Evolving Our Souls With Celestial Wisdom
Even the man who is arguably The UB’s chief critic—the famed debunker and scientific writer Martin Gardner—considers Part IV to be an especially “well-written, impressive work,” and writes, “Either it is accurate in its history, coming directly from higher beings in position to know, or it is a work of fertile imagination by someone who knew the New Testament by heart and who was also steeped in knowledge of the times when Jesus lived.” (See Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery, Prometheus Books, 1995.)
At the moment, the Spanish-speaking world is on fire with this new depiction of the life of Jesus. The Spanish translation of The Urantia Book has sold 250,000+ copies, and a novelization of Part IV by famed Spanish author J.J. Benitez sold 3+ million copies. A circle of Catholic priests in Argentina has been studying El Libro de Urantia, and it is possible that that their superior, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio—who is now Pope Francis—knows all about it.
Perhaps the most remarkable material in Part IV is its culminating paper, “The Faith of Jesus.” (The 196 chapters are known as “papers.”) This paper’s superb “summa” of Jesus’ life and message has long been a supreme inspiration for my own spiritual faith. I could say much more, but before we move on, here are just a few fascinating facts about Jesus’ life as presented in this narrative:
• Whereas the birth of Jesus takes up a few lines in the Bible, the nativity of Christ is presented in several long chapters in the Urantia text. (This is typical with all of the events of his life; the crucifixion, death and resurrection are only briefly told in the Bible, but these events comprise about one hundred pages in The Urantia Book!)
• Jesus, being a divine creator, incarnated here because we are a very troubled planet. Ours is among the darkest and most confused of worlds among the millions of planets he could have appeared on.
• The Urantian life of Jesus fills in the “hidden years” of his life, from ages twelve to thirty. At age 15, he experienced the death of his father Joseph and became the head of the household and the surrogate father for seven younger siblings.
