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Urantia Book Paper 121 The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART IV: The Life and Teachings
of Jesus : The Bestowal Of Michael On Urantia The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
Birth And Infancy Of Jesus The Early Childhood Of Jesus The Later Childhood Of
Jesus Jesus At Jerusalem The Two Crucial Years The Adolescent Years Jesus'
Early Manhood The Later Adult Life Of Jesus On The Way To Rome The World's
Religions The Sojourn At Rome The Return From Rome The Transition Years John
The Baptist Baptism And The Forty Days Tarrying Time In Galilee Training The
Kingdom's Messengers The Twelve Apostles The Ordination Of The Twelve Beginning
The Public Work The Passover At Jerusalem Going Through Samaria At Gilboa And
In The Decapolis Four Eventful Days At Capernaum First Preaching Tour Of
Galilee The Interlude Visit To Jerusalem Training Evangelists At Bethsaida The
Second Preaching Tour The Third Preaching Tour Tarrying And Teaching By The
Seaside Events Leading Up To The Capernaum Crisis The Crisis At Capernaum Last
Days At Capernaum Fleeing Through Northern Galilee The Sojourn At Tyre And
Sidon At Caesarea-philippi The Mount Of Transfiguration The Decapolis Tour
Rodan Of Alexandria Further Discussions With Rodan At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Ordination Of The Seventy At Magadan At The Feast Of Dedication The Perean
Mission Begins Last Visit To Northern Perea The Visit To Philadelphia The
Resurrection Of Lazarus Last Teaching At Pella The Kingdom Of Heaven On The Way
To Jerusalem Going Into Jerusalem Monday In Jerusalem ...
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Paper 121 The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
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Introduction
ACTING under the supervision of a commission of twelve members of the United
Brotherhood of Urantia Midwayers, conjointly sponsored by the presiding head of
our order and the Melchizedek of record, I am the secondary midwayer of onetime
attachment to the Apostle Andrew, and I am authorized to place on record the
narrative of the life transactions of Jesus of Nazareth as they were observed
by my order of earth creatures, and as they were subsequently partially
recorded by the human subject of my temporal guardianship. Knowing how his
Master so scrupulously avoided leaving written records behind him, Andrew
steadfastly refused to multiply copies of his written narrative. A similar
attitude on the part of the other apostles of Jesus greatly delayed the writing
of the Gospels.
1. THE OCCIDENT OF THE FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST
Jesus did not come to this world during an age of spiritual decadence; at the
time of his birth Urantia was experiencing such a revival of spiritual thinking
and religious living as it had not known in all its previous post-Adamic
history nor has experienced in any era since. When Michael incarnated on
Urantia, the world presented the most favorable condition for the Creator Son's
bestowal that had ever previously prevailed or has since obtained. In the
centuries just prior to these times Greek culture and the Greek language had
spread over Occident and near Orient, and the Jews, being a Levantine race, in
nature part Occidental and part Oriental, were eminently fitted to utilize such
cultural and linguistic settings for the effective spread of a new religion to
both East and West. These most favorable circumstances were further enhanced by
the tolerant political rule of the Mediterranean world by the Romans.
This entire combination of world influences is well illustrated by the
activities of Paul, who, being in religious culture a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
proclaimed the gospel of a Jewish Messiah in the Greek tongue, while he himself
was a Roman citizen.
Nothing like the civilization of the times of Jesus has been seen in the
Occident before or since those days. European civilization was unified and
co-ordinated under an extraordinary threefold influence:
1. The Roman political and social systems.
2. The Grecian language and culture--and philosophy to a certain extent.
3. The rapidly spreading influence of Jewish religious and moral teachings.
When Jesus was born, the entire Mediterranean world was a unified empire. Good
roads, for the first time in the world's history, interconnected many major
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centers. The seas were cleared of pirates, and a great era of trade and travel
was rapidly advancing. Europe did not again enjoy another such period of travel
and trade until the nineteenth century after Christ.
Notwithstanding the internal peace and superficial prosperity of the
Greco-Roman world, a majority of the inhabitants of the empire languished in
squalor and poverty. The small upper class was rich; a miserable and
impoverished lower class embraced the rank and file of humanity. There was no
happy and prosperous middle class in those days; it had just begun to make its
appearance in Roman society.
