Then why was he apparently unable to explain Daniel 8:13-14?
And how do you know he was referring to Daniel? He could have said exactly the same in relation to Isaiah 8:16, Isaiah 29:11 or Revelation 10:4 - for example - so how do your Baha'u'llah quotes prove that he knew about Daniel's prophecy? Does he actually quote Daniel anywhere?
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You are correct. The same Prophecy about Sealing the Book of God until the End, and Unsealing it at the time of Manifestation is described in Revelation, Isaiah and Daniel. The statement of Bahaullah clearly is a parallel to these Prophecies which all of them are description of the same event. Now, knowing that the Scriptures of the Baha'i Revelation explains in details the meaning of symbolic terms of previous Scriptures, this Prophecy is fulfilled.
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Sincere apologies to innocent bystanders and
Dear Siti, no need for apologies. Feel free to ask. We may not know all the answers as you may ask something I didn't think of before, but hopefully we learn something together.
yes we are going round in circles but the point at issue here is that neither the Bab, nor Baha'u'llah nor even their faithful interpreter were able to explain - in hundreds of tablets, in some of which they did refer specifically to many other Biblical prophecies and some of which - contrary to
@adrian009 's earlier argument - were specifically addressed to Christians - Christian monarchs no less - were either willing or able to give the correct interpretation of the 2300 days of Daniel 8:13-14, whilst the Protestant Christian William Miller, the Baha'i scholar Gulpaygani and the Baha'i 'covenant breaker' Ibrahim Kheiralla were all explicitly able to do so, in writing,
before,
during and
shortly after the life times of the Great Beings whose 'greatness' partly rests on their fulfillment of the same prophecy.
In the context of the OP question - "How are these Great Beings explained?" - my argument in the current sub-topic diversion is that their perceived "Greatness" (in terms of fulfilling prohetic expectations) is better explained by a combination of religious fervour, messianic expectations and scholarly interpretation of prophecy than by the direct divine revelation that is claimed as the hallmark of the Baha'i "Manifestations".
The first thing we need to know is that We cannot conclude that just because Baha'u'llah or the Bab did not explain the details of 2300 days or 1290 days or 1260 days, They did not know it. That is if we are not jumping to conclusions more than what logically can be established.
Second thing to say is that we cannot conclude that just because apparently Abul Fazl, khairullah or Miller had talked about this Prophecy they knew it before anyone else. Because here would be omitting the possibility that the Bab and Bahaullah knew the details of it, but They choose not to include it in Their Books, and that is assuming we have read all their Writings or we are aware of all Their conversations.
Of course a valid question is, if They knew it why They did not write about it?
Well, in Bahai view, the answer is very simple. Bahaullah have left these things for Abdulbaha to explain. It was not urgent that He must have included in His own Writing. Simple as that.
Fourth thing is that we have already seen that Abulfazl, who was a Muslim Scholar had already explained this to the Jews of Persia. We also know Bahaullah had sent a letter to Abulfazl when he was in Persia asking him to teach the Faith. It should be noted that Bahaullah had before prophesied in the tablet of the Temple that soon God will raise a people to help Him with His cause. So did it happen, Abulfazl was one of those people who had been raised by God as Tablets of Bahaullah had reached him and caused him to rise. From the Bahai point of view, when a new Revelation comes, God raises a number of people, inspires them to help with His cause. The point is, even if we say the Prophecy of Daniel was important to be told to some people such as the Jews of Persia, God did this through other people such as Abulfazl. It should be also noted Abulfazl was not a Jewish scholar. He was a Muslim scholar, and a detail history of the books he had studied at Islamic school reveals that he had not studied the bible, for obvious reason that the Muslims in those days considered Islam to be the most complete Religion while other religions were incomplete or corrupted. The point is, it was all because of Revelation of Bahaullah that such Muslims discovered about prophecies in Bible, otherwise, it has been very unlikely a Muslim scholar believes the prophecies of Bible to be true, as they believed these Books were corrupted.
Sixth point is, Islamic Texts has many Traditions about the Qaim and Return of Christ which even many of the average Muslims are aware of them. For instance there are well known traditions which state when Mahdi appears His mission last 7 years, and Christ lives for 40 years when He returns. Both of these traditions obviously are compatible with the duration of the mission of the Bab and Bahaullah, yet they are never mentioned in Bahai scriptures as proofs. The Point is, the mission of the Bab or Bahaullah was not to mention every single Tradition of the past. People in due time discover them.
Finally there are many evidence in the writings of Bahaullah He knew about very details of Jewish Traditions that even I am sure many of the Jews are unaware. It is not reasonable to think He did not knew about some thing so obvious as the 1260 days prophecy in Bible. The Bab had appeared in year 1260 AH, so even an average person can easily make a connection between the two, let alone Bahaullah who obviously was able to refer to so many details of bible from His mind without having books to use. An obvious reason that He did not want to refer in His writing to every Prophecy just to prove Himself.
We create our own punsihment in our choices and actions.
