage him on that level since my own premises and theology are completely different. I believe that it is obvious that from the 1830s through 1863 Baha'u'llah's self-understanding went through a number of important changes. It also seems obvious to me that you need to understand Babi terminology to understand Baha'u'llah's writings of the 1850s.
The third of these convictions is also tinged with a fundamentalist theology. It is contrary to basic academic methodology in textual study and history. You can't prove the meaning of an early text by reference to a very late text. You need to look at an early text within its own historical context if you are to understand it.
I was very disappointed that Saiedi has not used Tarikh-i Zuhur al-Haqq vol. 4, which is on the Web, to examine the 1850s. Nor does he use the major Babi chronicle of the 1850s, Kitab-i Nuqtat al-Kaf. He does not reference MacEoin's important articles on this period, which is in my view a major lapse in academic protocol, since even if you don't agree with a literature you have to cite it and acknowledge that you have engaged with it. Aside from the Sahifih, Saiedi does not systematically analyze any other writings that could be dated to the early to mid-1850s, such as the Qasidih-'i Varqa'iyyih nor my chapter on it in SBBH 2. Although he looks briefly at The Tablet of All Food (1853), he is solely interested in disproving any reference to Azal (an enterprise that seems Quixotic since Baha'u'llah acknowledges having supported Azal in the 1850s). The correct way to get at the meaning of the Sahifih is to look at it in the context of the mid-1850s, which Saiedi never does.
Saiedi's second major point is the only one on which I think I can have at all a fruitful discussion with him, since it is textual rather than theological. What struck me about the Sahifih was that its tone is demonstrably different from Baha'u'llah's later writings, showing great humility and deference to others in the Babi hierarchy. He denies working miracles but admits that the Mirrors of the Bab have done so. Now, we know that among those recognized as a Mirror in the early 1850s was Subh-i Azal; `Azim was another. In the context of the Babi community in the 1850s, to deny one's own miracle-working and to admit that of the Mirrors could only have been read as an assertion of lower rank. Even the implication that he was not a Mirror is of that tenor. Saiedi completely sidesteps these issues with a lot of hand-waving and sleight of hand, trying to focus on other things.
Saiedi alleges that my dating of the Sahifih to about 1857 is unsound. I was the first to admit that it is speculative. But he has not understood the grounds upon which it is based. In the Sahifih, Baha'u'llah quotes one of the Hidden Words, but with a grammatical difference from the received text. My hypothesis is that Baha'u'llah was engaged in writing the Hidden Words on his return from Kurdistan to Baghdad in 1856, finishing them and 'publishing' them in 1858. It therefore seems likely to me that his quotation of an alternative version of one of the Hidden Words indicates that he was writing this tablet before the latter had been given final form, and therefore before 1858. Otherwise, it would be extremely odd if he should have published the Hidden Words in 1858 in the current form but gone on to misquote himself later on. This is the scenario, however, that Saiedi proposes.
The opening passage about how Baha'u'llah was not even a Mirror and hadn't worked any miracles, unlike the Mirrors, is enough to substantiate my argument that this tablet is different in tone from later works and shows us an earlier stage in Baha'u'llah's evolving self-conception. In addition, at one point Baha'u'llah says, "Wa lakin, chih guyam, kih hich iqbal bi amri nadaram." I pointed out that Denis MacEoin read this phrase as "But what shall I say, I make no claim to a Cause," and this seemed to me a good reading as well.
Saiedi insists that hich iqbal bi amri dashtan is an idiom meaning that he is disinclined to say anything. Well, Persian is full of idioms that wouldn't make sense if understood literally, and idioms are notoriously the bane of any translator of Persian by a non-native speaker. If you run into one and don't recognize it as such and it isn't in the major dictionaries or lexicons, then of course you can mistakenly read it at face value. (Steingass doesn't give this one under iqba:l). So, Saiedi may be right about this. However, he does not cite any authority for iqbal bi amri dashtan being an idiom with a rigidly defined meaning holding good over a century and a half. While he quotes other passages with the word 'iqbal' in them, that is fairly useless since the meaning of the *word* isn't in doubt, the question is whether the *phrase* is an idiom. Until some sort of proof of the latter being true is offered (calling Frank Lewis, calling Frank Lewis), it seems to me that MacEoin's reading cannot be dismissed out of hand. For a Babi audience, expecting He whom God shall make manifest, the word "Amr" certainly would have tended to invoke 'divine Cause', and to advance (iqbal dashtan [=iqba:l namudan?]) toward an Amr might well signify to put forward a Claim to a Cause in mid-19th century Babi Persian.
The main thing is that my argument does not hang solely on this phrase, and so even if Saiedi's reading could be demonstrated to be the only correct one, it would not affect its main outlines.
Saiedi appends his own translation of the Sahifih, but I did not receive a copy of it, only of the article, and so have not been able to compare it to my own. He says that INBA-PP 57:10-18 is a better copy of the work than the one published by Ishraq-Khavari, upon which I based my translation. That may well be so. But at the time I did not have access to that volume (indeed, almost no one did). It is now on the Web thanks to Rob Stauffer and me (something Saiedi does not share with his JBS audience, who otherwise may as well be told that a better copy exists on the moon).
Aside from the minor textual points, the discourse of this article is largely opaque and impenetrable to *academic* argument, full of a priori faith-assertions that cannot be controverted. It has nothing to do with my own attempt to recover the Mirza Husayn `Ali Nuri Baha'u'llah of history through academic methodology.
On the other hand, the close textual work needed to examine the premises of MacEoin and myself, the process of translation and retranslation, the introduction of further texts and references, are all advances in scholarship, and I am deeply indebted to Saiedi for those advances, which can be incorporated into further work on the subject by myself and others. There are zero sum games, in which if one person gains another loses. But the Republic of Letters is not a zero sum game; therein, any time anyone makes an advance, we all benefit, even those whose work has been improved on.
