Posted by saul levine on February 21, 2000 at 22:15:12:

In Reply to: covenant breaker material posted by saul levine on February 21, 2000 at 21:40:39:

The Cole commentary on the Tablet of the Maiden do not deal solely with the subtle and complex issues related to translation but include various vicious attacks on Baha'i institutions like the Universal House Justice. It's a sneaky attempt to undermine the authority of the Universal House of Justice and calls the authenticity of authoritative Baha'is writings into the question as the following quote shows regarding Mr. Coles views on the authorative Baha'i writings as being "riddled with errors and mistranslations that give an extremely misleading impression of the intent of the original on a number of occasions". Or he says in another passage:
"The statements of the Universal House of Justice must be understood against a background of twentieth-century Baha'i translation practice, in which it has been the custom to limit the amount of material translated, to suppress large parts of the scriptural corpus by simply not making them available or by ensuring they stay out of print, and by translating in such a way as to build bridges to Western converts and potential converts. The purpose of such translation is not academic accuracy, but building up a seemingly seamless scriptural corpus in English that smooths over internal contradictions and supports the contemporary 'party line;' and making the scriptural corpus bland enough and 'naturalized' enough in English to ensure it does not pose a Public Relations problem inside or outside the community."

The librarian mentioned that commentary is not included in the translation but in this case , it is. This posting should be classified as a polemical opinion rather than "a full discussion on the implications on this
issue." In addition, this site should clarify their position on Baha'i scholarship specifically dealing with comments or opinions which undermine the administrative order. Mark Foster's Baha'i List does not allow for statements
that attack the Baha'is institution and Mr. Juan Cole has been barred from those lists for his spurious attacks on the administration order.
saul levine

this topic is closed - post at bahai-library.com/forum