Second Coming

Decoding Daniel's Prophecy to determine both the first and second advent of Jesus Christ. This paper is uploaded as a work in progress for peer review. My research holds to the sexta-septamillennial tradition while combining both Historicism and Futurism to determine the year (not day or hour) of the return of Jesus Christ. Illustrated Graphics included at bottom of study, Footnotes included at bottom of individual pages. Please share! (Current Version 2.1 revised 10.28.20)

Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)

A world of peace and security in which abundance will replace poverty and justice will prevail instead of cruelty, conflict, and tension – this is the longing of humanity. Due to all of the twentieth century's misery and pain, not to mention the ongoing problems all over the world today, this longing has become even more intense. A great majority of people desperately hope for a helping hand and wait for a savior who will save them from this misery, a person who will eliminate the negativite elements of the current system; ensure justice, peace, and security; and guide people to the truth and all that is good.

Everyone is waiting for this salvation: the needy who wait for an extended hand; the well-off who are in pain because of spiritual distress; and those who long for justice, order, peace, and moral excellence. By God's Will, this event may be very near. The developments that we see all around us today are the signs indicating the closeness of this salvation.

The great event that will be a means of humanity's salvation is the second coming of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him). His return to Earth, a belief held by both Christians and Muslims, will end this world's all-pervasive cruelty and injustice and transform it into a place of peace, abundance, and justice.

Una de las más importantes y relevantes doctrinas para nuestro tiempo es aquella que trata de la Segunda Venida de Cristo. Este acontecimiento es mencionado más de mil veces en las Sagradas Escrituras y constituye uno de los aspectos centrales de lo que llamaríamos la verdad presente.

Decía esto, pues el tiempo en el que este acontecimiento, único en la vida del planeta, ocurra está muy cerca, como uno puede comprobarlo por las señales que Dios dejó para nosotros en Su Libro. Aunque las señales que precederán este acontecimiento las trataremos en el siguiente estudio, es bueno resaltar la importancia que este tiene para quienes vivimos en los últimos tiempos. Es importante además porque este acontecimiento está vinculado indivisiblemente con el cierre de la puerta de la gracia, pues el Señor vendrá a recoger a los suyos y la oportunidad de salvación habrá entonces concluido.

Este acontecimiento decíamos, clave para el planeta, pues somos protagonistas de un conflicto ancestral entre el bien y el mal, también será clave para el universo que se acercará a la erradicación total del mal y la restauración de un cosmos perfecto.

Cabría suponer, por la importancia del evento, que el mundo esté a la expectativa de su ocurrencia y que los diarios y revistas, así como al televisión y las redes sociales estuvieran saturadas de un llamado a la preparación mundial para encontrarse con su Dios. Pero, al igual que cuando Jesús vino por primera vez, aquellos que le esperan serán pocos y muchos además se burlarán de su esperanza… El mundo se adelanta a su destrucción final y los mensajeros debemos elevar nuestras voces para que muchos más se unan al remanente que espera la Salvador. Los afanes de este mundo, el hedonismo, el afán de las riquezas y aún los deportes copan la atención de las masas sin preparación y las hacen permanecer en la oscuridad sobre lo que vendrá.

During the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost one can experience a gradual, inner, peaceful, and hopeful, unfolding of the healing and rejuvenating impulses of Resurrection. In this time the resurrected Etheric Christ teaches his pupils the secrets of his kingdom of new life in an especially intimate way. The sevenfold structure of my book, The New Experience of the Supersensible, reflects the development of his teaching, trying to express, in human language, his appearance, words and deeds, as precisely as possible. Below I give a short sumamry of the essence of each of the seven chapters. You can contemplate them in this order during the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost.

When we speak about the present Christ experience to the learned ‘Pharisees and doctors of spiritual science’, we find ourselves in the same situation of Paul, when he spoke to the Pharisees in Jerusalem and the philosophers in Athens. A century ago, modern spiritual science was given to humanity to prepare the Second Coming, as in the time of Christ’s first coming Jerusalem and Athens prepared the first coming. And yet, when we speak 2000 years after Paul about the modern Damascus event, a whole century after the death of Rudolf Steiner, we find very little understanding, not to mention fierce opposition. We realize that the living Christ is as unknown today as He was to the people of ancient Greek and Judea in the time of Jesus and Paul.

The paper concerns a mural of the mid-9th c. - first half of the 10th c., unique for altar apse compositions in Georgia – a cross in a rainbow-coloured mandorla, in the conch, and The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, beneath the cross. The mural was once found in the rock-cut church of the Tetri Udabno Monastery of Gareji. I hold that the wall painting contains both eschatological and Theophanic dimensions, and evokes multiple meanings. These include: 1. “The sign of the Son of Man” in the form of an empty cross as the herald of the Second Coming (the principal theme); 2. Christ as the final judge; 3. The Transfiguration; 4. The Ascension; 5. The Golgotha Cross, which reminds us of the Last Judgment; 6. The Eternal glory of Christ; 7. The New Jerusalem; 8. A jewelled cross erected on Golgotha around 440 by Theodosius II.