cheers
Juan Cole
[font=Verdana, Helvetica][size=-2]From: Juan Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
List Editor: Negar Mottahedeh <nnmottah@cc.owu.edu>
Editor's Subject: Book of the River
Author's Subject: H-Bahai Book of the River
Date Written: Wed, Apr 5, 2000, 6:14 PM
Date Posted: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 20:43:31 -0400 [/size][/font]Exception has been taken to my characterization of the recent JBS articleon the Book of the River as fundamentalist. I think it is a wonderfulaspect of H-Bahai that fundamentalist and traditionalist points of view areoften represented here alongside liberal and academic ones.All I was saying was that I do not see how I can engage such an argumentfruitfully on the ground of academic scholarship about the evolution of atextual corpus. It is being asserted in JBS that there *is no* evolutionin the textual corpus. It is all of one piece. Such a stance does notleave any room for persons with my views to engage it. If my demonstrationthat the Book of the River clearly has features peculiar to the 1850s isdismissed out of hand on the basis of a priori theological commitments,then what reasoned, evidentiary reply can I give? My reasoning andevidence have already been ruled out of court. I personally believe thatmy reasoning and evidence would convince an audience of other academics, orat least, if they rejected either they would do so on the basis that thespecific evidence or reasoning about it is faulty. They would not say thatthe whole enterprise is ruled out of court from the very beginning.An analogy might help. John Dominic Crossan is only the latest in a longstring of biblical scholars who have sought the historical Jesus.Crossan's technique in studying the evolution of Jesus and of the textsabout him is almost archeological, and he is someone I admire and try toemulate. Fundamentalist Christians dismiss Crossan's entire enterprise.Jesus, they say, did not change over time (being God and all), and nor didthe textual corpus about him (being divinely revealed scripture).On recent evangelical reviewer wrote,"It was Holy Thursday. It seemed the appropriate question: "ProfessorCrossan, the Jesus Seminar just announced its conclusions on theresurrection. The seminar, of which you are a member, has concluded thatJesus didn't really rise from the dead. What's up with that?" Or words tothat effect. I went to hear John Dominic Crossan, professor at DePaulUniversity and the author of many books on the historical Jesus, includingWho Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Storyof the Death of Jesus, with all the conservative evangelical skepticism Icould muster. To me, Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholarswhose controversial pronouncements on the historical realities of Jesushave angered many, are the pariahs of biblical scholarship." Seehttp://www.sojourners.com/soj9601/960131.htmlAnd, I think we know who are the pariahs of Baha'i scholarship, and whysome people think so. It is simply that the analogues of evangelicals andfundamentalists among the Baha'is for some reason do not like to admit thatthat is what they are, in contrast with the situation in Christianity.(I'd be glad to call them by some other name if only they would designateone; "Baha'is" tout court is unacceptable because it concedes far too muchto a particularistic point of view; Christian fundamentalists would alsolove to have a monopoly on the term "Christian" for themselves).But here is what the JBS article alleged:"it can be demonstrated that Baha'u'llah's early texts are in perfectharmony with his later ones" (p. 27)"Moreover, these early writings of Baha'u'llah clearly show that theincomparable author of those texts claims the highest possible spiritualstation for himself.""the rationalists' materialistic deductions are based on their forgettingthe miraculous nature of all reality." (p. 31)"Baha'u'llah's reference in the Book of the River to the "LivingCountenance" (Tal`at-i Hayy) is a reference to none other than himself."P. 46"These passages are just a few of the numerous statements of Baha'u'llahthat affirm the reality of his concealed revelation in the year nine . . .In conclusion, all the evidence in so many ways confirms that the standardBaha'i conception of the Siyah-Chal and the Baghdad period as a timecharacterized by both concealment and revelation is the only conceptionwhich is faithful to all the writings of Baha'u'llah himself." (p. 55).All that I said is that these faith-assertions are not open to reasonedrebuttal. I personally believe that all of them are incorrect at least inthe bald way they are stated. But I cannot use academic tools to disprovethem in an academic dialogue, because nothing I said would be admitted asconvincing evidence by my interlocutor.My position, on the other hand, is based on evidence. The author actuallyappears to criticize me for acknowledging that there is some evidence forBaha'u'llah privately making a claim from about 1859 in Baghdad (in thememoirs of Fitnih and Nabil-i Akbar Qa'ini), which changed how I thought ofthings. But to my mind this change of opinion on my part was virtuous; Iyielded to evidence. If anyone wants me to conclude that Baha'u'llah wasmaking claims before 1859, all they have to do is present to me evidence asgood as Fitnih's memoirs. The JBS author hasn't done that. He has spent alot of time talking about books and tablets written in the 1860s or eventhe 1880s. I have read those works too. They aren't evidence for1856-1857.My debate with Denis MacEoin was instanced. As I read Denis (and I mayhave been being hard on him because I did not know at the time that he leftthe faith because its leaders were mean to him), he was saying that onlyatheists or agnostics could possibly do good academic scholarship onreligion. (There is a debate on this sort of issue in the current Journalof the American Academy of Religion). My point there was simply thatbelievers should not be excluded a priori from participation in academicdiscourse if they are so minded. Belief does not rule out good academicwork, provided that the rules for producing good academic work (openness toevidence, ability to think historically and contextually, etc.) arefollowed. After all, Crossan is a believer (a Roman Catholic priest, lastI knew); and I consider myself a believing Baha'i. I was not saying thatbelievers who *reject* the rules of academic discourse are neverthelessengaged in an academic exercise. When I wrote what I wrote in response toDenis, I had John Walbridge, Abbas Amanat, Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, MoojanMomen, and Peter Smith in mind. I didn't have Adib Taherzadeh or hislatter-day followers in mind.As for relativism, that is an interesting possible debate. Would [SP]advocate that astrologers be given equal time in the *AmericanScientific* and would he accede to demands that he debate them in academicjournals about his mistaken view of the stars?cheers Juan Cole
Comments: To: SManeck@BERRY.EDU
To: Multiple recipients of list H-BAHAI
Dear John:
Many, many thanks for all these good questions. I don't have answers to all of them, but let me take some stabs:
> to what alleged miracles is Baha'u'llah referring in the
>first paragraph? Do accounts of these alleged miracles
>exist? Why would miracles be falsely attributed to
>Baha'u'llah and by whom?
We do not have, or at least I do not have, any contextualizing memoirs or chronicles from the 1850s that would make clear exactly what is going on here. But apparently there were, as Tony says, Babis who had a special feeling for Baha'u'llah and who attributed miracles (mu`jizAt) to him. In Iranian folk religion miracles were attributed to all sorts of people, including great Shi`ite clerics, so this is not strange. Baha'u'llah denies that he can perform miracles, and says the days of miracles are past.
>-------------------------------------
> Third, I do not understand Baha'u'llah's meaning when he
>says:
>
>> Aside from revealing
>> verses, he {the Bab - JD} did not affirm anything.
The word in Arabic for verses is ayAt, which is the same word used for "signs," (i.e. miracles). I think Baha'u'llah is saying that the Bab did not claim to perform miracles, only to reveal verses.
>-----------------
> Fourth, do the parentheses and Qur'anic citations which
>appear in the translation form part of the original work of
>Baha'u'llah?
No, these are my additions and would be in footnotes in a printed text. The Book of the Tigris is in Persian, so the Qur'an citations, in Arabic, are quite conspicuous. However, Baha'u'llah notes that he does not have a Qur'an at hand to check the quotations, so he just paraphrases from memory.
In fact, some of these "verses" are pretty hard to identify with anything in the Qur'an, but I've given the best approximations I could. Inexact quotation of the Qur'an was far more common in Muslim works than is usually recognized. What is interesting here is that Baha'u'llah denies any kind of supernatural knowledge that would enable him to quote correctly in the absence of the text. Being a noble rather than a cleric, he had not memorized the Qur'an in a rigorous way, which is why he could only paraphrase.
>-----------------------
> Fifth, when you translate "God is he that created you,
>then he provided for you"=97do you not then see?
>(Qur=92an 30:39)", my copy of Yusuf Ali's translation of
>the Qur'an has this as Sura 30:40, not 30:39. The same is
>the case in my copy of Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall's
>translation. However, in Richard Bell's 1937 translation,
>the above verse in listed as 30:39, while what appears as
>30:39 in Ali and Pickthall appears as 30:40 in Bell. There
>are obviously differing traditions regarding verse arrangements
>within Suras, Could you please explain a little?
