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For information, write to Edward Price at divinecurriculum@yahoo.com. Also, go to the website: divinecurriculum.com.
Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Edward Price, Author
Cover design by Joe Paczkowski
Interior design by Edward Price
ISBN: 978-1-967447-00-8
CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO THE DIVINE CURRICULUM!
All of Creation is a Classroom
Consider this: There is but one infinite God. He periodically sends great Divine Educators to humanity – such as Krishna, Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, theBáb, and Baha’u’llah. All of Them work for the same God. All of creation is a classroom. They are all great Teachers in the universal school of God, working together, at the command of God, for the benefit of humanity.
Imagine that this Divinely conceived, universal, and ancient educational program, binding together all of the world’s great religions, has been unfolding and guiding humanity toward an ultimate, meaningful purpose. Toward what purpose would it be striving?
Understand that the Divine curriculum advances according to a rational and orderly educational process, step-by-step. What is that educational process? Every teacher has a curriculum. Therefore, after thousands of years, what has been the Divine curriculum and how does it work? To discover the workings of that process, what evidence would you seek? And once you found evidence, how would you explore it?
Recognize that the Divine curriculum is never-ending because the love, the grace, and the knowledge of God can never be exhausted. According to the Divine Educators, this sweeping story of Divine education has really just begun.
The premise
The premise of this book series is that such a plan and such a process truly exists. They have been with us all along. You could even say that they have been hidden in plain sight. We humans just haven’t understood them until now. Fortunately, events have occurred which have brought them to light. We are here to explore that story. It is an incredible story.
Author, Edward Price
The main assertion of this book is that…
• All of creation is a classroom.
• The classroom is part of the universal school of God, which is thesameas boththeobservableuniverseandthespiritual realms beyond.
• The Creator/Owner/Director of the school is Almighty God Himself.
• The Teachers in the school are the Divine Educators.
• On earth, all human beings are the students enrolled in the school.
A complete telling of the story of the unfolding of God’s worldencompassing plan and the process of humanity’s Divine education would go back to the beginning – to the Big Bang, to the formation of our world, to the emergence of life on this planet, and to the evolution of our species.
The story of Divine education probably began no later than the first emergence of a soulful bipedal, tool-using hominid species more than a hundred millennia ago. It probably progressed through the full emergence of humanity from the animal kingdom, the expansion of the brain, the development of the opposable thumb, the dawning of human consciousness, the long ages of trans-continental migrations, and through the establishment of settled human habitations over the surface of the planet. Take a look at Figure 1.(3)
The story probably continued with the rise of the first civilizations, with the making of tools, the discovery of fire, the birth of culture, the discovery of individuality, the emergence of morality, the transition to agriculture, and the invention of the wheel and writing.
It probably flourished with the awakening of humanity’s awareness to the existence of overwhelming and ultimate forces – such as earth, air, fire, andwater –whichseeminglyimpliedtheexistence of aspiritual reality, something beyond ordinary earthly existence.
It probablybecamemoreurgentwiththerealization, asdistinct from animals, oftheinevitabilityofdeath andthefirst concepts ofanafterlife. Divine education may well be hinted at byancient cave drawings, which seem to depict the dealings of men with divine entities. It is certainly exemplified by the founding of local shrines that evoked the presence of the Divinefor worshippers. Noone knowswhen, countless ages ago, the defining characteristic of humanity – the soul, that unique spiritual reality at the core of human existence – first emerged. But it is reasonable to think that since then, so long as the soul of man had been
The Divine Curriculum: Divine Design, 2nd Edition
created, God in His ways has provided education to humanity. Without a doubt, the story of humanity’s Divine education is very long.
