The Apocalypse Unsealed: Some thoughts on the use of Christian Scripture in the Bahá'í community
Author: Robert F. Riggs
Publisher: The Philosophical Library, New York, 1981
Review by: Sen McGlinn
I would like to present some thoughts on the use of Biblical literature in general, and apocalyptic literature in particular, in the Bahá'í community, and I
want to do this by beginning with what is in essence a book review of one
well-known Bahá'í book, *The Apocalypse Unsealed,* by Robert Riggs. This will
enable me to avoid sweeping generalizations about what 'some Bahá'ís' or 'many
Western Bahá'ís' or Bahá'ís of a particular background or generation may
believe. It is left to the reader to consider from his or her own experience
the extent to which the beliefs and attitude to the Bible represented by this
book may be typical of a current within the Bahá'í community. This personal
judgement will be at least as valid as my own feeling, that the apocalyptic
attitude is typical of a significant but marginal group in the Bahá'í
community, but that a certain tactlessness in appropriating the Bible is much
more prevalent.
Beginning with an examination of particular faults in the book, followed in
some cases by suggestions as to how the matter might have been better handled,
will lead me from concrete practice to more generalized practice. One would
like to go beyond that, to a general theory of how we are to treat the Bible,
this 'book of God' which is nevertheless not authentic, whose real authors are
largely unknown (some of whom pretend to be someone else) and which has in any
case been formed more by it numerous editors than by its authors. Such a
general theory is however beyond my abilities, and given the heterogeneous
nature of the Bible, it may be a permanent impossibility. Thus I will attempt
no more than to go from particularities to more generalized suggestions for a
practical approach.
The Apocalypse Unsealed, is not the first and may not be the last example of a
genre. In recent years there have been other book-length expositions of this
kind by Richard Backwell and Ruth Moffet, and in the earlier years of the faith
there were a large number of shorter works and pamphlets in a more or less
apocalyptic vein. The fact that Ruth Moffet's book ran to two printings, in
1977 and 1980, is an indication that this literature has won a significant
audience. I have chosen to look at Rigg's book because it is later than the
others (1981) and includes much of the material found in earlier works. In it,
Riggs has collected a vast mass of data, relevant and irrelevant to the
interpretation of the Revelation of St John. The irrelevant material often
shows the author pursuing his own interests, and losing track for the moment of
the text which he intends to expound. The number of 'pyramid inches' in the
Great Pyramid of Giza, and the 72 Stupas on the great Temple of Siva at
Borobudar, for instance, might have been omitted without harming the argument.
The arcane details gathered from ancient religious systems and newer kinds of
nonsense give *The Apocalypse Unsealed* the 'look and feel' of the literature
of the world of pendulums, Atlantis, pyramids, and auras.
Some of the material which appears to be relevant will not stand closer
examination: for instance the 22 chapters in the Apocalypse are said to
correspond to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which is a sign of
the book's completion. Unfortunately the chapter divisions were made centuries
after the text was written.
Other material is anachronistic: at page 26 for example a correlation is made
between the names of the children of Jacob and the signs of the Zodiac. Such a
link cannot be ruled out, but the connection exists, if it exists at all, in
the Judaism of the 8th or 7th Centuries BCE, and Riggs makes no attempt to show
that it was known or important to the Christians of the first century. In fact,
since the writer of Revelation omits the tribe of Dan (Rev 7:5), the evidence
would seem to be against any intended reference to the 'poem of the tribes' in
Genesis 49.
Much of the material is so flabbergasting that one is left groping for a
systematic way of dealing with it. One reads that "Essence, Creator, and
creatures" constitute, in Muslim thought, a triad to symbolize the abstract
Divinity; that the Jews, and not the Romans, 'pierced' Jesus; that Melchisedec
(p 95) and possibly Confucius (p 45) are Manifestations; that 'Issachar,
described in the Bible as "a strong ass crouching down between the sheep
folds," therefore represents Taurus the Bull." There is some quite astonishing
arithmetic too: at one point (p 261) a selection of items in Revelation which
have a numerical value of 9 is made, and then the probability that all items
will have a value of 9 is calculated. The answer should of course be 1, or
100%, since the items were selected for just this property, but the answer
arrived at in the book is .00000006969!