I gave the citations according to the Fluegel edition, which uses the Egyptian numbering system. Yusuf `Ali uses a different numbering system common in South Asia. Some Islamicists cite both numbering systems like this: 30:39/40. But I think it is inelegant and confusing, and that it is better simply to announce that you are using the Fluegel/Egyptian numbering.
>----------------------
>
> Sixth, when B writes
>
>> Like this river, events=
>> flow
>> in their own station. But if something appears that is contrary to that
>> destiny, then conflict arises in the world. If you can grasp this abstruse
>> and recondite enigma, which is more hidden than any other secret, you will
>> be able to dispense with the question you posed, and with all such questions
>> in the future.
>
> Do we know what is the question posed by Javad which
>Baha'u'llah is responding to here?
No. This Tablet as it is reproduced by Ishraq-Khavari seems to me to start awfully abruptly, and it is possible that there is a longer version somewhere that includes an introductory paragraph quoting back the question.
If such a text exists, it would be in Iranian manuscript repositories and/or at the Baha'i World Center archives, but I have not seen such a thing.
> It is interesting to analogize the river, which can only
>flow downhill, to increasing entropy. What, then, is it
>which could be "contrary to that destiny"? Why is this an
>abstruse and recondite enigma? Is this some obscure
>allusion to the power of revelation to bring about a new
>creation and a restoration of a low-entropy condition?
The Mesopotamian river valley, unlike that in Egypt, is especially given to *violent* floods, not the relatively gentle inundation common in the Nile before the Aswan dam. Iraq is arid apart from the river valley, and Baha'u'llah is struck at the contradiction that the annual floods are very destructive on the one hand, but irrigate otherwise barren land on the other. Obviously, new religions are also characterized by this tendency to destroy old edifices but to make new spaces green.
>---------------
>
> B writes:
>
>> The winds of yearning begin gusting over the flooded river of essence that
>> flows from the north of unity.
>
> Why is north associated with unity? Is this just the
>general source of wind direction in Iran where Baha'u'llah
>lived? Or is there a symbology here connecting compass
>directions with other ideas?
Yes, apparently the North wind is a symbol in Baha'u'llah's works for the wafting of the divine breezes. The tib ash-shamAl or north wind also figures at the beginning of the Ode of the Dove. There is a symbology in Islamic mysticism of directions, and Baha'u'llah is probably drawing on it, but I don't have the citations at hand.
>---------------------
> Next,
>
>> But what shall I say?
>> I make no claim to a Cause. The intensity of the sorrow and grief that have
>> befallen me during these days has left me sorely tried between the Gog of
>> silence and the Magog of speech. I beseech God to send down an Alexander
>> who will erect a protecting wall. Hidden allusions have been concealed in
>> these phrases and sacred letters have been treasured up in these words.
>
> Juan, any comment on the "hidden allusions" B is talking
>about here?
Maybe he is alluding to the grief Azal and other fellow Babis have given him, despite the apparent collegiality among Babi Mirrors of the time. Your guess is as good as mine.
What's the connection between Alexander and a
>protecting wall?
The Islamic lore is that Gog and Magog were inner Asian hordes against whom Alexander built a protecting wall.
>--------------------------
>> No one besides
>> God has any goal nor any end.
>
> I do not understand what this means. Obviously it does not
>mean that only God is subjectively capable of intending and
>holding up a goal. Does it therefore mean, more literally,
>"No one {in objective reality} has any goal nor any end other than the goal of
>{union with, confrontation with} God?" Could you clarify what you think the
>meaning is here?
Well, it could mean that no one has any goals that are *independent* of God's. This would translate in Aristotelian terms that he is the final cause of all things.
>-----------------
>
>> Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that yours may be a sovereignty
>> ancient, imperishable and everlasting. ... This is a
>light that is not extinguished, a treasure that is not
>> exhausted, a raiment that does not wear out, and a splendor over which no
>> curtain is drawn. By it many are led astray whereas others are guided.
>
> How could "Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart" could
>lead someone astray? They might ignore it, but it's hard
>to see how one could be led astray by it unless the
>kindliness and radiance being manifested were dishonest
>and a sham.
Again, your guess is as good as mine. But I'd guess that the *process* of *trying* to have a pure, kindly, and radiant heart is fraught with the dangers of spiritual pride and a feeling that you are infallible and others are lesser than you.
>--------------------
>
>> I have found nothing more
>> incontrovertible than this phrase, otherwise I would have shared it with
>> you.
>
> An interesting personal statement which indicates that B
>is an active comparer of pieces of wisdom, a searcher
>rather than just a kind of always passive blackboard on
>which God writes His Words.
Yes!
>---------------
>
>> With ears of sapphire listen to what has appeared
>> therefrom, in regard to the question you posed.
>
> Ears of sapphire? What is the connection between sapphire
>and ears or hearing?
This is part of a series of metaphors, in which legs are of iron, ears are of sapphire, etc. The reference to legs of iron may be to the Book of Revelation (this recurs in the Jawahir al-Asrar or Gems of the Mysteries, with an explicit quote from that book). I don't think the connection is intrinsic--it is just aesthetic.
Many, many thanks, again, for those thought-provoking questions and for such a close reading of the text.
Juan Cole
History
U of Michigan
References for Sahifih-'i Shattiyyih: Shoghi Effendi (Rabbani), God Passes By (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1970), pp. 141; Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah 4 vols. (Oxford: George Ronald, 1976-1987), 1:105-108; `Abdu'l-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari, Ganj-i Shayigan (Tehran: MMMA, 124 B.E.), pp. 24-25.
Appendix added 8-22-2000
From: Juan Cole
List Editor: Negar Mottahedeh
Editor's Subject: Baha'u'llah's *Book of the River*
Author's Subject: Baha'u'llah's *Book of the River*
Date Written: Wed, Apr 5, 2000, 11:49 AM
Date Posted: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 10:58:15 -0400
Thanks to the kindness of one of the subscribers, I have now had a chance to read Nader Saiedi's article, "Concealment and Revelation in Baha'u'llah's Book of the River," in the *Journal of Baha'i Studies* vol. 9, no. 3 (1999):25-56 .
The article is a study of Baha'u'llah's "Sahifih-'i Shattiyyih" or Book of the River. On one level, I read it with great pleasure, and am glad to see that Saiedi is pursuing such research and writing, which benefits us all.
The article, of course, consists in part in a polemic with my own translation and comments on this piece, posted here on H-Bahai and then on the Web Site at /~bahai/trans/shatt.htm
Several H-Bahai subscribers had earlier asked about my reactions to the piece. I fear I don't have many, and will probably exhaust them in this message. The article is simply not written within the same universe of discourse as I and most other academics operate in. It consists of three main propositions:
1) that all of Baha'u'llah's writings, earlier and later "employ exactly the same language and and express exactly the same message" (p. 29); and that "Babi" language is irrelevant to understanding the Baha'i faith.