Figure 1 Estimated human migration since ancient times
The story begins with the Teachers
This series of books picks up the story of the Divine curriculum from the “moment” monotheism was permanently established in a living human population. Others, such as Pharaoh Akhnaton of Egypt, had thought of the oneness of God, but never embedded that idea in a living population willing or capable of perpetuating its significance down through the ages. That significant turning point occurred with the mission of Abraham about 4,000 years ago and was further developed by later Divine Educators. The six Divine Educators in the lineage of Abraham are the focus of this book series: Abraham Himself, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, The Báb, and Bahá’ u ’lláh. See Figure 2.
Of course, nooneshouldsuggest thatGodrestricted Hiseducational outreach to humanity solely to the Abrahamic lineage. Other great Divine Educators, such as Krishna, Zoroaster, and Buddha, and many Others, were sent by God to diverse populations, and They too are worthy of our sincere reverence and studious attention.
The Divine Educators pursue Their work in mutual respect as members of a single Divine faculty. They acknowledge one another, praise each other, build on the work of previous lessons, honor Their sufferingandsacrifices, andstriveasateamtoachievethemissiongiven to Them by the school’s Creator.
Author, Edward Price
The program
The unfolding educational program taught by these Educators is a Divine curriculum authorized by God Himself. The textbooks of the Divine curriculum are the Holy Scriptures of the Faiths of the world. Each Divine Educator is authorized to teach a portion of the Divine curriculum during His time of service; and the term for that time of service is a“Dispensation”. Adispensationis theperiodof time between one Divine Educator, or Manifestation of God, and the next One to appear. Thus, for example, the Dispensation of Moses, began with the appearance of Moses and continued until the next Divine Educator appeared.
The portion of the Divine education provided by each Divine Educator is given to humanity through the process of Divine revelation. The Divine Educator receives the message from God, and expresses it through His spoken and written Words, as well as His deeds.
God favors all of the Divine Educators equally. In the heavenly realms above, Their station and exaltation with God is the same. As Bahá’ u ’lláh wrote:
…thou wilt behold them all abiding in the same tabernacle, soaring in the same heaven, seated upon the same throne, uttering the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith. – Bahá’u’lláh(4)
He also counseled against playing any superiority games. Since the Messengers were all sent into the world by the same God, to put it in ordinary terms, when members of different religions encounter one
Figure 2 Timeline of the Abrahamic Divine Educators
CHAPTER 2: ABRAHAM
Introduction
Among the great Prophets was Abraham, Who, being an iconoclast and a Herald of the oneness of God, was banished from His native land. He founded a family upon which the blessing of God descended, and it was owing to this religious basis and ordination that the Abrahamic house progressed and advanced. Through the divine benediction noteworthy and luminous prophets issued from His lineage.... All this was due to the religion of God which this blessed lineage established and upheld. It is evident that throughout the history of Abraham and His posterity this was the source of their honor, advancement and civilization. –‘Abdu’l-Bahá(11)
The story of Abraham is told mainly in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible and also in the literature of the Jewish oral tradition. Besides the Hebrew Bible, aspects of the story of Abraham are also found in the New Testament, the Qur’án, and the Baha’i Writings. The Jewish oral tradition literature was captured in a body of literature known as the Midrash. The Midrash is massive; it has many details of the story not included in the Hebrew Bible. Louis Ginzberg, in 1909, published a summary version of the entire Midrash literature, called Legends of the Jews. (12) Though greatly condensed, Ginzberg’s summary still required four volumes. Abraham lived approximately 4,000 years ago. The Founders of four world religions – Moses (Judaism), Jesus (Christianity), Muhammad (Islám), the Báb, and Bahá’ u ’lláh (the Bahá’í Faith) – were all descended from His lineage. Each one of those subsequent Founders said the God of Abraham was the Source of Their revelations as well. Abraham was an iconoclast, the greatest Man of His age, Who battled against the polytheistic and idolatrous norms of His society. He established the oneness and goodness of God, and entered into an everlasting Covenant with God. God promised Him that the land of
Author, Edward Price
Canaan would be given to Him and His posterity. God offered even greater promises:
…I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore… And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed… (Genesis 22: 1718)
Abraham succeeded in establishing monotheism though He did not impose His teachings by force; rather He embedded His God-given Covenant in a living and growing community of followers, which they then perpetuated through the generations. He achieved this by demonstrating enduring faith and loyalty to God, and by educating His family in a deeply held ethical monotheism,(13) which is defined as a monotheism which regards the one God as the ultimate Source of all goodness. According to the ethical monotheism established by Abraham, God alone possesses the authority to define the distinctions between true and false, and good and evil.
