By William Sears
This was not very good.
It's a Baha'i book that demonstrates how prophecies from the Old Testament accurately predict Baha'u'llah as the Messiah/Return of Christ and the emergence of the Baha'i Faith in 19th-century Persia. It focuses on one prediction in particular, a sentence in the Book of Micah that is only a half-inch of text. It's meant to convince a Christian audience that the Baha'i Faith is true.
If you're on my web site reading this, you are most likely: A) a Baha'i already, or B) someone who interprets the Bible liberally as metaphor and parable, or C) someone with a secular worldview who does not believe in the Bible at all. (Not many Fundamentalists seem to browse this site.)
So, if you're the first, you might wonder why I didn't like this book, since I too [at the time I read it] was a Baha'i. But the reason I hated it is simply because it's terribly written. About the only good thing I can say is the author is clearly sincere and excited, but creepily so.
If you're in the second category above, know that Baha'is interpret much of the Good Book as parable too (for example, they don't believe the earth was really created in seven days. How could we even measure the length of a day before the earth existed? Metaphor!) But we take a lot of the prophecies very seriously.
If you're from the third group above, you'll need some convincing that the Book of Micah should be interpreted as truth, let alone the Baha'i Faith. I could do that, if we were having a conversation. This book could not; not if you have even a modicum of deductive skill or literary taste. Thus, it fails in its goal and gets a low rank here.
A big problem is Sears's focus on a single prophecy. I am a very skeptical person. Any prediction, whether it's from an Old Testament prophet or the Book of Revalation, is incredibly vague. See, if it were straightforward, everyone in the world would be in religious agreement. (Smart religious believers will tell you it's intentionally vague since God wants us to discover truths on our own, through effort and faith. If it were too easy, we essentially would have no free will.)
So, while Baha'u'llah's life certainly does not contradict Micah's prophecy, that's not saying much. It's a good sign, but it's not a tough one to fulfill. In fact, there's not a single prophecy I would use as "proof" of the Baha'i Faith. To me, it's the amalgam of many prophecies that convince me (along with many other reasons.) Each one is a piece of evidence that builds on the others, until it constitutes a whole pile of proof. Here's hoping we see a book that lists each one in a succinct, convincing manner, rather than Sears's exuberant, childish, rambling style.
Read September, 2005
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