Even supposing that the book should find a good editor, and emerge with
irrelevant and incorrect material removed, I would still have considerable
arguments with its underlying method. Riggs says that his approach in
interpretation is "first to decide whether the passage is reasonable when taken
literally. If not, look for an allegorical meaning that is in accord with
reason and common sense. That failing, the passage may be assumed to have a
transcendental meaning" (p 30). Other criteria are used to guide the
interpretation: "nothing that is contrary to [Riggs'] own convictions as a
Bahá'í" (p 5) is to be admitted, and some specific interpretations of
Revelations found in the published Bahá'í Writings, and pilgrims' notes with
"obvious errors corrected" (p 4) are referred to, along with 'Abdu'l-Bahá's
"gentle whisperings" received directly by the author (xvi). In addition,
symbols in Revelation are interpreted according to the meaning they have when
they appear, in other connections, in the Bahá'í Writings and elsewhere,
despite Riggs' own recognition that a symbol "may assume any one of several
values depending upon the context" (p 7). Very extensive use is also made of
number symbolism and of 'gematria' (systems of assigning a numerical value to
letters, and thus to words) in various alphabets, and of a variety of
calendars, to create a web of numerical patterns. This wide choice of methods
and sources is applied to a potentially infinite mass of data - Revelation,
Daniel, astrology, gnosticism, Jung, the Golden ratio, the cabbala, Gnostic
writings, pyramids, and so forth - with an ingenuity which would, I think,
suffice to 'prove' Riggs meaning from a field of random numbers. For example,
Rev 9:16 refers to an army of 200,000,000 horsemen, which is interpreted here
as the army of Sultan Mehmet which took Constantinople in AD 1453. However that
army was no more than 80,000 men, of whom only a portion are likely to have
been horsemen. The problem is resolved by noting that the archetypical value of
200,000,000 is 2, and that Mehmet's army contained 2 kinds of soldiers. Q.E.D!
Such a method could find numerical links to order: if you need 3, count the
cooks or artillerymen, while 4, wonderfully, is the archetypical value of (CE)
1453, and also of 787, (1453 minus 666), and also of the 391 (roman) years
between 1453 and 1844 (p 138-9). I leave it to the reader to find the values 5,
6, 7, 8, and 9, with the aid of the gematria (abjad) of Mehmet's name, the date
in the Islamic calendar, and other data to choice. The method is fun, but quite
meaningless: I have not been able to find a single indubitable instance in
which we could show that the author of Revelation used and intended gematria or
any such detailed arithmetic calculations (though he does use number symbolism,
a distinct and simpler literary device). Yet Riggs claims to be "reconstructing
the original meaning" (p 5). Even in passages not affected by the passion for
esotera and arithmetic, this claim is rather doubtful, as we shall see in
relation to the place and time to which Revelation refers.
It is fundamental to Riggs' argument that "the 7 churches which are in Asia",
to whom Revelation is addressed, are the 7 religions of the world prior to the
Bab and Bahá'u'lláh (Confucius and Melchizedec are, thankfully, overlooked).
