It should also be realized that we have the original, and it is available, is it not? Those who know the original language can read it for themselves if they want to. No one is trying to hide the original by the publishing of the translation, just make the book available to more of the believers and the public.

Judging from the fact that Some Answered Questions (SAQ) by ‘Abdu’l‐Bahá is “Collected and translated from the Persian by Laura Clifford Barney” and “Newly Revised by a Committee at the Bahá’í World Centre,” we can surmise that this is an authorized translation. So, in a sense, that’s the first measure of this translation’s “authority” (for Baha’is). Both the Persian original and English translation are further represented as “authoritative” in the “Foreword,” which states:

“The main objective of this retranslation has been to better represent the substance and the style of the original, in particular by capturing more clearly the subtleties of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explanations, approximating more closely a style that is at once conversational and elevated, and by rendering more consistently the philosophical terms used throughout the text. While not bound by the original translation, this version nevertheless strives to retain many of its elegant expressions and felicitous turns of phrase. Since its release, Some Answered Questions has been an authoritative repository of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s profound insight and an indispensable component of every Bahá’í library.”

That said, since the newly revised translation makes no claims to being an infallible translation, then the Persian original (as with original documents in most any case) is more authoritative than the otherwise excellent, yet theoretically imperfect, newly revised English translation.

There may be an argument that Shoghi Effendi’s translations (considered by Baha’is to be infallibly inspired in an interpretative sense) may offer an exception to this general rule. It has often been said by native readers of Arabic that Shoghi Effendi’s authorized translations effectively disambiguate otherwise difficult passages in the Arabic originals, and render their meanings more accessible and precise.

In those cases, I would say that the most “authoritative” reading is to consult both the Arabic original and Shoghi Effendi’s translations together. This is not to equate the Arabic original (if one of Baha’u’llah’s revelations) with the translation itself, for the simple reason that a translation always involves interpretation, when going from the source language to the target language.