The first struggles between the expanding Roman and Parthian states had been
concluded in the then recent past, leaving Syria in the hands of the Romans. In
the times of Jesus, Palestine and Syria were enjoying a period of prosperity,
relative peace, and extensive commercial intercourse with the lands to both the
East and the West.
2. THE JEWISH PEOPLE
The Jews were a part of the older Semitic race, which also included the
Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the more recent enemies of Rome, the
Carthaginians. During the fore part of the first century after Christ, the Jews
were the most influential group of the Semitic peoples, and they happened to
occupy a peculiarly strategic geographic position in the world as it was at
that time ruled and organized for trade.
Many of the great highways joining the nations of antiquity passed through
Palestine, which thus became the meeting place, or crossroads, of three
continents. The travel, trade, and armies of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Syria,
Greece, Parthia, and Rome successively swept over Palestine. From time
immemorial, many caravan routes from the Orient passed through some part of
this region to the few good seaports of the eastern end of the Mediterranean,
whence ships carried their cargoes to all the maritime Occident. And more than
half of this caravan traffic passed through or near the little town of Nazareth
in Galilee.
Although Palestine was the home of Jewish religious culture and the birthplace
of Christianity, the Jews were abroad in the world, dwelling in many nations
and trading in every province of the Roman and Parthian states.
Greece provided a language and a culture, Rome built the roads and unified an
empire, but the dispersion of the Jews, with their more than two hundred
synagogues and well-organized religious communities scattered hither and yon
throughout the Roman world, provided the cultural centers in which the new
gospel of the kingdom of heaven found initial reception, and from which it
subsequently spread to the uttermost parts of the world.
Each Jewish synagogue tolerated a fringe of gentile believers, "devout" or
"God-fearing" men, and it was among this fringe of proselytes that Paul made
the bulk of his early converts to Christianity. Even the temple at Jerusalem
possessed its ornate court of the gentiles. There was very close connection
between the culture, commerce, and worship of Jerusalem and Antioch. In Antioch
Paul's disciples were first called "Christians."
The centralization of the Jewish temple worship at Jerusalem constituted alike
the secret of the survival of their monotheism and the promise of the nurture
and sending forth to the world of a new and enlarged concept of that one
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God of all nations and Father of all mortals. The temple service at Jerusalem
represented the survival of a religious cultural concept in the face of the
downfall of a succession of gentile national overlords and racial persecutors.
The Jewish people of this time, although under Roman suzerainty, enjoyed a
considerable degree of self-government and, remembering the then only recent
heroic exploits of deliverance executed by Judas Maccabee and his immediate
successors, were vibrant with the expectation of the immediate appearance of a
still greater deliverer, the long-expected Messiah.
The secret of the survival of Palestine, the kingdom of the Jews, as a
semi-independent state was wrapped up in the foreign policy of the Roman
government, which desired to maintain control of the Palestinian highway of
travel between Syria and Egypt as well as the western terminals of the caravan
routes between the Orient and the Occident. Rome did not wish any power to
arise in the Levant which might curb her future expansion in these regions. The
policy of intrigue which had for its object the pitting of Seleucid Syria and
Ptolemaic Egypt against each other necessitated fostering Palestine as a
separate and independent state. Roman policy, the degeneration of Egypt, and
the progressive weakening of the Seleucids before the rising power of Parthia,
explain why it was that for several generations a small and unpowerful group of
Jews was able to maintain its independence against both Seleucidae to the north
and Ptolemies to the south. This fortuitous liberty and independence of the
political rule of surrounding and more powerful peoples the Jews attributed to
the fact that they were the "chosen people," to the direct interposition of
Yahweh. Such an attitude of racial superiority made it all the harder for them
to endure Roman suzerainty when it finally fell upon their land. But even in
that sad hour the Jews refused to learn that their world mission was spiritual,
not political.
The Jews were unusually apprehensive and suspicious during the times of Jesus
because they were then ruled by an outsider, Herod the Idumean, who had seized
the overlordship of Judea by cleverly ingratiating himself with the Roman
rulers. And though Herod professed loyalty to the Hebrew ceremonial
observances, he proceeded to build temples for many strange gods.
