Okay but I am confused , it was a very strong Bahai teaching, in Australia at least, pre 2000. After that I asked Bahais about it and I got different answers as time went on ; it is happening .... give it time ..... its all set up .... everything is in place to do that so Abdul Baha is right , its our fault for not doing it ( what the ... ? ) ... to no answer ... and now ... he never said that in the first place .
So what gives here ? I am not trying to grill you or challenge you .... I just want to sort it out as I have been confused by this .
If you could give me the details and the passage and the faulty translation and the real translation it would help to clear my confusion . (now I wondering how much else got translated wrong ? )
Thankyou .
I too am in Australia and wondered what happened to universal peace when 2,000 arrived. But I never read the letters below otherwise I would have known what was attributed to Abdul-Baha was not official authenticated scripture but here say.
The Guardian said
"There is also this statement from a letter written in 1946 to an individual believer on behalf of the beloved Guardian by his secretary:
'…All we know is that the Lesser and the Most Great Peace will come—their exact dates we do not know.
So if the Guardian said way back in the 1950's that we 'don't know' when world peace is coming then that means he ignored that statement attributed to Abdul-Baha as He knew it was a just a misunderstanding by the reporter of the translator but Baha'is took it as authentic scripture when the Guardian has warned them not to do so unless they had it in Persian in writing from Abdul-Baha as His translators often were misunderstood and were not always understanding what Abdul-Baha meant.
Sorry about the length but it's important you read these letters many Bahais did not read to clear up your confusion.
http://bahai-library.com/uhj_authenticity_some_texts
The belief that world peace was to occur by the year 2,000 was invented by some Baha'is who relied on heresay from the interpretation by a reporter of the translator, not authenticated scripture.
Here is a letter from the Guardian clearing these matters up using Abdul-Baha in London as an example.
"Regarding "`Abdu'l-Bahá in London": Nothing can be considered scripture for which we do not have an original text. A verbatim record in Persian of His talks would of course be more reliable than one in English, because He was not always accurately interpreted. However such a book is of value, and certainly has its place in our Literature.
(24 October 1947)
So a reporter, a non Baha'i, through a translator, simply got it wrong. And so it also was in Esselmont's Book 'Baha'u'llah and the New Era'. He misunderstood what Abdul-Baha had said.
The original of "Some Answered Questions" in Persian is preserved in the Holy Land; its text was read in full and corrected by Abdu'l-Bahá Himself.
Unfortunately, Abdu'l-Bahá did not read and authenticate all transcripts of His other talks, some of which have been translated into various languages and published. For many of His addresses included in "The Promulgation of Universal Peace" and "Paris Talks", for example, no original authenticated text has yet been found. However, the Guardian allowed such compilations to continue to be used by the friends. In the future each talk will have to be identified and those which are unauthenticated will have to be clearly distinguished from those which form a part of Bahá'í Scripture. This does not mean that the unauthenticated talks will have to cease to be used -- merely that the degree of authenticity of every document will have to be known and understood. (Universal House of Justice 23 March 1987)
And this
Shoghi Effendi in his letter of 27 February 1929 addressed to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada ("The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh: Selected Letters" (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1982), pp. 4-5):
I truly deplore the unfortunate distortions that have resulted in days past from the incapacity of the interpreter to grasp the meaning of `Abdu'l-Bahá, and from his incompetence to render adequately such truths as have been revealed to him by the Master's statements. Much of the confusion that has obscured the understanding of the believers should be attributed to this double error involved in the inexact rendering of an only partially understood statement. Not infrequently has the interpreter even failed to convey the exact purport of the inquirer's specific questions, and, by his deficiency of understanding and expression in conveying the answer of `Abdu'l-Bahá, has been responsible for reports wholly at variance with the true spirit and purpose of the Cause. It was chiefly in view of the misleading nature of the reports of the informal conversations of `Abdu'l-Bahá with visiting pilgrims, that I have insistently urged the believers of the West to regard such statements as merely personal impressions of the sayings of their Master, and to quote and consider as authentic only such translations as are based upon the authenticated text of His recorded utterances in the original tongue.
