One of the reasons for memorizing sections of scripture is to be able to give them to others in their pure form. But then, isn't the original Persian or Arabic more pure than the translation? Doesn't that mean that people who read the scriptures in the original have better access to them? And they, more than others, would be able to answer our questions. If we went down that path, we would end up with something like religious experts, who have the teachings in a more pure form. But we cannot say that the 'pure form' doesn't matter. As a translator, I think about these issues a lot.
Posted on Bahai_Discuss, 23 December 2007
Some people have objected to my warning to the reader, on the first page of Church and State, that "my stance is not that of a historian or academic scholar of the science of religion, but of a Bahai theologian..." Is Bahai theology permissible? How should the Bahais relate to the divines and learned that live among them?
Posted 1 January 2007