2) That I have misread the Sahifih on some key points and that my dating of it is unsound
3) That Baha'u'llah's later writings of the Akka period can be used to demonstrate the complete continuity and unchanging character of his revelation right from 1852 all the way to 1892; and (implicitly) that historical contextualization is not a useful approach to studying Baha'u'llah.
The first of these convictions, which is stated over and over again throughout the article, is a theological doctrine. I personally find it 'fundamentalist' in its tone and implications. The author is welcome to have whatever theology he likes, of course, but it is impossible for me to engage him on that level since my own premises and theology are completely different. I believe that it is obvious that from the 1830s through 1863 Baha'u'llah's self-understanding went through a number of important changes. It also seems obvious to me that you need to understand Babi terminology to understand Baha'u'llah's writings of the 1850s.
The third of these convictions is also tinged with a fundamentalist theology. It is contrary to basic academic methodology in textual study and history. You can't prove the meaning of an early text by reference to a very late text. You need to look at an early text within its own historical context if you are to understand it.
I was very disappointed that Saiedi has not used Tarikh-i Zuhur al-Haqq vol. 4, which is on the Web, to examine the 1850s. Nor does he use the major Babi chronicle of the 1850s, Kitab-i Nuqtat al-Kaf. He does not reference MacEoin's important articles on this period, which is in my view a major lapse in academic protocol, since even if you don't agree with a literature you have to cite it and acknowledge that you have engaged with it. Aside from the Sahifih, Saiedi does not systematically analyze any other writings that could be dated to the early to mid-1850s, such as the Qasidih-'i Varqa'iyyih nor my chapter on it in SBBH 2. Although he looks briefly at The Tablet of All Food (1853), he is solely interested in disproving any reference to Azal (an enterprise that seems Quixotic since Baha'u'llah acknowledges having supported Azal in the 1850s). The correct way to get at the meaning of the Sahifih is to look at it in the context of the mid-1850s, which Saiedi never does.
Saiedi's second major point is the only one on which I think I can have at all a fruitful discussion with him, since it is textual rather than theological. What struck me about the Sahifih was that its tone is demonstrably different from Baha'u'llah's later writings, showing great humility and deference to others in the Babi hierarchy. He denies working miracles but admits that the Mirrors of the Bab have done so. Now, we know that among those recognized as a Mirror in the early 1850s was Subh-i Azal; `Azim was another. In the context of the Babi community in the 1850s, to deny one's own miracle-working and to admit that of the Mirrors could only have been read as an assertion of lower rank. Even the implication that he was not a Mirror is of that tenor. Saiedi completely sidesteps these issues with a lot of hand-waving and sleight of hand, trying to focus on other things.
Saiedi alleges that my dating of the Sahifih to about 1857 is unsound. I was the first to admit that it is speculative. But he has not understood the grounds upon which it is based. In the Sahifih, Baha'u'llah quotes one of the Hidden Words, but with a grammatical difference from the received text. My hypothesis is that Baha'u'llah was engaged in writing the Hidden Words on his return from Kurdistan to Baghdad in 1856, finishing them and 'publishing' them in 1858. It therefore seems likely to me that his quotation of an alternative version of one of the Hidden Words indicates that he was writing this tablet before the latter had been given final form, and therefore before 1858. Otherwise, it would be extremely odd if he should have published the Hidden Words in 1858 in the current form but gone on to misquote himself later on. This is the scenario, however, that Saiedi proposes.
The opening passage about how Baha'u'llah was not even a Mirror and hadn't worked any miracles, unlike the Mirrors, is enough to substantiate my argument that this tablet is different in tone from later works and shows us an earlier stage in Baha'u'llah's evolving self-conception. In addition, at one point Baha'u'llah says, "Wa lakin, chih guyam, kih hich iqbal bi amri nadaram." I pointed out that Denis MacEoin read this phrase as "But what shall I say, I make no claim to a Cause," and this seemed to me a good reading as well.
Saiedi insists that hich iqbal bi amri dashtan is an idiom meaning that he is disinclined to say anything. Well, Persian is full of idioms that wouldn't make sense if understood literally, and idioms are notoriously the bane of any translator of Persian by a non-native speaker. If you run into one and don't recognize it as such and it isn't in the major dictionaries or lexicons, then of course you can mistakenly read it at face value. (Steingass doesn't give this one under iqba:l). So, Saiedi may be right about this. However, he does not cite any authority for iqbal bi amri dashtan being an idiom with a rigidly defined meaning holding good over a century and a half. While he quotes other passages with the word 'iqbal' in them, that is fairly useless since the meaning of the *word* isn't in doubt, the question is whether the *phrase* is an idiom. Until some sort of proof of the latter being true is offered (calling Frank Lewis, calling Frank Lewis), it seems to me that MacEoin's reading cannot be dismissed out of hand. For a Babi audience, expecting He whom God shall make manifest, the word "Amr" certainly would have tended to invoke 'divine Cause', and to advance (iqbal dashtan [=iqba:l namudan?]) toward an Amr might well signify to put forward a Claim to a Cause in mid-19th century Babi Persian.
The main thing is that my argument does not hang solely on this phrase, and so even if Saiedi's reading could be demonstrated to be the only correct one, it would not affect its main outlines.
Saiedi appends his own translation of the Sahifih, but I did not receive a copy of it, only of the article, and so have not been able to compare it to my own. He says that INBA-PP 57:10-18 is a better copy of the work than the one published by Ishraq-Khavari, upon which I based my translation. That may well be so. But at the time I did not have access to that volume (indeed, almost no one did). It is now on the Web thanks to Rob Stauffer and me (something Saiedi does not share with his JBS audience, who otherwise may as well be told that a better copy exists on the moon).
Aside from the minor textual points, the discourse of this article is largely opaque and impenetrable to *academic* argument, full of a priori faith-assertions that cannot be controverted. It has nothing to do with my own attempt to recover the Mirza Husayn `Ali Nuri Baha'u'llah of history through academic methodology.
On the other hand, the close textual work needed to examine the premises of MacEoin and myself, the process of translation and retranslation, the introduction of further texts and references, are all advances in scholarship, and I am deeply indebted to Saiedi for those advances, which can be incorporated into further work on the subject by myself and others. There are zero sum games, in which if one person gains another loses. But the Republic of Letters is not a zero sum game; therein, any time anyone makes an advance, we all benefit, even those whose work has been improved on.
