did bahai prophets receive divine revelations?

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paul

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did the prophets of the bahai faith have divine revelations, as prophets of old?
Is it just a philosophy, or did they have visions, see angels hear the voice of God, some direct word on matters straight from God?

I don't know much of the bahia faith, would appreciate anything you could teach me.
 
paul said:
did the prophets of the bahai faith have divine revelations, as prophets of old?
Is it just a philosophy, or did they have visions, see angels hear the voice of God, some direct word on matters straight from God?

I don't know much of the Baha'i faith, would appreciate anything you could teach me.
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Hello Paul,

I welcome you to CR, I see you are fairly new here. :D

Yes. The Baha'i Faith Prophet or Manifestation of God, namely Baha'u'llah which is a title meaning the Glory of God, was imbued by God.

"God is My witness, O people! I was asleep on My couch, when lo, the Breeze of God wafting over Me roused Me from My slumber. His quickening Spirit revived Me, and My tongue was unloosed to voice His Call...."

Source: Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 90

The Baha'i Faith is not a philosophy. It is, in fact, a Religion from God. The history of the Baha'i Faith dates back to 1844. (Actually, before that, but now we are nit-picking. :) ) In 1844, the Bab, meaning the Gate, declared he was here to prepare the world for someone greater than Himself. He was talking about Baha'u'llah who declared publicly in 1863, he was "the Promised One of all Religions and if there is a Religion forgotten my man and they had a Promised One, I am Him, too." He was the Comforter and the Unifier.

If you haven't visited the main websites on the Baha'i Faith yet, here are some URLs:

www.bahai.us
www.bahai.org
www.bahai.com

There are others. Just do a search for "bahai" in any search engine. Goggle is the best, though. ;)

All you questions are welcome, so keep on askin'!!!

warmly,

Sassafras
 
what i ask is did God directly tell him things, or did he just beleive he was inspired and in comtemplating spiritual things give his own thoughts on them, believing them true and of God?

i'm not trying to dis the bahia faith, i know little about it, i'm trying to make sense of it and other religions, and the true Spirit in which we are to live our lives.

coming from a christian background, and knowing a little of it, i find it hard to believe ihsou (jesus) did not literally rise again.
this is what i did read somewhere in the bahai writings, but that it was his teachings that were ressurected, did i read it right?
I can beleive there maybe error in Christianity, for because of the differences and splits, but in the ressurection they all agree.

How does the bahia faith explain this, and does it have it from a divine authority?
 
Hi, Paul! :)

We Baha'is see Baha'u'llah, our Founder, as the spiritual Return of the Christ Spirit (and thus equally imbued by the Holy Spirit), not as the return of Jesus the man. And there are many fulfilled prophecies to support this, which you can find at http://bci.org/prophecy-fulfilled if you're interested.

Oh--and please note that the word is "Baha'i." If it'll help, "baha" means "glory," and the suffix forms the adjective, so that "Baha'i" literally means "of Glory." (And similarly, Baha'u'llah means "Glory of God.")

And yes, we believe that God spoke directly through Baha'u'llah, so that anything He said was indeed the Word of God itself!

Please feel fre to ask any further questions you like; they're always most welcome! :)

And if you'd like me to email you an overview of the Faith with a list of Baha'i websites on various topics, please let me know.

I wish you good hunting! :)

Bruce
 
paul said:
coming from a christian background, and knowing a little of it, i find it hard to believe ihsou (jesus) did not literally rise again.
this is what i did read somewhere in the bahai writings, but that it was his teachings that were ressurected, did i read it right?
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Hi Paul,

I’m also a new member but let me jump in at the deep end and add my thoughts on your question.

You’re right, as Baha’is we do not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, but rather the resurrection of His Spirit.

Let’s get the physical one out of the way first.

Lay the four Gospels out side by side, with verses describing the same event on the same line. You will find that all 4 agree on only about half a dozen points from the time Christ was taken down from the cross to the end of each of the Gospels.

His appearance to the apostles when he ate is taken as proof, by some, that He was physically alive, yet he entered the room while the door was locked, not the actions of a normal physical being.

In the garden outside the tomb, Mary Magdalene did not even recognise Him until later.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus walked with Him for hours before recognising Him in the evening during supper.

He is assumed to have physically ascended to Heaven. As Baha’is we do not believe in a place called Heaven, rather it is a spiritual state, denoting closeness to God. In this sense Jesus was always in Heaven and had no need to ascend to it. Heaven is not a physical place and therefore cannot accept a physical body. If His physical body did rise up, where is it now?

And finally, the resurrection is considered by some to be proof of life after death. However, if that is the case we do not physically arise after death, our future is in the spiritual worlds of God, without a physical body, and so a physical resurrection would not be proof of anything.

There are other anomalies but these are sufficient to demonstrate that these stories do not lead one to think of Him as having a physical body after the resurrection. There has to be a better interpretation

What is important is that Christ’s spirit, which was not apparent in His disciples after He died, was resurrected in them. They were hiding away from the authorities, scared and not knowing what to do next, and then they received strength and courage. Powerless, poor and largely uneducated, these few men carried Christ’s message to the world and transformed it. Surely this is a far greater miracle than the resuscitation of one Man.