Figure 11 A man looks at the stars in the heavens (Image created by AI)
The Divine Curriculum: Divine Design, 2nd Edition
Ethical monotheism was in sharp contrast to the norms of His Day. By turning away from the norms of idolatry, polytheism, and the brutal child sacrifice prevalent in His Day, Abraham’s view of God also promoted the ethic that human life is sacred. Another key feature of Abraham’s ministry was establishing the practice of extending hospitality to travelers and strangers.
Not only is Abraham the Father of a multitude, He is also the Founder and Establisher of ethical monotheism. Literally, countless generations and billions of souls have been the beneficiaries of Abraham’s life and work.
Mission and teachings
From the beginning, Abraham was exceptional. According to Jewish legends, He was born in Ur, aprovince of the Babylonian empire. Under King Nimrod, religion was a state-owned enterprise based on idolatry and polytheism. Abraham’s father, Terah, worked for Nimrod as a seller of idols.
Jewish tradition says that when soothsayers told Nimrod that a great leader was about to be born who would oppose his religion and challenge his authority, Nimrod ordered the cruel massacre of many babies in the kingdom. Aware of her husband’s potentially conflicted loyalties, Abraham’s mother managed to conceal her pregnancy. After Abraham was born, His mother hid Him in the wilderness, and in an act of desperation to save His life was forced to abandon Him in a cave. In the cave, according tolegend, the Angel Gabriel cared for Him, andafter a long delay Abraham was eventually reunited with His family.
Jewish tradition also tells us that Abraham reasoned His way to the recognition of God. One day he looked at the sun and marveled at its light. Surely this must be God, He thought. Then the sun set below the horizon, and He realized that if it could be taken away it couldn’t be true god. Next, he saw the moon. In a while, it too was taken away, so He knew it could not be God. Then He noticed the stars, but they were taken away by the morning light, so Abraham again reasoned that the stars could not be God. Abraham thought about the idols he saw everywhere around Him. He knew that, since they were fashioned by men, they could not be God either. Abraham thought, Whoever created all these things – the sun, the moon, the stars – though He cannot be seen, must be God.
This recognitioninspired Abraham to become aniconoclast, a fierce opponent of idol worship. Central to Abraham’s mission, He did everything He could to convince His fellow citizens that idol worship is wrong and that only the one true God is worthy of worship. Since we’re
Author, Edward Price
CHAPTER 9: GOD, THE GREAT CURRICULUM DESIGNER
God is the Great Curriculum Designer. To put it mildly, we can assume He brings certain special abilities to the task of Divine curriculum design.(173) God has infinite intellect, eternal foresight, inexhaustible power, and an all-encompassing knowledge of how to educate His creatures and bring about the purposes underlying His creation
The infinity of God
The infinityofGodand His oneness istheconstant reference point. Here Bahá’ u ’lláh extols God’s infinite Being:
Exalted, immeasurably exalted, art Thou above the strivings of mortal man to unravel Thy mystery, to describe Thy glory, or even to hint at the nature of Thine Essence... – Bahá’u’lláh(174)
And this from ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá:
Then how could it be possible for a contingent reality, that is, man, to understand the nature of that pre-existent Essence, the Divine Being? The difference in station between man and the Divine Reality is thousands upon thousands of times greater than the difference between vegetable and animal. And that which a human being would conjure up in his mind is but the fanciful image of his human condition, it doth not encompass God's reality but rather is encompassed by it. That is, man graspeth his own illusory conceptions, but the Reality of Divinity can never be grasped: It, Itself, encompasseth all created things, and all created things are in Its grasp. That Divinity which man doth imagine for himself existeth only in his mind, not in truth. –‘Abdu’l-Bahá(175)
Creation itself is a handful of dust when compared to God’s Essence. Time, ruling over every living creature, is just one feature of His creation. A thousand years is an epoch for humanity, but for God it’s not that significant. Imagine the stream of time to be like a river.