I published my book, The New Experience of the Supersensible, subtitled: The Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming, in 1995, and it met with almost no reception. It was totally ignored and ‘Totgeschwiegen’. The end of the century was, in this regard, a bleak time (I described it also in The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity), because I knew that this path in the only way that leads to the resurrection of anthroposophy in the 21st century. But in recent years, the number of people has grown, slowly, yet steadily, who dare to open their hearts and minds to grasp its meaning. This has led me to the decision, to prepare an enlarged second edition, that will incorporate the research I have been doing in this field in the last 30 years.

He thus planted the seed of His newly created death in life and life in death in the souls of His pupils: a conscious, life-preserving, life-giving death! Through His life in human death, and His death in human life, He gained the power to teach His disciples and impart to them, for the first time in human evolution, this secret: the secret of the 'bridge'.

The given Christ event is described in chapter 4 of the New Experience of the Supersensible, "the Modern Christ Experience - The Meeting with the New Initiator". In this event, the Christ offers the human ‘I’ a seed essence, or ‘copy’ of His Self, and plants it as a seed of future transformation in spirit, soul and body, and at the same time, also demonstrates its future development. Following this demonstration, chapter 5 offers an individualized recapitulation of this event, by means of the knowledge drama of the Second Coming

SYMBOLIC QURANIC EXEGESIS
IN BAHA'U'LLAH'S BOOK OF CERTITUDE:
THE EXEGETICAL CREATION OF THE BAHA'I FAITH

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5072/PRISM/20147
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/24638

* Master’s Thesis, University of Calgary (Canada), 1991.
* Published (with a new final chapter) in 1995/2004 as:

** SYMBOL AND SECRET:
QUR'AN COMMENTARY IN BAHA'U'LLAH'S KITAB-I IQAN

** “Christopher Buck’s book represents the first book-length attempt in the English language to analyse one of the major works of Bahā’u’llāh.” — Moojan Momen, Review of Symbol and Secret, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series) 7.2 (July 1997): 290–291.

ABSTRACT

Nineteenth century Islam saw the rise of several messianic movements of which only one broke decisively from Islam: the Bahâ'î Faith. Its founder, Bahâ'u'llâh, In 1862 revealed In Baghdad a work of some 200 pages in Persian, known as the Book of Certitude [Persian: Kitâb-i îqân]. Written on the eve of his proclamation to European and Middle Eastern monarchs and pontiffs that the world must inevitably unite, this work proved critical in the formulation of Bahâ'î ideology. Islamic reform became world reform, In Bahâ'u'llâh's professed mission as the "World-Reformer" sent to "unify the world." Bahâ'u'llâh's spiritual authority therefore became a key issue.

Though the Book of Certitude focuses on the Qur'ân, it does so for purposes of legitimation rather than edification. To qualify the Book of Certitude as the most important modern work of Quranic exegesis outside the Muslim world is tempting but inappropriate, since the purpose of the work is to point beyond the Qur'ân itself. A transition from exegesis (advance legitimation) to ideology (overt legislation) served to create the "suprareligious ecumen" which Bahâ'u'llâh sought to establish-free of Islamic political claims.

This thesis will take particular interest in how Bahâ'u'llâh overcomes theoretical obstacles to a realized eschaton, the most formidable of which is Islam's doctrine of revelatory finality founded on the Quranic designation of Muhammad as the "Seal of the Prophets" (Q. 33/40). Bahâ'u'llâh sought to disenchant popular as well as clerical speculations on the eschaton, the impossibility of literal fulfilment of which effectively preempted its realization. This thesis will argue that Bahâ'u'llâh advanced rhetorical-style arguments to establish that figuration underlies eschatological symbolism in the Gospels and the Qur'ân. Once Interpreted, symbols in prophecy are contemporized within Bahâ'u'llâh's own historical present, leaving the reader to accept or reject their fulfillment.

Classical Islamic approaches to symbolism will be critically assessed as to precedent, leaving aside questions of dependence. The Mu'tazilî/Ash'arî controversy over anthropomorphisms in the Qur'ân provided the historical stimulus for investigating the symbolic or deep structure of the Qur'ân. The Islamic disciplines of rhetoric and philosophy made their own contributions to the discussion of figuration and symbolism. Mysticism rendered the Qur'ân more experiential and a symbolic blueprint of the heart's spiritual landscape was drawn, while sectarian exegesis opened up new vistas for the legitimation of authority in Islam.

