Traditions: Lukan early Christian,Bahá’í interpretation in Some Answered Questions Motif: resurrection and recognition Connection verdict: explicit later scriptural reinterpretation Article status: Expanded Date: 2026-11-04
Summary
Both passages seek to explain what it means that Christ has risen.
Read the two scenes
Luke makes the disciples’ difficulty a question of mistaken perception: Jesus answers their fear of a spirit by displaying his body and eating in front of them. The scene’s physical demonstrations matter to its narrative argument. In chapter 23, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá begins instead by saying that the resurrection of God’s Manifestations is not bodily, then explains the three days as a period in which Christ’s followers lost and regained spiritual certainty. This is an identifiable later reading of Christian language, not a second ancient witness to Luke’s event. The tension between bodily proof and spiritual interpretation should remain visible.
What connects—and what does not
Luke insists on touch, flesh, bones, and eating before disciples; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá locates resurrection in renewed spiritual faith after apparent defeat.
The Bahá’í text is a 1904–06 ‘Akká table talk first published in 1908, here in its 2014 retranslation; it interprets, rather than transmits independently, the earlier Gospel.
Why read them side by side?
This juxtaposition shows how an explicitly later religious interpreter can preserve resurrection language while relocating its evidential center from body to community faith.
Sources and reading notes
- Luke 24:36-43 (NRSVUE) — The risen Jesus shows hands and feet, invites touch, and eats fish in the disciples’ presence.
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, ch. 23, The Resurrection of Christ (2014 English edition) — The talk explicitly answers the three-day resurrection question through the revived reality of Christ’s cause and disciples.
- Bahá’í Reference Library, Some Answered Questions publication overview — Official overview dates the ‘Akká table talks to 1904–06, first publication to 1908, and extensively retranslated English edition to 2014.
Research limit
A named parallel can establish literary reuse or related tradition; a general resemblance alone cannot prove borrowing. Linked editions and translations vary. Where a source is identified as secondary orientation, the comparison does not claim direct close reading of that tradition’s primary text.