The Divine Curriculum: Divine Design, 2nd Edition
Human beings are like individuals floating down the river. From the human perspective, the river and the travelers are moving, we are immersed in the flow, and only a small part of the river is visible from the boat The future view is quite limited, as when the river seems to bend around a corner. An aerial view illustrates the Divine perspective. Seeing it from above, God is not caught within the stream. With complete detail, He sees the tiniest pebble jostled by the rushing waters. From beginning to end, there is no limit to the scope of God’s vision.
No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtle, the All-Perceiving. (Qur’án 6: 103)(176)
God is able to design the Divine curriculum with the entire scope of human history in mind – all of the past, present, and future. Consistent with His own oneness, He perceives all of time, the coming and the passing of all generations, as a unity.
Creation is the learning environment
The whole of creation is the learning environment for the Divine curriculum; it is adorned with numberless signs of the Creator’s handiwork and filled with many opportunities for learning Ordinary human teachers do the same with their classrooms, placing on the walls examples of written work, graphs, artwork, etc.
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalms 19: 1)(177)
…all created things which Thou hast fashioned are but expressions of Thy wondrous signs. – The Báb(178)
Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power, a means of admittance into His straight Path... – Bahá’u’lláh(179)
Mankind can look at the wonders and mysteries of creation, and learn from it, just as they learn lessons from the teachings found in Scripture. All of creation is the classroom.
Author, Edward Price
The Divine curriculum advances towards a goal
If God’s creation has a purpose, it follows that every part of the Divine curriculum, from the earliest to the latest lessons, are designed to propel creation toward that purpose. Put simply, the goal towards which the Divine curriculum is striving will be the same as the purpose underlying all of creation and aligned with the purpose for which man was created. Here's one way of conceiving these relationships. (See Figure 35.)
Notice the flow of influence depicted with the arrows. For instance, the entire direction of the Divine curriculum will be aimed at achieving the very purpose for man’s creation and existence and that, in turn, is wholly directed toward the purpose underlying creation, which in its turn provides the focus for the Divine curriculum. Likewise, given the purpose underlying creation, and of man’s creation, it seems likely that Divine revelation, through the Divine Educators, is designed by God to help achieve the goals for which man was created. Similarly, Divine revelation provides direct input into the content, pattern, and structure of the Divine curriculum.
Figure 35 The goals of the Divine curriculum
Author, Edward Price
CHAPTER 10: THE ONE GOD
Knowing about the one God, so far as we are able, is essential for understanding His Divine curriculum.
The Abrahamic Founders of Faith (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’ u ’lláh) were of one Voice concerning the existence of only one Supreme Being, the sole Creator of the universe, the Source of goodness and truth. This God, regardless of the diverse words used to refer to Him – God, Dios, Theos, Alláh, etc. – is the same God for all humanity.
Abraham was an advocate of the oneness of God among His people who were idolaters:
Among the great Prophets was Abraham, Who, being an iconoclast and a Herald of the oneness of God, was banished from His native land. –‘Abdu’l-Bahá(191)
He opposed His own people and government, and even His own kin; He rejected all their gods; and, alone and single-handed, He withstood a powerful nation… God changed His exile into abiding honour, till at last He established the oneness of God, for at that time the generality of mankind were idol worshippers –‘Abdu’l-Bahá(192)
Moses and the Old Testament prophets stated:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deut. 6: 4-5)(193)
Demonstrating His own continuity with past revelations, Jesus cited Deuteronomy 6: 4-5:
The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12: 29-30)(194)
