A Bahá’í Reads the Bible
A deep dive into the Good Book.
January 9 2020
What are your experiences with the Bible?
Chances are, if you are reading this on Interfaith Now, or because you follow articles on Religion, or even because you follow me and the mysterious algorithms of Medium brought this into your clickable periphery, you have some sort of experience with it. Whether good, bad or ambiguous.
But what if you had no experience with it?
That was me, up until very recently. For the formative years of my life, thanks largely to my dad, religion was essentially absent. This might, depending on you own experiences, be either the greatest blessing one could bestow upon a young person, or something akin to child abuse.
During high school I had no conception of religion or God (it was, not entirely uncommonly, filled with the weighty issues of sport and girls). During my years of tertiary education, I was a proud, smug atheist, the type who isn’t even sure what they stand against because they are sure it isn’t even worthwhile understanding it.
Funnily enough, I ended up becoming a Bahá’í (just like my sister; turns out my dad’s plan didn’t work out too well!) — albeit gradually and largely reluctantly.
After moving to a new home town, which is both very white and very Christian, I have over the last 6 months or so undertaken a deep dive into the Bible. This was essentially step 1 of my stated Bahá’í mandate and obligation to explore all the major religions of the world, with the Quran already queued up to come next.
It has been interesting, to say the least. An eye opener for sure.
As an early disclaimer: I haven’t actually read the whole Bible, cover to cover. Don’t be silly, I don’t have that much time on my hands. But I have been developing what I think is a quite well-rounded understanding of it, drawing on and putting to good use (finally) my interdisciplinary academic training.
I have been studying the Bible (or at least, studying a book on how to study the Bible) with a friend in my new home town: a devout, literal-reading Christian, who I am on the same page with on a lot of things but was slightly rattled when I learnt he believed the Earth is only 6000 years old.
I have been having super deep conversations about the biblical end times with one of my best friends in my old home town: a more progressive Christian who nonetheless has an excellent and well rounded understanding of The Good Book.
On top of this, in my own time, I have been reading several books and online resources about the Bible. These books and resources are largely by authors who challenge many of the traditional translations and interpretations of the original Bible text, along with some of the fringe, supernatural elements that orthodox readings often skim over.
What I want to offer in this article, and likely several more to come afterwards (it is a big book, let’s be honest), is a summary of what I have learnt over the last 6 or so months, presenting what I hope is a fairly unique and clear-eyed perspective on the Bible.
Ultimately, what I am able to bring to this well-occupied table is that I’m coming at this fresh. I have no pre-existing biases or allegiances within Christianity: I’m not progressive, I’m not conservative; I’m not Catholic or Protestant; not devout or relapsed.
I also have no personal beef with Christianity, even if I disagree with many of the ways it is expressed in society, so I have no need to be unnecessarily critical.
I have no skin in the game, so I feel like I can go deep into areas that others might fear to tread. And I am the type of person who enjoys going deep into such areas.
So, a quick word to Christians: I’m on your side guys. I promise. As a Bahá’í, I inherently accept the divine nature of the Bible and its core message: that Jesus Christ was sent by God as a sacrifice to redeem mankind. Forgiving our sins. Crushing Satan with His heel. Take it to the bank.
We also want the same thing: to bring heaven down to earth, as explicitly stated in the Bible; to restore Eden, to be resurrected within a divine paradise in the earthly realm. Or, more simply, to make the world a more loving place. Try to keep this in mind if I get a little controversial, or, more likely, get some things completely wrong — in which case I am happy to be brought to account in the comments.
Ground Rules
Before I do get a little controversial, but hopefully not completely wrong, I should be upfront with the particular lens that I have approached my investigation through.
So, and I know how bad this sounds: I wasn’t really interested in the core message of Jesus or the Bible’s spiritual teachings, which I assumed to be largely congruent with the spiritual teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. They are the teaching of the universal virtues, inherent within but not always practiced particularly well by all of us.
I wasn’t really focused on that part of it, although was certainly hoping for further confirmations of how Christian and Bahá’í beliefs align.
What I was focused on, in true wanky academic style, was the Bible as an anthropological study of humanity. As a historical document, divinely inspired re-telling of the past, comprehensively from the time of creation to more narrowly as it zooms in on the patriarchs, the Jews and finally Jesus. To tease out the insights it provides about our current predications as a species, and of course those juicy bits that prophesise the future.