The friendly relations of Herod with the Roman rulers made the world safe for
Jewish travel and thus opened the way for increased Jewish penetration even of
distant portions of the Roman Empire and of foreign treaty nations with the new
gospel of the kingdom of heaven. Herod's reign also contributed much toward the
further blending of Hebrew and Hellenistic philosophies.
Herod built the harbor of Caesarea, which further aided in making Palestine the
crossroads of the civilized world. He died in 4 B.C., and his son Herod Antipas
governed Galilee and Perea during Jesus' youth and ministry to A.D. 39.
Antipas, like his father, was a great builder. He rebuilt many of the cities of
Galilee, including the important trade center of Sepphoris.
The Galileans were not regarded with full favor by the Jerusalem religious
leaders and rabbinical teachers. Galilee was more gentile than Jewish when
Jesus was born.
3. AMONG THE GENTILES
Although the social and economic condition of the Roman state was not of the
highest order, the widespread domestic peace and prosperity was propitious
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for the bestowal of Michael. In the first century after Christ the society of
the Mediterranean world consisted of five well-defined strata:
1. The aristocracy. The upper classes with money and official power, the
privileged and ruling groups.
2. The business groups. The merchant princes and the bankers, the traders--the
big importers and exporters--the international merchants.
3. The small middle class. Although this group was indeed small, it was very
influential and provided the moral backbone of the early Christian church,
which encouraged these groups to continue in their various crafts and trades.
Among the Jews many of the Pharisees belonged to this class of tradesmen.
4. The free proletariat. This group had little or no social standing. Though
proud of their freedom, they were placed at great disadvantage because they
were forced to compete with slave labor. The upper classes regarded them
disdainfully, allowing that they were useless except for "breeding purposes."
5. The slaves. Half the population of the Roman state were slaves; many were
superior individuals and quickly made their way up among the free proletariat
and even among the tradesmen. The majority were either mediocre or very
inferior.
Slavery, even of superior peoples, was a feature of Roman military conquest.
The power of the master over his slave was unqualified. The early Christian
church was largely composed of the lower classes and these slaves.
Superior slaves often received wages and by saving their earnings were able to
purchase their freedom. Many such emancipated slaves rose to high positions in
state, church, and the business world. And it was just such possibilities that
made the early Christian church so tolerant of this modified form of slavery.
There was no widespread social problem in the Roman Empire in the first century
after Christ. The major portion of the populace regarded themselves as
belonging in that group into which they chanced to be born. There was always
the open door through which talented and able individuals could ascend from the
lower to the higher strata of Roman society, but the people were generally
content with their social rank. They were not class conscious, neither did they
look upon these class distinctions as being unjust or wrong. Christianity was
in no sense an economic movement having for its purpose the amelioration of the
miseries of the depressed classes.
Although woman enjoyed more freedom throughout the Roman Empire than in her
restricted position in Palestine, the family devotion and natural affection of
the Jews far transcended that of the gentile world.
4. GENTILE PHILOSOPHY
The gentiles were, from a moral standpoint, somewhat inferior to the Jews, but
there was present in the hearts of the nobler gentiles abundant soil of natural
goodness and potential human affection in which it was possible for the seed of
Christianity to sprout and bring forth an abundant harvest of moral character
and spiritual achievement. The gentile world was then dominated by four great
philosophies, all more or less derived from the earlier Platonism of the
Greeks. These schools of philosophy were:
1. The Epicurean. This school of thought was dedicated to the pursuit of
happiness. The better Epicureans were not given to sensual excesses. At least
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this doctrine helped to deliver the Romans from a more deadly form of fatalism;
it taught that men could do something to improve their terrestrial status. It
did effectually combat ignorant superstition.
2. The Stoic. Stoicism was the superior philosophy of the better classes. The
Stoics believed that a controlling Reason-Fate dominated all nature. They
taught that the soul of man was divine; that it was imprisoned in the evil body
of physical nature. Man's soul achieved liberty by living in harmony with
nature, with God; thus virtue came to be its own reward. Stoicism ascended to a
sublime morality, ideals never since transcended by any purely human system of
philosophy. While the Stoics professed to be the "offspring of God," they
failed to know him and therefore failed to find him. Stoicism remained a
philosophy; it never became a religion. Its followers sought to attune their
minds to the harmony of the Universal Mind, but they failed to envisage
themselves as the children of a loving Father. Paul leaned heavily toward
Stoicism when he wrote, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to
be content."