Yet, if we are reconstructing the original meaning, we should take into account
that, at that time, 'Asia' referred to a province of the Roman Empire, in what
we now call Turkey. The 7 churches are named after their cities, and all of
these are, in fact, found in what was the province of 'Asia Minor'. Some are
addressed in terms peculiar to the historical 'Asian' cities: thus Laodicea, a
city whose drinking water was piped from a hot spring some distance away, is
said to be "luke-warm", and Ephesus, a city which had been relocated twice, is
said to be unfaithful, and is threatened with a further removal. (Which
eventually occurred, due to silting of the harbour). According to Rigg's first
method, then, we must expect him to take the literal meaning, since it is
reasonable. What we read, however, is that "while the prejudiced reader of
first century Rome might be tempted to restrict the term 'Asia' to include only
the Roman Province of Asia (Asia Minor), in the unprejudiced view...". The
unprejudiced view, naturally, is Riggs own. Laodicea is Islam, and Ephesus is
the Sabean Faith. Where an interpretation consists simply of the arbitrary
statement that 'A means B', it cannot be logically disproved: the best one can
do is offer an alternative interpretation which is rationally supported (and
thus is also potentially refutable), and invite a comparison.
One more example of the method: Revelations repeatedly refers to the immediate
time-frame of the author, not only in its many contemporary references, but
also in phrases such as 'things which must shortly come to pass', 'soon', 'the
time is at hand', and so forth. Moreover we know that apocalyptic literature in
general is written, in times of crisis, to describe contemporary events which
the author believes to constitute, if seen with the eye of faith, the 'end of
the world', or God's intervention in history. To establish its authority, it
presents the appearance of having been written before it actually was, so that
it can correctly 'prophesy' well-known events which in fact occurred before it
was written. It can then go on to show God's justice and vindication which is
to come. Apocalyptic literature thus cannot work unless its contemporary
audience can identify the past and contemporary events described. Revelations
was (very probably) written during the persecutions of Domitian, around 95 AD
(but incorporating earlier material going back perhaps to 68 AD). Many of its
symbolic allusions make sense within that context: the five-month torture of
the people of the land (9:16) is very probably a prophecy after the fact of the
5-month reign of terror under Gessius Florus. The author of Revelation, by his
use of the phrase 'locusts like horses prepared for battle' (Rev 9:7, Joel 2:4)
compares this period to the vivid description of a locust-plague in the book of
Joel. Riggs understands the five months to be the "space of about 150 years [5
months x 30 days], from the initial [Moslem] invasions of 633 AD until the peak
of the Empire ... in 786 AD". Since we have seen above that he also understands
it to refer to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD, the choice of 786 AD for
the end of the Moslem 'tormenting' of Christendom seems rather inconsistent.
There are a great many passages in Revelations which can, with more or less
probability, be related to events of the Middle-east of the first century. Such
evidence is passed over in silence throughout the book, though, in his
extensive research, Riggs must have encountered it. This might be regarded as
dishonest, but I think it would be fairer to the author's evident sincerity to
say that its meaning for the author, or the first-century audience, or indeed
for Christians today, simply does not interest him.
Leaving aside the weakness of method in the book, I think we should also ask
whether the goal of the interpretation is a good one, for it is directed to
achieving an interpretation in which the Christian (and Jewish) content of
Revelation is reduced to a minimum. For example, the sacrificed lamb of Rev 5:6
is interpreted as "The constellation Aries, the Ram or Lamb ... because of the
Precession of the Equinoxes, the Lamb is 'slain' for a new constellation at
each zodiacal age ... there are two Lambs in this new Age ... the Bab and
'Abdul-Bahá." (p 100) Anyone at all familiar with early Christian writing, and
the Johannine literature in particular, can be in no doubt that the "lamb who
was slain" refers, quite simply, to Jesus. A Bahá'í might wish to persuade
Christians that the truth concerning the value of sacrifice to which their
symbol refers has a wider application than they have thought, but I can't see
that any good purpose is served by attempting to deny the plain meaning of the
text. This amounts to taking Christians' symbols and book from them, to install
them, stripped of Christ, in the midst of a curiosity-shop full of old and new
esotera. Instead of asking Christians to extend and enlarge the truths they
hold, this approach asks them to begin by conceding that they never held any
truths, that Revelation was not a Christian book at all, but rather a Bahá'í
book in disguise.