We all suffer little deaths in our life. Situations end, other things begin. Even our bodies are constantly renewing themselves, our relationships constantly change. We die to the world of the womb and are born in this material world, eventually we will die to this one and be born in the next. Is the tree the same as the seed or a different creation? Life is about re-birth and growth, not an endless cycle constantly repeating itself. Physical resurrection holds no lessons for us; spiritual resurrection is what truly gives us hope and peace, and this, I believe, is what is demonstrated in the resurrection of the Spirit of Christ in His followers.

I’m sorry if this is a bit rambling but let me know if I can help to clear up a couple of points - it is a very large subject.
:)
 
Paul wrote:
"what i ask is did God directly tell him things, or did he just beleive he was inspired and in comtemplating spiritual things give his own thoughts on them, believing them true and of God?"

We believe that the words written down by Baha'u'llah are the direct words of God. The writings of Baha'u'llah are NOT his own thoughts or understandings of the word of God.
 
"what i ask is did God directly tell him things, or did he just beleive he was inspired and in comtemplating spiritual things give his own thoughts on them, believing them true and of God?"

The writings of Baha'u'llah are actually the direct words of God. They are not his thoughts on them.
 
Oh!--And as to Resurrection, it's a spiritual event, not a physical one!

Indeed, Christ Himself stressed the spirit, and said the flesh would inherit nothing!

And as the Baha'i scriptures point out, physical resurrection isn't very significant anyway, because even if you die and are physically resurrected, you'll still die again sooner or later....

Regards,

Bruce
 
paul said:
what then does the bahai faith say did happen to Christ's body?
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Hi Paul,

As far as I know there is no mention about this in our Writings. Others, of wider reading and better memory, may be able to put me right.

From my own thoughts, and I must stress this is no more than that, and is not an attempt to be a Baha’i point of view, just an offering of some other scenarios, there are at least 5 other things that could have happened.

  • The whole thing is a misinterpretation of what the disciples were trying to teach and the Body lies where it was buried – it’s just that nowadays we don’t know where that place is. This is the one I favour.

  • God made the Body disappear. Can’t really say much about this - this would mean that there was no physical resurrection but there would appear to be one. Nonetheless it is possible.

  • He was not dead after all. This would imply that He recovered sufficiently to allow Him to push the stone out of the way (it would weigh over 1700lbs). In those days the stones were circular, like large wheels and set in a groove outside the tomb. It could have been close to its tipping point and be able to be pushed over easily. Remember that the burial was in haste. After this He then either died after wandering off into the desert or He found His way to another place and lived quietly and peacefully after that. There are many beliefs about this, from India to Egypt.

  • The Body was stolen and hidden elsewhere by:

    • Zealots to further their political ambitions by giving the Jews a fulfilled prophecy. The plan went wrong as it founded a new religion, not a riot.
    • By some disciples hoping to witness a resurrection and protect Him from the Roman or Jewish authorities. In this scenario there was no physical resurrection so they quietly re-bury Him, but the rumours spread anyway. They kept quiet to avoid the charge of grave robbery.
    • By the priests and Pharisees to ensure that there was no resurrection after all. When the story swept Jerusalem they could not control it but most people did not believe and carried on in their own Faith and a few became Christians.
  • They had the wrong tomb. They were confused by the haste of burial on Friday evening and by their grief and on the Sunday they simply went to the wrong tomb.

You may think that some of these are incredible, but put alongside the traditional view they are not so far out.

As I said these are my own thoughts, maybe you can think of other scenarios. One thing is clear, a physical resurrection is not the only possible explanation.


 
Hi!

paul said:
what then does the bahai faith say did happen to Christ's body?
Click to expand...

Basically, we Baha'is believe Christ was indeed crucified and His body buried!

The Resurrection that followed was spiritual, not physical.

We have no further details about His body, but it's reasonable to assume that after its burial it followed the same course as any other physical body, including those of the other Divine Messengers. This is arguably the more so given that the burial places of the latest two such Messsengers, the Bab and Baha'u'llah, are ordinary tombs (which now happen to be Baha'i shrines,respectively in Haifa and Akka/Acre, Israel).

Regards,

Bruce
 
I'm curious - what is a "spiritual resurrection" and why is it important?
 
I said:
I'm curious - what is a "spiritual resurrection" and why is it important?
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Hi Brian,

imho...

a spiritual resurrection is what all of the prophets of God have been trying to teach us. That we are spiritual beings first and foremost and that when our bodies die our spirit continues on it's journey. So it's extremely important in that once we really understand and grasp that this physical body is not all there is to life, that there is life beyond this realm, that our spirit is our true selves, perhaps we will focus more on developing our spiritual nature as opposed to only worrying about what happens to us while on earth.

my 2 cents. ;)

have a great day!

-Amy
 
Hi Brian,

In addition to my previous post...

in regards to the 'Resurrection of Christ', we believe that the important aspect of the Resurrection is that it refers to the fact that no matter what was done to His body, they could not harm His spirit. And imho this is what He was trying to teach us, which gets obscured and lost in the rhetoric of centuries.
 
Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks for the explanation. :)
 
I said:
Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks for the explanation. :)
Click to expand...

you're most welcome! :)

and that my friend, is why i am a Baha'i...it all makes sense. :D
 
Well, I did mean more sense from a Baha'i perspective - but I am glad it does make sense to you. :)

Meanwhile, I'm keeping non-partisan on theological issues. :)
 
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