3. The Cynic. Although the Cynics traced their philosophy to Diogenes of
Athens, they derived much of their doctrine from the remnants of the teachings
of Machiventa Melchizedek. Cynicism had formerly been more of a religion than a
philosophy. At least the Cynics made their religio-philosophy democratic. In
the fields and in the market places they continually preached their doctrine
that "man could save himself if he would." They preached simplicity and virtue
and urged men to meet death fearlessly. These wandering Cynic preachers did
much to prepare the spiritually hungry populace for the later Christian
missionaries. Their plan of popular preaching was much after the pattern, and
in accordance with the style, of Paul's Epistles.
4. The Skeptic. Skepticism asserted that knowledge was fallacious, and that
conviction and assurance were impossible. It was a purely negative attitude and
never became widespread.
These philosophies were semireligious; they were often invigorating, ethical,
and ennobling but were usually above the common people. With the possible
exception of Cynicism, they were philosophies for the strong and the wise, not
religions of salvation for even the poor and the weak.
5. THE GENTILE RELIGIONS
Throughout preceding ages religion had chiefly been an affair of the tribe or
nation; it had not often been a matter of concern to the individual. Gods were
tribal or national, not personal. Such religious systems afforded little
satisfaction for the individual spiritual longings of the average person.
In the times of Jesus the religions of the Occident included:
1. The pagan cults. These were a combination of Hellenic and Latin mythology,
patriotism, and tradition.
2. Emperor worship. This deification of man as the symbol of the state was very
seriously resented by the Jews and the early Christians and led directly to the
bitter persecutions of both churches by the Roman government.
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3. Astrology. This pseudo science of Babylon developed into a religion
throughout the Greco-Roman Empire. Even in the twentieth century man has not
been fully delivered from this superstitious belief.
4. The mystery religions. Upon such a spiritually hungry world a flood of
mystery cults had broken, new and strange religions from the Levant, which had
enamored the common people and had promised them individual salvation. These
religions rapidly became the accepted belief of the lower classes of the
Greco-Roman world. And they did much to prepare the way for the rapid spread of
the vastly superior Christian teachings, which presented a majestic concept of
Deity, associated with an intriguing theology for the intelligent and a
profound proffer of salvation for all, including the ignorant but spiritually
hungry average man of those days.
The mystery religions spelled the end of national beliefs and resulted in the
birth of the numerous personal cults. The mysteries were many but were all
characterized by:
1. Some mythical legend, a mystery--whence their name. As a rule this mystery
pertained to the story of some god's life and death and return to life, as
illustrated by the teachings of Mithraism, which, for a time, were contemporary
with, and a competitor of, Paul's rising cult of Christianity.
2. The mysteries were nonnational and interracial. They were personal and
fraternal, giving rise to religious brotherhoods and numerous sectarian
societies.
3. They were, in their services, characterized by elaborate ceremonies of
initiation and impressive sacraments of worship. Their secret rites and rituals
were sometimes gruesome and revolting.
4. But no matter what the nature of their ceremonies or the degree of their
excesses, these mysteries invariably promised their devotees salvation,
"deliverance from evil, survival after death, and enduring life in blissful
realms beyond this world of sorrow and slavery."
But do not make the mistake of confusing the teachings of Jesus with the
mysteries. The popularity of the mysteries reveals man's quest for survival,
thus portraying a real hunger and thirst for personal religion and individual
righteousness. Although the mysteries failed adequately to satisfy this
longing, they did prepare the way for the subsequent appearance of Jesus, who
truly brought to this world the bread of life and the water thereof.
Paul, in an effort to utilize the widespread adherence to the better types of
the mystery religions, made certain adaptations of the teachings of Jesus so as
to render them more acceptable to a larger number of prospective converts. But
even Paul's compromise of Jesus' teachings (Christianity) was superior to the
best in the mysteries in that:
1. Paul taught a moral redemption, an ethical salvation. Christianity pointed
to a new life and proclaimed a new ideal. Paul forsook magic rites and
ceremonial enchantments.