cheers
Juan Cole
[font=Verdana, Helvetica][size=-2]From: Juan Cole <jrcole@umich.edu>
List Editor: Negar Mottahedeh <nnmottah@cc.owu.edu>
Editor's Subject: Book of the River
Author's Subject: H-Bahai Book of the River
Date Written: Wed, Apr 5, 2000, 6:14 PM
Date Posted: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 20:43:31 -0400 [/size][/font]Exception has been taken to my characterization of the recent JBS articleon the Book of the River as fundamentalist. I think it is a wonderfulaspect of H-Bahai that fundamentalist and traditionalist points of view areoften represented here alongside liberal and academic ones.All I was saying was that I do not see how I can engage such an argumentfruitfully on the ground of academic scholarship about the evolution of atextual corpus. It is being asserted in JBS that there *is no* evolutionin the textual corpus. It is all of one piece. Such a stance does notleave any room for persons with my views to engage it. If my demonstrationthat the Book of the River clearly has features peculiar to the 1850s isdismissed out of hand on the basis of a priori theological commitments,then what reasoned, evidentiary reply can I give? My reasoning andevidence have already been ruled out of court. I personally believe thatmy reasoning and evidence would convince an audience of other academics, orat least, if they rejected either they would do so on the basis that thespecific evidence or reasoning about it is faulty. They would not say thatthe whole enterprise is ruled out of court from the very beginning.An analogy might help. John Dominic Crossan is only the latest in a longstring of biblical scholars who have sought the historical Jesus.Crossan's technique in studying the evolution of Jesus and of the textsabout him is almost archeological, and he is someone I admire and try toemulate. Fundamentalist Christians dismiss Crossan's entire enterprise.Jesus, they say, did not change over time (being God and all), and nor didthe textual corpus about him (being divinely revealed scripture).On recent evangelical reviewer wrote,"It was Holy Thursday. It seemed the appropriate question: "ProfessorCrossan, the Jesus Seminar just announced its conclusions on theresurrection. The seminar, of which you are a member, has concluded thatJesus didn't really rise from the dead. What's up with that?" Or words tothat effect. I went to hear John Dominic Crossan, professor at DePaulUniversity and the author of many books on the historical Jesus, includingWho Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Storyof the Death of Jesus, with all the conservative evangelical skepticism Icould muster. To me, Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholarswhose controversial pronouncements on the historical realities of Jesushave angered many, are the pariahs of biblical scholarship." Seehttp://www.sojourners.com/soj9601/960131.htmlAnd, I think we know who are the pariahs of Baha'i scholarship, and whysome people think so. It is simply that the analogues of evangelicals andfundamentalists among the Baha'is for some reason do not like to admit thatthat is what they are, in contrast with the situation in Christianity.(I'd be glad to call them by some other name if only they would designateone; "Baha'is" tout court is unacceptable because it concedes far too muchto a particularistic point of view; Christian fundamentalists would alsolove to have a monopoly on the term "Christian" for themselves).But here is what the JBS article alleged:"it can be demonstrated that Baha'u'llah's early texts are in perfectharmony with his later ones" (p. 27)"Moreover, these early writings of Baha'u'llah clearly show that theincomparable author of those texts claims the highest possible spiritualstation for himself.""the rationalists' materialistic deductions are based on their forgettingthe miraculous nature of all reality." (p. 31)"Baha'u'llah's reference in the Book of the River to the "LivingCountenance" (Tal`at-i Hayy) is a reference to none other than himself."P. 46"These passages are just a few of the numerous statements of Baha'u'llahthat affirm the reality of his concealed revelation in the year nine . . .In conclusion, all the evidence in so many ways confirms that the standardBaha'i conception of the Siyah-Chal and the Baghdad period as a timecharacterized by both concealment and revelation is the only conceptionwhich is faithful to all the writings of Baha'u'llah himself." (p. 55).All that I said is that these faith-assertions are not open to reasonedrebuttal. I personally believe that all of them are incorrect at least inthe bald way they are stated. But I cannot use academic tools to disprovethem in an academic dialogue, because nothing I said would be admitted asconvincing evidence by my interlocutor.My position, on the other hand, is based on evidence. The author actuallyappears to criticize me for acknowledging that there is some evidence forBaha'u'llah privately making a claim from about 1859 in Baghdad (in thememoirs of Fitnih and Nabil-i Akbar Qa'ini), which changed how I thought ofthings. But to my mind this change of opinion on my part was virtuous; Iyielded to evidence. If anyone wants me to conclude that Baha'u'llah wasmaking claims before 1859, all they have to do is present to me evidence asgood as Fitnih's memoirs. The JBS author hasn't done that. He has spent alot of time talking about books and tablets written in the 1860s or eventhe 1880s. I have read those works too. They aren't evidence for1856-1857.My debate with Denis MacEoin was instanced. As I read Denis (and I mayhave been being hard on him because I did not know at the time that he leftthe faith because its leaders were mean to him), he was saying that onlyatheists or agnostics could possibly do good academic scholarship onreligion. (There is a debate on this sort of issue in the current Journalof the American Academy of Religion). My point there was simply thatbelievers should not be excluded a priori from participation in academicdiscourse if they are so minded. Belief does not rule out good academicwork, provided that the rules for producing good academic work (openness toevidence, ability to think historically and contextually, etc.) arefollowed. After all, Crossan is a believer (a Roman Catholic priest, lastI knew); and I consider myself a believing Baha'i. I was not saying thatbelievers who *reject* the rules of academic discourse are neverthelessengaged in an academic exercise. When I wrote what I wrote in response toDenis, I had John Walbridge, Abbas Amanat, Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, MoojanMomen, and Peter Smith in mind. I didn't have Adib Taherzadeh or hislatter-day followers in mind.As for relativism, that is an interesting possible debate. Would [SP]advocate that astrologers be given equal time in the *AmericanScientific* and would he accede to demands that he debate them in academicjournals about his mistaken view of the stars?cheers Juan Cole
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revelations12_12
Jedi Sentinal
BAHA'IS AND THE NATURE OF GOD
Although Baha'is teach that God is unknowable in his essence, they believe that God does reveal something of himself to man, especially through his "manifestations" (i.e., Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Baha'u'llah, et. al.).4 For those familiar with the conflicting doctrines of the major world religions associated with these "manifestations," however, it is rather apparent that they cannot all be true (see Table). Yet this is exactly what the Baha'is maintain, namely, that each of these religious leaders was a manifestation of God for his own era and therefore spoke some truth about God's nature.
The Doctrine of God Taught by the Alleged Manifestations5
MANIFESTATION
IMPORTANT ELEMENTS IN HIS DOCTRINE OF GOD
MosesMANIFESTATION
IMPORTANT ELEMENTS IN HIS DOCTRINE OF GOD
One personal God. The universe is not eternal, but was created by God (Gen. 1-3; Deut. 6:4; etc.).
Krishna
Mix of polytheism and impersonal pantheism. The universe is eternal.
Zoroaster
One good god and one evil god (religious dualism).
Buddha
God not relevant; essentially agnostic.
Confucius
Polytheistic.
Muhammad
One personal God who cannot have a Son.
Jesus Christ
One personal God who does have a Son (Mark 12:29; John 4:24; 5:18-19;etc.)
Baha'u'llah
God and the universe, which is an emanation of God, are co-eternal.6
The fact that the various alleged manifestations of God represented God in contradictory ways implies either that manifestations of God can contradict one another or that God's own nature is contradictory. If the manifestations are allowed to contradict one another, then there is no way to separate false manifestations from true ones or to discover if any of them really speaks for the true and living God. Yet the Baha'is obviously do not accept every person who claims to be a manifestation of God (e.g., Jim Jones, founder of Jonestown). If, on the other hand, God's own nature is said to be contradictory, that is, that God is both one God and many gods, that God is both able and not able to have a Son, both personal and impersonal, etc., then the Baha'i concept of God is reduced to meaninglessness.