Translations and Trickery
As a starting point, I thought I would present some of the most interesting discoveries that I have come across in my investigations of the Bible.
Firstly there are some technical aspects, most notably the challenging nature of translation and the vexed nature of maintaining ‘chain of custody’ as these writings have passed from fallible individual to fallible individual.
I rather naively assumed that the Bible, being God’s word and all (leaving aside some of the dodgy business with the compilation of the New Testament), would magically remain faithful and untainted across its various linguistic iterations. Why I assumed this I’m not sure, given it isn’t even the case for Bahai writings, which are still being painstakingly yet fallibly translated from Persian and Arabic into English and other languages.
As is discussed by someone with much more knowledge on the subject here, and many others in the comments section, how sure can we really be that words transcribed many millennia ago in various languages by a variety of people are now presented to us in a fundamentally accurate manner?
The Fallacy of Hell?
A great and not at all trivial example of this issue is the topic of Hell, which to my great relief, turns out to be a bit of a load of rubbish.
Apparently ‘hell’ — that is, a place where a soul might be sent for eternal damnation and torture by account of its sins — doesn’t appear anywhere in the Old Testament. The closest it comes is the word ‘Sheol’, which is most accurately translated simply as ‘grave’, but in some versions (for example the King James Bible) is consistently translated to Hell.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that there is no sin, and that there is no punishment to a soul that undertakes acts against the will of God so to speak. There is the word ‘Gehenna’ in the New Testament, which while certainly not a nice place to be, and one that is undoubtably linked to pain and suffering, is in no context one that has to be experienced for eternity.
As is fairly convincingly argued in this article, if there was a Hell, then why wouldn’t God refer to it directly in his warnings to Adam and Eve, Cain, Sodom and Gomorrah, or in Moses’ Ten Commandments? The justification provided for the non-existence of hell goes on — read them for yourself, but safe to say I am more than convinced.
The Non-Fallacy of Reincarnation?
The more sinister implication of the previous example is not just an issue of translation, but of deliberate meddling and distortion of these texts for political purposes: what better stick to use to keep the plebs in line and with open wallets than the spectre of eternal hellfire? Again, such potential tampering was something I was largely naive to, and opened doors to what other topics may have been skewed or even removed.
Digging a bit deeper, I found that there is actually a quite juicy conspiracy surrounding the issue of reincarnation in the Bible. This emerges not just from differing interpretations of the meaning of terms such as resurrection, but more provocatively from claims that Jesus had numerous teachings to do with reincarnation that were intentionally removed from the final versions of the New Testament.
The arguments for reincarnation in Christianity were most notably detailed in a 1978 book by Bible scholar Geddes MacGregor called, appropriately, ‘Reincarnation in Christianity’. It has, as far as I can tell, been rarely covered in a scholarly context since. As such, shifting through current material is a rabbit hole easy to get lost in, and one that leads to delving in to the murk of internet comment threads and Youtube videos.
In short, while there are some convincing arguments that reincarnation is not fundamentally ‘un-Christian’ as many fundamentalists might claim, it is worth noting that there are fairly conclusive surviving statements to the contrary: for example “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27, ESV).
God or gods?
Another quite controversial and revolutionary example of divine lost in translation is ‘Elohim’, the original Hebrew word generally translated to the English ‘God’. Turns out that on many occasions it is best understood as a plural noun that refers to a collective group of divine beings that together, under the infallible guidance of the actual singular God Yahweh, oversee and often intervene in the affairs of humanity.
Again, this is deep rabbit hole, and not one I want to dwell on too much, as it does get to some rather wild theories and interpretations about evidence of extra-terrestrials and UFOs throughout the Bible.
For a more grounded perspective on this issue, I found the work of Dr. Michael Heiser particularly fascinating and illuminating. Heiser is a learned and practicing Christian who is dismissive (and quite frankly brutal) towards many of the more extravagant theories, and is more focused on the spiritual implications of this expanded divine worldview. In short, he argues that there exists a supernatural realm described clearly and consistently throughout the Bible, and that understanding this realm is essential to understanding the overall Bible narrative and what God expects of us.
Understanding the Supernatural
And on that note, let’s get to the fun stuff. The supernatural stuff, mainly. It’s everywhere! Sometimes hiding just below the surface of the text, sometimes in plain sight.
There are the sons of God — the most high of which form God’s Heavenly Council — identified by Dr. Heiser as having a presence throughout the events of the Bible. This describes a group of divine beings first identified in Job 38, who were not only present for the creation of humans but watched on and ‘jumped for joy’ during the creation of Earth itself.