As to Bahâ'u'llâh's own hermeneutic, this thesis will take Wansbrough's observations on the interdynamics of rhetorical and allegorical exegesis as a theoretical point of departure. Baha'u'llah's exegeses will be analyzed within what Wansbrough terms "procedural devices" employed across the spectrum of the classical exegetical tradition. A survey of the range of explicative elements in the Book of Certitude will tested for patterns of rhetorical-style appeal (rationalization) to Quranic figuration seen as the substratum of symbolism. The presence of symbolism demands allegorical interpretation.

As an exegetical constant, Bahâ'u'llâh extends anti-anthropomorphism to eschatological imagery, to identify the expected encounter with God as encounter with God's Prophet. This eschatological savior-figure Is Identified as the Bab (d. 1850), considered the precursor to a greater "Manifestation of God" with whom Bahâ'u'llâh implicitly identifies, betraying an element of Baha'u'llah's own messianic secrecy.

Exegesis established a doctrinal foundation for the Faith Baha'u'llah was to create. In the course of events, the Book of Certitude played an important role in establishing Bahâ'u'llâh's authority as eschatological deliverer and thus as lawgiver. A bridge to a new body of doctrine, the Book of Certitude In effect served as preamble to Bahâ'u'llâh's non-exegetical teachings. Sociomoral concomitants of Baha'u'Ilah's new symbolic universe-linkages struck between personal morality and world order-represent Bahâ'u'llâh's subsequent legislative activity.

Bibliography: pp. 297–318.

Symbolic Quranic Exegesis in Baha’u’llah’s Book of Certitude:
The Exegetical Creation of the Baha’i Faith.
Master’s Thesis. University of Calgary (Canada), 1991.
University of Calgary Library catalogue no.: BP 365 B83 1991.
Collection: Legacy Theses.

Courtesy of Kathryn Ruddock, Manager,
Digitization & Repository Services
University of Calgary.
Posted online on May 9, 2018.

The construction of this bridge is a very complicated and many-sided spiritual task, comparable to the construction of a physical bridge, with all the engineering and technical difficulties and challenges that must be solved.  When I decided to publish the "New Experience of the Supersensible" in 1995, I knew very well that I can only present a very condensed and, in many parts, strongly abbreviated summary of the whole process. Nevertheless, despite its unfinished form, I believed that it should be made available to serious students of spiritual science at the end of the century. Last year I begun to try to tell the real story of the construction of the bridge over the modern abyss of life’s annihilation, soul destruction and spirit forgetfulness...

This book tries to answer two questions that arise out of the modern Christ experience.
First, what is the essence of the modern Christ experience? And Second, what spiritual scientific method of research should be developed, to investigate it?
In the preface we outline our answer to both questions.
The modern Christ experience is the central event in the present and future spiritual evolution of humanity, called in spiritual science the etheric Second Coming, that begun in 1933 and continues in the next 3000 years. According to Rudolf Steiner, the esoteric significance of this event is the offering and reception of an Ego-copy of the Christ by the free human ‘I’.
The method that was developed to investigate the Ego giving and receiving is called ‘the knowledge drama of the Second Coming’, described in this book.

After Jesus talked to His disciples about the destruction of the temple, they asked THREE questions:  1) “when shall these things be?”; 2) “what shall be the sign of thy coming”; and 3) what will be the signs whereby we can know when will be “the end of the world?”

It seems evident that TWO comings are being discussed in Matthew chapter twenty-four: one, the coming of Christ in judgment on Jerusalem through the Roman army, which, according to history, happened in AD 70 (passages preceding verse 34 are signs for which those hearing Christ speak were told to look in order to have an idea as to WHEN it would happen); two, the FINAL coming of Christ, at which time “heaven and earth shall pass away.”

The words 'utopia' and 'zombie' are likely to conjure up strong images in the mind of the reader. The first makes one think of perfection, of happiness, of something new and better; the other, of the monstrous, of death and decay. Despite the fact that these images are arguably the most common, one can question their validity: can it be said that utopias are always perfect, and are the undead always monstrous? In this paper, I aim to explore the concepts relating to both utopias and zombies and the possible connections between the two, including a reading of the undead in light of the ultimate utopia: Paradise. In the light of these analyses, I propose a more positive approach to the figure of the zombie, which will be discussed as a counterpoint to the commonly held views of (religious) utopias.

We will only be able to understand the books, The New Experience of the Supersensible, The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, and The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity, if we realize that they contain the new teaching of the crucified and resurrected etheric Christ, after He completed the whole Second Mystery of Golgotha in the etheric world, that started, as Rudolf Steiner said, at the end of the 19th century, and continued until the end of the 20th century.