The Báb as a return of Jesus

The Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith has noted parallels between Jesus and the Báb:

"It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the whole compass of the world’s religious literature, except in the Gospels, do we find any record relating to the death of any of the religion-founders of the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered by the Prophet of Shíráz. … The passion of Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer a parallel to the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the youthfulness and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation; in the extreme brevity and turbulence of His public ministry; in the dramatic swiftness with which that ministry moved towards its climax; in the apostolic order which He instituted, and the primacy which He conferred on one of its members; in the boldness of His challenge to the time-honored conventions, rites and laws which had been woven into the fabric of the religion He Himself had been born into; in the rôle which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched religious hierarchy played as chief instigator of the outrages which He was made to suffer; in the indignities heaped upon Him; in the suddenness of His arrest; in the interrogation to which He was subjected; in the derision poured, and the scourging inflicted, upon Him; in the public affront He sustained; and, finally, in His ignominious suspension before the gaze of a hostile multitude—in all these we cannot fail to discern a remarkable similarity to the distinguishing features of the career of Jesus Christ."

Such close observation was not known to the publics of the West for many decades. However there is another parallel that can be drawn - the kinds of information gathered by the third party observers of history that took note of Jesus, His followers, and the destinies that befell some of them also offer a chance to examine a parallel.

Those with a turn towards the prophetic might wonder at the distinctions between pointing to the Return of Jesus, as in the 70 weeks prophecy, and the fact that they point to times for the Bab, 1844 and so on, who never claimed to be Jesus Returned but only the Mahdi, while Baha'u'llah, who did, came later. I refer readers to the details - the 70 weeks prophecy has two legs of time - one to Jesus' first coming and then to the second. But if you look in detail Jesus' first coming was at the time of the activity of John the Baptist. He was the one in the news so to speak and eventually got killed for it. At the time Jesus was just one of many people who got baptized and were looking to regenerate the times.

The statements about Jesus, His followers, and religion

"And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus... Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned."

"Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man... Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion... Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death."

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

"But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."

"On (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover, Jesus the Nazarene was hanged and a herald went forth before him forty days heralding, "Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and instigated and seduced Israel to idolatry. Whoever knows anything in defense may come and state it." But since they did not find anything in his defense they hanged him on (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover. Ulla said: "Do you suppose that Jesus the Nazarene was one for whom a defense could be made? He was a mesit (someone who instigated Israel to idolatry), concerning whom the Merciful [God] says: Show him no compassion and do not shield him. With Jesus the Nazarene it was different. For he was close to the government."

How some things get mixed up in times between politics and religion. See Herod Antipas.

These are not the narratives of a manger, nor of becoming fishers of men, not even of great talks on hills with listeners hearing nor even of the cross. The tales of the believers were almost unmentioned in the wider world's views. The entire population of Palestine in Jesus' time was about 200,000. In Persia in the time of the Bab there were a few million - things might happen on a somewhat accelerated scale. Perhaps what took a hundred years or more took place quickly if it depended on how people responded locally (vs how long it took a message to cross the waters of the day.) But see a timeline of events from then. It took some 300 years or so for Christianity to convert the Roman Empire and another hundred or two to stabilize it as Christian.

So - the earliest accounts occur because of the confrontation with an early Apostle who is associated with Jesus, amidst other incidents of the period, a broad mention of magical events and group didn't disappear with perhaps a suggestion the group is prone to believing in miracles, horrible suffering, fanciful statements getting many details wrong - even events that did not happen, especially from the mainstream religious authorities of the day. We do not see the first moments prized in the history that comes to be known among the religionists, the descent of the family line of Jesus, the particulars of the series of events, their culmination, and the process of the promulgation of the religion, the heartfelt faith of the believers. That would wait for several hundred years. The above are taken as the primary Historicity of Jesus whereas the Gospels and letters, even gathered, are secondary and disputed even today, and viewed by the general society only after the religion is freed from circumscription.

See Historical mentions of the Bábí/Bahá'í Faiths for an overview towards the particulars of the coverage.

Parallels continued into the period when Baha'u'llah was more recognizably leading the faithful.

Consider Celsus the first Roman critic of Christianity to attempt a full refutation. Celsus, and others near his time, made various characterizations of Jesus. These were the leaders of thought in the day. (borrowing from wikipedia...)

Celsus wrote that Jesus's father was a Roman soldier named Panthera. … In addition, Celsus addressed the miracles of Jesus, holding that "Jesus performed His miracles by sorcery on a par with those among men - 'the works of sorcerers who profess to do wonderful miracles, and the accomplishments of those who are taught by the Egyptians, who for a few obols make known their sacred lore in the middle of the market-place and drive daemons out of men and blow away diseases and invoke the souls of heroes, displaying expensive banquets and dining tables and cakes and dishes which are non-existent, and who make things move as though they were alive although they are not really so, but only appear as such in the imagination.' Around then

Some stern individuals, like the governor P. Aelius Hilarianus who famously sent the Christian Roman citizen Vibia Perpetua to the beasts at Carthage[9] and the unnamed governor who oversaw the persecution of Christians at Lyons and Vienne in 177, were more harsh than circumstances and precedent would have dictated. According to the Christian apologist Tertullian, some governors in Africa helped accused Christians secure acquittals or refused to bring them to trial.

However, in the late 3rd century Porphyry, an anti-Christian Neoplatonic philosopher, claimed in his treatise "Against the Christians" that the miracles of Jesus were not unique, and mentioned Apollonius as a non-Christian who had accomplished similar achievements. He said:

"How can people not be in every way impious and atheistic who have apostatized from the customs of our ancestors through which every nation and city is sustained? ... What else are they than fighters against God?"

Around 300, Roman authorities used the fame of Apollonius in their struggle to wipe out Christianity. Hierocles, one of the main instigators of the persecution of Christians in 303, wrote a pamphlet where he argued that Apollonius exceeded Christ as a wonder-worker and yet wasn’t worshipped as a god, and that the cultured biographers of Apollonius were more trustworthy than the uneducated apostles.

And it get's worse - Christians are accused of murders - Shortly after the murder of Hypatia "there appeared under Hypatia's name a forged anti-Christian letter. The Neoplatonist historian Damascius (ca. AD 458–538) was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers...

Even when Christians were viewed in kinder eyes, like those of Galen on admiring the lifestyle they dismissed the way of rising to that lifestyle.

Aught we not see some comparable things?

Will it come to this?

During the Great Persecution which lasted from 303 to 312/313, governors were given direct edicts from the emperor. Christian churches and texts were to be destroyed, meeting for Christian worship was forbidden, and those Christians who refused to recant lost their legal rights. Later, it was ordered that Christian clergy be arrested and that all inhabitants of the empire sacrifice to the gods. Still, no specific punishment was prescribed by these edicts and governors retained the leeway afforded to them by distance. Lactantius reported that some governors claimed to have shed no Christian blood, and there is evidence that others turned a blind eye to evasions of the edict or only enforced it when absolutely necessary. When an edict ordering clemency to jailed Christians was issued, governors eagerly cleared their overcrowded jails.

See Bahá'í Period of Historical mentions

Further reading

• Robert Louis Wilken (2003). The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09839-6.