What do these beings do? It turns out God isn’t up there by himself, micromanaging all human affairs. He is generous and detached enough to have what sounds like quite pleasant yet robust board meetings with his most favoured spiritual companions, tasked with working out what to do each time humanity decides, like clockwork, to balls something up. Bahá’ís love consultation and vertical sharing of power more than you likely understand, so to find out even Yahweh delegated some of his most important decisions to his underlings is fantastic.
But the fact that these spiritual beings operate within a different realm than us doesn’t make them different in their overarching purpose — they are God’s creation just like us, and like us they are expected to live up to that standard through exercising their own free will. I find it comforting and also empowering to know that this is the type of agency that is provided to God’s creation, whether heavenly or earthly: that we are given free will in order to bring about the work that God expects of us, even if it inevitably gives us the freedom to get things so horribly wrong instead.
Then there is Satan. Hands up if, like me, you always assumed Satan/The Devil/etc. to be some fanciful anthropomorphisation (is that a word?) of dark forces. But, when you read the Bible, it seems quite clear that it a real being, or spiritual entity: a misguided son of God committed to meddling with God’s plan at different stages in our history, and allowed to do so due to that pesky thing called free will afforded to all created beings. While this might be a bit disconcerting, if you do take it literally, what is also clear is that, again with the use of our free will, we have the power to resist any temptations that might be directed towards us.
Then there are, of course, angels. The first interesting fact about angels is that this title should be understood as more of a job description rather than a type of being. The original Hebrew word for angel translates roughly to ‘messenger’, so when we see ‘angel’ used in the Bible we are typically witnessing one of these aforementioned supernatural beings (the good ones) acting in the earthly domain for a very specific purpose.
The main man of these messengers is, surprisingly, Yahweh himself. I had no idea that ‘God’ actually appeared on earth for the eyes of humans, but sure enough he did: in the Garden of Eden; in front of Abraham in Genesis 18; to Moses and a select few other Jews, on Mount Sinai, throughout Exodus. Maybe our constant attempts at anthropomorphising these Bible figures are not so ridiculous after all?
What about the rest of the angels? We have the nice ones, the archangels Gabriel and Michael, of course. We have the slightly morally-ambiguous ones who volunteer to help wipe out certain sections of humanity (Genesis 18 and 19 for example; ruthless!). We also have the fallen ones, who apparently, according to proper readings of Genesis 6, ‘slept’ with human women and had baby giants! Am I the only one who didn’t know about this? Thanks Da
And while we are are on that subject, there is sex (inter-dimensional and otherwise) throughout the Bible (although this fact has been very well covered on Medium already). A surprising amount of it, when compared again to the Bahá’í writings where, apart from telling you the situations you aren’t allowed to have it, sex remains largely absent. Seriously, what’s the deal with the Song of Songs?
Good and Evil
Fun stuff aside, if you call inter-dimensional sexy-time fun, the Bible deals with some fairly weighty subjects — not least the nature of darkness in the world. And one of the main realisations I had of the Bible is that it is dark.
Taken as a whole, the Bible is a ripping yarn detailing the epic inter-dimensional battle between good and evil — or as the author L. A. Marzulli calls it, The Cosmic Chess Match.
The spiritual dark forces (whether you view them as actual entities or not) have always been the aggressors: from the temptation in the Garden of Eden, that nasty business in Genesis 6, the Tower of Babel, and so on.
The good side — namely God and His Sons/Angels — were always on defensive, but always a step ahead, most famously through the great spiritual bluff that was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We may call God the All Powerful, All Glorious, All Knowing etc., but for this act alone we should also ordain Him as the All-Cunning.
That profound act of self-sacrifice does not end the game, but more raises it to a new level. Because then there are the prophecies, the doom and gloom descriptions of the time that we are currently living through where, just as in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37), the dark forces have taken hold, where the “Antichrist” has arisen to power, and where humanity rushes headlong and heedlessly towards another cataclysmic extinction event.
Towards the second coming of Christ and Judgement Day.
The final showdown between light and dark.
The End Times.
Ooof.
The End Times
There is a lot to unpack here for someone coming in fresh, especially from the perspective of a naive Bahá’í, which probably requires its own article.