Can Christian Doctrines Withstand Scrutiny?
As I noted earlier, Steven McConnell has asked whether the Christian concept of God could measure up to this sort of scrutiny. He asserts, "Subjected to the glossy examination you give the Baha'i God, the paradox of Jesus being fully human and fully divine as well as the paradox of the unity and individuality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be mere contradictions!" He then asks, "So why are Christianity's paradoxes (contradictions) more virtuous than Baha'i's?"7
Several comments are in order. First, Christian thinkers take an entirely different attitude toward their problematic doctrines than the Baha'is. For example, many Christian philosophers and theologians have spent much time trying to explain these doctrines in a way that is coherent and philosophically sound.8 Christians believe that these problematic doctrines are logically reconcilable because they are in fact ultimately noncontradictory. On the other hand, the Baha'is do not seem particularly concerned about whether their doctrine of God is internally consistent.
Second, the paradoxes inherent in the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity are not comparable to the contradictions inherent in the Baha'i concept of God. When the Bible asserts both the humanity and the deity of Jesus it is not asserting something that is self-contradictory by definition. Christians do not believe that Jesus was both God and not-God, but rather that Jesus was both God and man. In other words, when Christians assert that God became man they are not asserting that God became merely man (although He was fully man), but rather that the Son of God took on a human nature in addition to His divine nature. Although we may not fully comprehend how the divine and human natures interacted in the person of Jesus, this is not the same thing as saying that the concept of a God-man is self-contradictory.
Likewise, the doctrine of the Trinity, although paradoxical, is not self-contradictory. The doctrine of the Trinity asserts that three divine persons share the same substance or essence (i.e., the three persons are one and the same God). It does not assert that there are three individual substances which are one substance or that there are three gods which are also one god, either of which would be contradictory. That is, Christians are not saying that God is both one substance and not-one-substance, but rather that God is both one substance and three persons. Even if God's triunity cannot be fully comprehended by man, at least the Christian is not involved in a contradiction when he asserts that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God.
On the other hand, the Baha'i is required to accept that blatantly contradictory concepts of God were all infallibly revealed by God through his "manifestations." For instance, monotheism (what Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad taught) and polytheism (what Confucius and Zoroaster taught) cannot both be true, since it is contradictory to say both that there is only one god and that there is more than one god. Therefore, unlike the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity, the Baha'i view of God implies mutually exclusive concepts of God.
BAHA'IS AND BIBLICAL PROPHECY
The Baha'is claim that Baha'u'llah is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecies of the return of Christ.9 Taken literally, of course, the biblical prophecies of Christ's return do not fit Baha'u'llah. The Bible speaks of Jesus Himself returning in the skies before the entire world in a cataclysmic fashion to judge the living and the dead (e.g., Matt. 24). By contrast, Baha'is recognized as the "Christ" another person (Baha'u'llah) who came into the world in relative obscurity through natural means (i.e., conception and birth).10
How, then, can the Baha'is claim that Bah'u'llah fulfills the biblical prophecies of Christ's return? They can do this only by insisting that the literal meaning is to be ignored. According to Baha'i doctrine, Jesus' description of His second coming in the Bible should be understood spiritually rather than literally. That is, the text of the Bible is said to have some symbolic meaning which is contrary to the ordinary meaning of the words used.
Literal and Symbolic
The Baha'is do not, however, follow this line of interpretation consistently in their reading of the Bible. Whenever they find a biblical passage that clearly states that Jesus will return at the end of the world in a way contrary to Baha'u'llah's arrival, the Baha'is simply assert that we should not take that passage literally. No reason for this assertion is ever produced from the text of the Bible itself. However, on other occasions where a literal interpretation might seem to the Baha'is to support their views (e.g., Dan. 8:13-17),11 they do not consider interpreting the passage nonliterally.
This sort of clip-and-paste view of biblical interpretation proves very little. After all, by the same rationale one could "prove" that any number of different individuals was Christ returned. Accepting as literal only those texts which seem to fit one's doctrinal views while pleading for a nonliteral interpretation for passages which contradict one's position is a favorite tactic of pseudo-Christian groups. For example, this interpretive technique is employed by the Unification Church to show that Sun Myung Moon is the Messiah.12
With this method of interpreting biblical prophecy Baha'is employ circular reasoning (in which the arguer assumes what he or she is trying to prove). Because the Baha'i accepts Baha'u'llah's claim to fulfill Christ's second coming, he (or she) thinks he is justified in interpreting biblical prophecies symbolically which, if taken literally, would disprove Baha'u'llah's claim, but if taken nonliterally can be used to prove it.13 Thus, probably without even realizing it, the Baha'i is assuming the very point that he is trying to prove in his citing of biblical prophecy.
Jews, Christians, and Baha'is
In this article's introductory comments I mentioned Robert Stockman's assertion that just as the Jews were mistaken about Jesus' fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (that is, the Jews as a nation; many individual Jews accepted Jesus), the Christians of today are mistaken about Baha'u'llah's fulfillment of New Testament prophecy. There are two ways of understanding this argument. Perhaps it is meant to be a proof that Baha'u'llah fulfills biblical prophecy, in which case the argument might be stated more formally in the following manner:
1. The Jews thought that Jesus was not the Messiah, and they were wrong.
2. Christians today think that Baha'u'llah was not the Messiah (or Christ returned).
3. Therefore, Christians are wrong to reject Baha'u'llah.
Such an argument, if that is what Robert Stockman intended, would certainly be another case of faulty reasoning. By this reasoning Christians and Baha'is alike would be wrong to reject Jim Jones as a manifestation of God, or Sun Myung Moon as the second coming of Christ. Clearly, the mere fact that the Jewish rejection of Jesus was unjustified does not prove that the Christian rejection of Baha'u'llah is also unjustified.
There is another way of interpreting Robert Stockman's argument, however, that is not so obviously fallacious. Perhaps he is intending to argue only that the Christian rejection of Baha'u'llah is based on the same sort of error that led the Jews to reject Jesus. Baha'is generally argue that in both cases the error that led to the rejection of the "manifestation" was an overly literal interpretation of biblical prophecies. Such an argument would take the following form:
1. The Jews rejected Jesus because they interpreted the Bible too literally.
2. Christians today reject Baha'u'llah because they interpret the Bible too literally.
3. Therefore, Christians are wrong to reject Baha'u'llah on the basis of their literal interpretation of the Bible.
This argument, unlike the one discussed previously, has some logical value. If its premises go unchallenged, they lend strong support to its conclusion. However, both of the premises of this argument do invite challenge.
In the case of the second premise, for Baha'u'llah one could substitute any of the other modern religious leaders claiming to be a manifestation of God or a fulfillment of the Second Coming of Christ. A follower of Sun Myung Moon could argue with equal validity as follows:
1. The Jews rejected Jesus because they interpreted the Bible too literally.
2. Christians today reject Rev. Moon because they interpret the Bible too literally.
3. Therefore, Christians are wrong to reject Rev. Moon on the basis of their literal interpretation of the Bible.
In other words, the second premise is really immaterial. It amounts to saying that if the actual words of the Bible are ignored, anyone at all can be claimed to be a fulfillment of the Bible's "spiritual" or symbolic meaning.