Not only is this approach not true, or kind, or effective, it also requires
extreme distortions both of the text and of the Faith, to make the two fit. In
this example (and also at p 179), 'Abdu'l-Bahá is apparently elevated to the
station of Manifestation, a claim which is supported, if I have followed the
argument at this point correctly, by the similarity between the constellation
of Aries and that of Triangulum, and the fact that there are 24 elders, but
only 12 tribes, disciples, and Imams. Since Revelation speaks of only one lamb,
the interpretation here is not only strained, it is quite unnecessary.
One might, so much more easily, have interpreted the passage by explaining the
old temple sacrifice of Judaism, the Christian transferral of this to Christ's
sacrifice, and then by citing Bahá'u'lláh's account of the world-revolution
achieved when Christ 'yielded up His breath to God'. Just as Christianity
appropriated and reapplied Jewish symbols, Bahá'ís have a right to 'translate'
New Testament symbols, giving them new significance as parts of the larger
Bahá'í world of meaning, but the New Testament must remain for us the book of
another religion. We may build on it, but we should not, and need not, steal
it. It may be difficult to envision a religious world containing a connected,
but unassimilated, foreign element, yet Christianity's relation to the Old
Testament shows that such a relationship is both workable and enriching.
The style of our appropriation of Christian texts also needs some thought. I
am suggesting a careful, reasoned, historically responsible expansion of the
original meaning, but it could be argued that this is an approach inappropriate
to the colourful and imaginative apocalyptic literature. Revelation itself
often takes elements from Jewish literature, without regard for context or
period, and creates something new and often powerful from them in a Christian
context, at the price of some violence to 'the original meaning'. I suggest
that this freedom is legitimate if one is writing an apocalypse, but disastrous
for the interpreter: it requires a creative genius and the vocation of the
prophet.
Just as there is no text apart from a context, there is no interpretation
apart from the situation of the interpreter. The context of Revelation is
unalterably first-century Judeo-Christianity: the historico-critical methods
developed by (mainly) Christian scholars can help us to understand this context
and see its effects. But an interpretation into a Bahá'í community in its 2nd
century must be different to a reading for a Christian community in its 20th
century: we must resist the illusion that scientific method provides a
non-situational reading.
The position of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's interpretations also needs to be mentioned,
although I hasten to add they do not exhibit the feverish apocalyptic
imagination we find in Riggs and Moffet. The situation of contemporary Western
Bahá'ís is quite different to that of those first Western pilgrims, many of
them from millennialist Christian backgrounds, who went to 'Abdu'l-Bahá with
their questions, and who have left us transcripts and pilgrims' notes on which
Riggs and others have drawn. They needed to differentiate themselves from their
Christian background, and they expected an imminent catastrophic divine
judgement which would bring vindication and righteousness. The Bahá'ís of the
1990s need to establish a dialogue with the churches, as one major religion to
another, and we (and the world) are looking for principles and practical
measures to build a more just social order and to unleash the frustrated powers
of human potential. So there has been a quite radical shift in work which we
expect a Biblical interpretation to do for us today. The situation, social
position, hopes and anxieties of the early Bahá'ís were in some respects
similar to the quasi-Jewish Christians at the end of the first century: our
situation has no such close parallels. Yet, while we do not entirely share the
personal and community situation to which Abdu'l-Bahá's responses were
addressed, we remain substantially the same community, spiritual descendants of
those early Bahá'ís of the West. What is required is not the wholesale
relegation of their legacy to the realm of 'historical interest only', but
rather a certain tact or sense of appropriateness on the part of interpreters,
particularly in using unauthenticated material, transcripts of extemporary
translations, and so forth. We should not put more weight on such material than
it can bear. Nor, perhaps, should we try to imitate 'Abdu'l-Bahá's method of
interpretation, unless we are quite sure that our spiritual insight is equal to
the task.
Soundly based readings will require a respect for the original meaning of the
text, a good deal less audacity in proposing its meaning for our own community,
and a willingness to learn where others have gone before: instead of
re-inventing the wheel, we could start by using the many good critical
commentaries already published.