I now understand now why so many Christians are conspiracy theorists, because if you read the Bible faithfully and things start to sink in, then it’s kind of hard not to be. The Bible makes clear the reality that there are profound negative forces — evil — not only present in the world, but in command, in power, if we take one of the most well known quotes by those inclined towards its more dark aspects:
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12, KJV).
If I’m being honest, I couldn’t get enough of this stuff. I am working out how to gradually reveal to friends and family that I may be turning into a conspiracy theorist.
Why? Bahá’ís use the term ‘disintegrative forces’ to describe this darkness and the impact it has on the world. While giving just enough detail on the workings of this darkness and how it can be understood and avoided, the Bahá’í writings are, slightly maddeningly to someone like me who enjoys understanding more about the dark, focused on the light: the forces of (re)integration.
I completely understand why — God knows how distracting and all-encompassing intense negativity can be — but this made my explorations of the Bible and its attention on darkness very satisfying, enlightening, and even to feel just a little subversive.
But at the same time, I was relieved to find that the Bible does, in Revelation, ultimately arrive at the light. Christ will return, those who believe in Him will be saved, and mankind will live in paradise. It was hard work, but we arrive at the same place that the Bahá’í teachings are aiming to take us.
But the similarities are not just for Bahá’ís, of course. These tales of approaching apocalypse and ultimate redemption are far from unique. They are in the Quran, with the details eerily similar to that outlined in the Bible: the same signs of moral and societal decay; the same Antichrist figure who will lead everyone but the true believers astray; the same second coming of the messiah; and the same eventual transition towards a messianic age of paradise.
Many Christians might call plagiarism, but maybe, possibly, they refer to the same thing because they came from the same source?
Finding Common Ground
So, to bring things back home, because there’s plenty more I would like to dive into.
If I was going to come back to the main, most important thing that I have taken out of my journey through the Bible, which has in turn catalysed a more holistic spiritual soul searching and discovery, it is (of course) the thing that I wasn’t looking for: its fundamental spiritual teachings.
As interesting as all these things were — the apparent fallacy of hell, un-chaste fallen angels, a grand cosmic battle between good and evil, and even the astonishingly accurate predictions of the approaching End Times — they ultimately play second fiddle to what the Bible and every other religious tradition is trying to achieve: to make us better and more spiritual people.
This is ultimately what I believe. We all have a spiritual nature, we have the same divine virtues ingrained within us, and the expression of these virtues is inevitably tied to the love that we show to other people. Perhaps most crucially, to show this love, to walk this path of love shall we say, is not the only path that we can walk, and it certainly isn’t the easiest.
If you believe in religion, you believe that God has provided us with the necessary guidance to walk this most difficult path — through the manifestation of earthly beings with a divine character for us to follow, and a divine message for us to adhere to. But with the state of religion as it is today, and how distanced it has become from much of society, can we really expect this to be the only type of guidance that is provided?
It’s tempting that each of us might believe that our path is the true path — I wonder how many Christians have stuck around to the end of this lengthy article in the hope that I experienced some grand conversion to Christ as a result of my explorations. You might genuinely believe that it is through Christ, just as a Muslim might believe it is through the Quran. A Bahá’í might similarly believe it is through the Bahá’í teachings, and this is probably how I should be concluding this piece.
But I’m not going to. If there is one thing that I have always found most uncomfortable with religion, and why I avoided it for so long, it is when a sense of exclusivity begins to creep in. Yet when we understand religions as all containing the same fundamental, universal and direly needed spiritual teachings at their heart, it seems entirely unhelpful go down this route.
Are we really expected to believe that if there was some grand Armageddon, some worldwide apocalyptic event, a day of spiritual and moral reckoning, that only those true believers of Christ, of Muhammad, of Bahá’u’lláh, will be saved? While the rest of the world, battling to practice love in the way that they know how, often much more effectively than those who have been gifted a clear and straightforward path to do it, are doomed to whatever the alternative is?
As the Bible makes clear, right up front in Genesis 1, we are all made in the image of God, the Creator, the Intelligent Infinity. We are expected to live up to this image, which is, in its ultimate essence, love. If we are to go astray, He, It, this Infinity, has an infinite number of ways to help remind us of this fact. And He, It, this Infinity, has given each of us the grace to act as this reminder to other people, in whatever way our own free will decides.
As we engage in the minutiae of the path that we find ourselves walking, let us not lose the forest for the trees. For Christ’s sake, and for all those who paved the same path before him and continue to after him, let us all ensure that we are walking the path of love above all else.