As for the first premise, as a matter of historical fact it is simply false. The fact of the matter is that the Jews rejected Jesus as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy not because they interpreted it too literally, but because they did not interpret it literally enough. The Bible clearly predicted that the Messiah would be God (Ps. 45:6; Isa. 7:14; 9:6), but the Jews found Jesus' claim to be God scandalous and blasphemous in the extreme. The Bible also clearly announced that the Messiah would suffer and be killed as an atonement for Israel's sins (Isa. 53; Dan. 9:26), but the Jews regarded Jesus' crucifixion as proof that He was not the Messiah.
Not every Old Testament passage applied to Jesus in the New Testament was understood by first-century Jews as referring to the Messiah. However, there were a fair number of Old Testament prophecies which Jewish leaders and scholars in the first century did regard as literal predictions concerning the Messiah and which were fulfilled literally by Jesus.14 Since Jesus fulfilled these prophecies, what caused most of His contemporaries not to recognize this?
The answer is that the Jews allowed their assumptions about the Messiah to color and even distort their reading of the biblical text. Specifically, it was their expectation of a conquering political Messiah which led first-century Jews to reject the literal meaning of the text, which presents the Messiah as both suffering and conquering.15 Consequently, they had a concept of the Messiah which Jesus could not fit. Their desire for a political Messiah incited them to ignore or twist biblical passages predicting a suffering Messiah that were literally fulfilled in Jesus.
Similarly, the assumption made by the Baha'is that Baha'u'llah is God's manifestation for this age leads to distortions in their reading of the New Testament. (At least the Jews had some warrant in the biblical text for their view of the Messiah; the Baha'is have none.) They too are forced to ignore or twist biblical passages concerning Christ (in this case those concerning His return), which they do in order to apply them to Baha'u'llah. Ironically, then, it turns out that Robert Stockman's argument actually has things turned around. The truth is that the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah for much the same sort of reason that Baha'is accept Baha'u'llah (which, in effect, is also rejecting Jesus): in both cases, religious assumptions about the Messiah interfered with a plain reading of the text. Like the Jews in Jesus' day, the Baha'is fail to interpret the Bible literally enough.
Also like the Jews, Baha'is are forced to explain why the Old Testament presents both a suffering and a conquering Messiah. The Baha'i answer is that the Old Testament really predicts two "Messiahs": Jesus was the suffering Messiah and Baha'u'llah the conquering one.16
This interpretation ignores the critical fact that both descriptions of the Messiah can be found within the same passages and are obviously referring to one person. For example, Daniel 9:25 calls the Messiah a "Prince" and 9:26 states that he will be "cut off," that is, killed.17 Jesus fulfilled in detail those prophecies referring to the Messiah's place of birth (Mic. 5:2), time of ministry (Dan. 9:24-27), death (Dan. 9:26; Isa. 53; Ps. 22), and resurrection (Ps. 16:10), as well as a number of others.18 Therefore, we should accept Jesus' claim (e.g., Matt. 24-25) and the teaching of the rest of the New Testament (e.g., Luke 1:33; Acts 1:9-11; 1 Thess. 4:14-17; Rev. 1:7; 22:16-21) that He will personally return to fulfill the remaining prophecies which describe a conquering Messiah.
Certainly there is no reason to accept Baha'u'llah's claim to be that Messiah. He failed to fulfill any of the biblical prophecies concerning Christ's second coming,19 and Baha'i's cannot produce a single text from the Bible that suggests that Jesus will not Himself fulfill those prophecies.
The preceding discussion of the interpretation of biblical prophecy should be understood in the light of a more general appreciation of proper biblical interpretation.20 In contrasting "literal" with "symbolic" interpretations, I am not suggesting that biblical symbolism should not be interpreted as such. Rather, I am simply saying that what is understood as symbolic and what is taken more literally should be based on the text itself (as when Daniel interprets his visions as symbols, or when Jesus interprets His parables as earthly illustrations of spiritual truths). Where the Baha'is go wrong is in reading into the Bible doctrines that are totally foreign to its text and can only be justified by assuming their truth.
BAHA'IS AND RELIGIOUS UNITY
The third Baha'i argument against Christianity that I wish to address is the claim that Baha'ism must be God's true religion for this age because, unlike Christianity, it has not suffered any schisms. One Baha'i writer takes this so far as to proclaim boldly that "there are not Baha'i sects. There never can be."21
There are two problems with this argument: (1) It rests on a false premise Baha'ism has in fact suffered divisions. (2) The conclusion does not follow an undivided religion is not necessarily the true religion.
Division in Baha'ism
First, the fact is that Baha'ism has suffered several divisions, from its early days to the present. One group, known as the Free Baha'is, has published a book denouncing Shoghi Effendi (who took over leadership of the Baha'i World Faith after Baha'u'llah's son 'Abdu'l-Baha died).22 Another group, the Orthodox Baha'i Faith, was formed after Shoghi Effendi died, and recognizes Jason Remey as Effendi's successor.23 Yet another group, Baha'is Under the Provision of the Covenant (BUPC), is led by Montana chiropractor Dr. Leland Jensen. Though it has "Baha'i" in its name, it is not endorsed or recognized by the main body "as a legitimate Baha'i organization."24 As Vernon Elvin Johnson concludes in his Baylor University dissertation on the history of Baha'ism, "obvious schism has occurred in the Baha'i religion, for various factions each claiming to belong to the Baha'i religion have existed in the course of the faith's history."25
Some Baha'is may be tempted to counter that anyone who breaks off from the Baha'i World Faith is automatically not a Baha'i and therefore no schism has really occurred. Such an argument is circular in nature and commits what Antony Flew calls the "no-true-Scotsman" fallacy ("No Scotsman would do such a thing....Well, no true Scotsman would").26 As Johnson points out, the Catholic and Mormon churches have used similar reasoning to defend their claim to be the one true church27 (although the Catholic church no longer tends to take such an exclusive stance).
Division and Truth
Second, it simply does not follow that a religion that is undivided must be the true religion, or that a religion that is divided cannot be the true religion. For the Baha'i argument to be persuasive it must be shown, and not simply assumed, that the true religion must be unified organizationally. This is not a biblical teaching: unity of the faith is presented in the Bible as a goal for the church to reach, not a prerequisite for the church to be God's people (Eph. 4:11-16).
Since on independent grounds we know that Christianity is true (for example, the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus,28 which Baha'is deny29), we may justifiably conclude that organizational unity is not a requirement for a religion to be true. The argument can be stated more formally as follows:
1. Either the true religion is unified or it is not.
2. Christianity is the true religion and it is not unified.
3. Therefore, the true religion is not unified.
The truth of Christianity is independent of whether its adherents congregate under the same organizational banner. Its truth depends rather on the truth of the Bible's teachings concerning the person, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is not to deny that Christians have an obligation to exhibit unity and love as a testimony to the world of the truth of Jesus Christ (John 13:34-35; 17:21-23). To our shame we confess that although Christianity is true, Christians have not always been true to Christ. Nevertheless, this does not alter the fact that Jesus Christ is the only Savior from sin and God's last word to man prior to the consummation of history (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Heb. 1:1-3; 13:8). On this basis Christianity stands vindicated as true and Baha'ism stands condemned as a rejection of God's truth as revealed in Jesus Christ.
