- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Acknowledgments
- Forewords
- Apocalypse Interpreted
- Interpreting Apocalypse 1: The Messenger of a New Religious Revelation
- Chapter 2: His Messages for Four Earlier Faiths
- Chapter 3: His Messages for Three Later Faiths
- Chapter 4: His Message of a New Faith
- Chapter 5: The Ram
- Chapter 6: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
- Chapter 7: The 144,000 Unity-Diamond
- Chapter 8: A History of Christianity
- Chapter 9: A History of Islam
- Chapter 10: The Glory of God
- Chapter 11: The Central Revelation Prophecy
- Chapter 12: Noble Islam
- Chapter 13: 666 is the Number of the Beast
- Chapter 14: A New Gospel
- Chapter 15: The Presence of God
- Chapter 16: Armageddon
- Chapter 17: Interpreting Revelation Symbols
- Chapter 18: Malignant Materialism Falls into a Greatest Depression
- Chapter 19: Spiritual and Economic Revival
- Chapter 20: The Jewish Seventh Millennium
- Chapter 21: The Divine Civililization of New Jerusalem
- Chapter 22: The One Religion of God
- Discussion
- A Book of Codes
- 1844 Time-Prophecies
- 1844 Switch of Cycles
- The Bab and Baha'u'llah
- Mount Carmel
- Progressive Revelation
- Eras and Cycles
- The Force Called “God”
- Afterlife
- Baha’i Founders
- Interpretive Baha’i Writings
- Baha'u'llah's Revelation Roles
- Prophecy's Multiple Meanings
- One Religion of God
- Yom Kippur
- The Temple
- Presence of God
- The Seventh Millennium
- New Jerusalem
- Twelve Commandments
- Lesser and Greater Peace
- Conflict between Faiths
- Spiritual Economics
- Summary
- Translation Section
- Illustrations and Credits
- Glossary
- Bibliographies
- Index Words
Apocalypse Interpreted
Here, dear reader, the real McCoy of Beyond Malignant Materialism now throws you in at the deep end. These its Apocalypse Parallel Interpretive Texts come in two parallel columns. The left-hand column carries the original (English) text of the Book of Revelation in Georgia font. The matching right-hand column carries its Baha’i-based interpretive text in Helvetica font. These parallel texts match each other tightly, paragraph by paragraph, verse by verse, phrase by phrase, word by word, and down to the comma.
Comments at the end of each chapter address the topics and cite its Baha’i sources verse by verse. Naturally, earlier chapters draw more Comments than later chapters. After this section, the Discussion generally explains the interpretations and the Translation Section addresses important Greek and Hebrew meanings and codes, justifying specific translations that differ from those traditionally appearing in most Bibles.
The parallel original and interpretation texts cannot match perfectly, given that the right-column interpretive text
• is some 17% longer than the left-column translation text
• follows English word order and usage more freely than the left-column translation from Greek
• runs in real-time present-tense
• interprets certain choice terms doubly, including: death and the unseen; the grass, any plant, or any tree; four Angels; fire, smoke, and sulfur; rulers from the rising-place of the sun; and—especially—Armageddon
• uses long titles and names, like Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad to interpret the seven Spirits of God
• employs stylish exaggerative jargon for effect like from spiritual Cycle to spiritual Cycle interpreting into the eras of the eras; God’s light lights the night interpreting day and night; and a day’s pay barely buys bread interpreting a quart of wheat for a day’s pay
• imports John’s own internal interpretations, like importing peoples, populations, nations, and language-groups as the interpretation of waters from v. 17.15 into v. 17.1
• imports telling Baha’i interpretations, like kindles light and calamities and hardships
• omits interpretations of terms that interpretation has already rendered superfluous, like it was given to it to and like
• interprets some singular nouns as plural and some indefinite articles as definite articles for effect, like an Angel as the Messenger.[i]
Patmos vision of a sky of new spiritual law and an earth of new material law, as seen from the mouth of John’s cave |
John’s Integrity Formula: Beyond Malignant Materialism diligently honors John’s “integrity formula” in Rev. 22.18–19, while at the same time presuming that the formula permits translating the original Book of Revelation from Greek into English and using modern punctuation, capitals, and verse and chapter numberings.
Apocalypse Parallel Interpretive Texts
[i] Choice terms doubly, Rev. 1.18, 9.4, 9.14–15, 9.17–18, 16.12 & 16
Long names and titles, Rev. 4.5 & 5.6
Stylish exaggerative jargon, Rev. 1.18, 4.8 & 6.6
Telling Baha’i interpretations, Rev. 7.17 & 16.21