NOTES
1 The only book-length Christian critiques of Baha'ism in print are Francis J. Beckwith, Baha'i (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1985), which focuses on doctrine, and William McElwee Miller, The Baha'i Faith: Its History and Teachings (South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library Publications, 1984), which focuses on history.
2 This is the current list of the manifestations. The Baha'is have altered the list over the years. See Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan: The Book of Certitude, 2d ed., trans. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, IL: Baha'i Publishing Trust [hereafter "BPT"], 1950), 7-65; `Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, trans. Laura Clifford Barney (BPT. 1930), 189; and a current Baha'i tract, One Universal Faith (BPT, n.d.), 5.
3 Personal letter from Steven McConnell, 1 June 1987.
4 See Beckwith, 8, and works cited there.
5 This table is based on Beckwith, 17.
6 Concerning God's relation to the universe, Baha'i writer J. E. Esslemont writes, "Baha'u'llah teaches that the universe is without beginning in time. It is a perpetual emanation from the Great First Cause." J. E. Esslemont, Baha'u'llah and the New Era, 3d ed. (BPT, 1970), 204. It should be noted that it is untenable both philosophically and scientifically to maintain that the universe is without a beginning. See J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), 18-42, and works cited there; and Francis J. Beckwith, David Hume's Argument Against Miracles: A Critical Analysis (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989), chapter 5.
7 McConnell, 2.
8 For example, Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986).
9 See `Abdu'l-Baha, 110-12.
10 Esslemont, 214.
11 On this and other so-called Baha'i biblical prophecies, see Beckwith, Baha'i, 28-39.
12 See James Bjornstad, Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, rev. ed. (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1984), 19-52.
13 See, for example, Esslemont, 222-26; `Abdu'l-Baha, 110-12.
14 See Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976), 340-41; Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, rev. ed. (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1979), 141-77.
15 See Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Jesus Was a Jew (San Antonio, TX: Ariel Ministries, 1981), 23-64.
16 For example, see Esslemont, 214-16; see also Beckwith, Baha'i, 35-37.
17 See for further reading, Fruchtenbaum, 23-24; Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), 160-80.
18 See n. 14.
19 See Beckwith, Baha'i, 23-25.
20 See especially James Sire, Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1980).
21 David Hofman, The Renewal of Civilization, Talisman Books (London: George Ronald, 1960), 110.
22 Hermann Zimmer, A Fraudulent Testament Devalues the Bahai Religion into Political Shoghism, trans. Jeannine Blackwell, rev. Karen Gasser and Gordon Campbell (Waiblingen/Stuttgart: World Union for Universal Religion and Universal Peace Free Bahais, 1973).
23 Vernon Elvin Johnson, An Historical Analysis of Critical Transformations in the Evolution of the Baha'i World Faith (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1974), 362-80.
24 Joel Bjorling, "Leland Jensen: The Prophet Who Cried 'Wolf,'" Understanding Cults and Spiritual Movements 1, 3 (1985):6.
25 Johnson, 410.
26 Antony Flew, Thinking Straight (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1975), 47.
27 Johnson, 412.
28 On the evidence for the resurrection, see especially William Lane Craig, Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1988), and Gary Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980).
29 See Beckwith, Baha'i, 14, 25-26.
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Daughter of His
Believing God
Thanks for the post Rev 12_12, it answered a lot of my questions.
Jesus is the only way to the Father.
Jesus is the only way to the Father.
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Revelations12_12 wrote:
"As I noted earlier, Steven McConnell has asked whether the Christian concept of God could measure up to this sort of scrutiny. He asserts, "Subjected to the glossy examination you give the Baha'i God, the paradox of Jesus being fully human and fully divine as well as the paradox of the unity and individuality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be mere contradictions!" He then asks, "So why are Christianity's paradoxes (contradictions) more virtuous than Baha'i's?"7 "
XFRODOBAGGINSX wrote:
First of all the book which your name is referring to is Revelation not revelations. Secondly, who cares what some guy named Steve McConnel thinks? You call it a paradox because you don't understand it. I choose to believe what God's word (the bible) says, over some guy who simply doesn't believe what the bible says.
"As I noted earlier, Steven McConnell has asked whether the Christian concept of God could measure up to this sort of scrutiny. He asserts, "Subjected to the glossy examination you give the Baha'i God, the paradox of Jesus being fully human and fully divine as well as the paradox of the unity and individuality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be mere contradictions!" He then asks, "So why are Christianity's paradoxes (contradictions) more virtuous than Baha'i's?"7 "
XFRODOBAGGINSX wrote:
First of all the book which your name is referring to is Revelation not revelations. Secondly, who cares what some guy named Steve McConnel thinks? You call it a paradox because you don't understand it. I choose to believe what God's word (the bible) says, over some guy who simply doesn't believe what the bible says.
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revelations12_12
Jedi Sentinal
XFRODOBAGGINSX said:
the question you quoted was rhetoricle and if you read a little further the author goes on to explain why Christianity stands up to any analiticle scrutiny
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I'm sorry. I'm doing my best to understand.
What I was trying to say is that Jesus is the proven Son of God, whatever Baha'u'llah is. So rejecting Jesus is rejecting eternal life. From what I've seen so far, Baha'u'llah was only a self-proclaimed prophet... and... well, to me that doesn't hold much water. I don't believe it. And as I don't see any prophecies pointing to Baha'u'llah, or any proof at all that he was who he said he was, I don't see any point in accepting what he said.
No, because Jesus is the Son of God. Salvation is through faith in Him alone. Baha'u'llah didn't die for us, or rise again, correct? Moses didn't either. Faith in either of them is NOT what saves us.
20 I was put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymoreit is Christ who lives in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to save me.
Galatians 2:20(NCV)
22 God makes people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ. This is true for all who believe in Christ, because all people are the same: 23 All have sinned and are not good enough for Gods glory, 24 and all need to be made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They need to be made free from sin through Jesus Christ. 25 God gave him as a way to forgive sin through faith in the blood of Jesus death.
Romans 3:22-25(NCV)
Baha'u'llah isn't mentioned anywhere with regard to anything having to do with where we'll spend eternity. It says "through Jesus Christ" over & over... And I don't see anything about a future prophet either. Only the finished work of Christ. Past tense.
Hmm. Well, I can't really disprove it when I don't know much about it. That's why I asked for some of the Baha'i scriptures that convinced you. But I don't see any reason to study the Baha'i faith for myself, because I haven't found any Biblical scriptures that point to it.
And speaking for us "Christians" as a group, we just care about you! That's why we want you to realize the magnitude of who Christ really is & what He's done.
I am interested. But I'll warn you first: I believe the Bible to be the inerrant, inspired, only Word of God, so when I have questions, that's where I'll go. If you're still interested in asking, well, here I be!
Joy
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The only way to heaven is Jesus christ.
Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
(KJV)
Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
(KJV)
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