2. Christianity presented a religion which grappled with final solutions of the
human problem, for it not only offered salvation from sorrow and even from
death, but it also promised deliverance from sin followed by the endowment of a
righteous character of eternal survival qualities.
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3. The mysteries were built upon myths. Christianity, as Paul preached it, was
founded upon a historic fact: the bestowal of Michael, the Son of God, upon
mankind.
Morality among the gentiles was not necessarily related to either philosophy or
religion. Outside of Palestine it not always occurred to people that a priest
of religion was supposed to lead a moral life. Jewish religion and subsequently
the teachings of Jesus and later the evolving Christianity of Paul were the
first European religions to lay one hand upon morals and the other upon ethics,
insisting that religionists pay some attention to both.
Into such a generation of men, dominated by such incomplete systems of
philosophy and perplexed by such complex cults of religion, Jesus was born in
Palestine. And to this same generation he subsequently gave his gospel of
personal religion--sonship with God.
6. THE HEBREW RELIGION
By the close of the first century before Christ the religious thought of
Jerusalem had been tremendously influenced and somewhat modified by Greek
cultural teachings and even by Greek philosophy. In the long contest between
the views of the Eastern and Western schools of Hebrew thought, Jerusalem and
the rest of the Occident and the Levant in general adopted the Western Jewish
or modified Hellenistic viewpoint.
In the days of Jesus three languages prevailed in Palestine: The common people
spoke some dialect of Aramaic; the priests and rabbis spoke Hebrew; the
educated classes and the better strata of Jews in general spoke Greek. The
early translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek at Alexandria was
responsible in no small measure for the subsequent predominance of the Greek
wing of Jewish culture and theology. And the writings of the Christian teachers
were soon to appear in the same language. The renaissance of Judaism dates from
the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. This was a vital influence
which later determined the drift of Paul's Christian cult toward the West
instead of toward the East.
Though the Hellenized Jewish beliefs were very little influenced by the
teachings of the Epicureans, they were very materially affected by the
philosophy of Plato and the self-abnegation doctrines of the Stoics. The great
inroad of Stoicism is exemplified by the Fourth Book of the Maccabees; the
penetration of both Platonic philosophy and Stoic doctrines is exhibited in the
Wisdom of Solomon. The Hellenized Jews brought to the Hebrew scriptures such an
allegorical interpretation that they found no difficulty in conforming Hebrew
theology with their revered Aristotelian philosophy. But this all led to
disastrous confusion until these problems were taken in hand by Philo of
Alexandria, who proceeded to harmonize and systemize Greek philosophy and
Hebrew theology into a compact and fairly consistent system of religious belief
and practice. And it was this later teaching of combined Greek philosophy and
Hebrew theology that prevailed in Palestine when Jesus lived and taught, and
which Paul utilized as the foundation on which to build his more advanced and
enlightening cult of Christianity.
Philo was a great teacher; not since Moses had there lived a man who exerted
such a profound influence on the ethical and religious thought of the
Occidental world. In the matter of the combination of the better elements in
contemporane-
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ous systems of ethical and religious teachings, there have been seven
outstanding human teachers: Sethard, Moses, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, Buddha, Philo,
and Paul.
Many, but not all, of Philo's inconsistencies resulting from an effort to
combine Greek mystical philosophy and Roman Stoic doctrines with the legalistic
theology of the Hebrews, Paul recognized and wisely eliminated from his
pre-Christian basic theology. Philo led the way for Paul more fully to restore
the concept of the Paradise Trinity, which had long been dormant in Jewish
theology. In only one matter did Paul fail to keep pace with Philo or to
transcend the teachings of this wealthy and educated Jew of Alexandria, and
that was the doctrine of the atonement; Philo taught deliverance from the
doctrine of forgiveness only by the shedding of blood. He also possibly
glimpsed the reality and presence of the Thought Adjusters more clearly than
did Paul. But Paul's theory of original sin, the doctrines of hereditary guilt
and innate evil and redemption therefrom, was partially Mithraic in origin,
having little in common with Hebrew theology, Philo's philosophy, or Jesus'
teachings. Some phases of Paul's teachings regarding original sin and the
atonement were original with himself.
The Gospel of John, the last of the narratives of Jesus' earth life, was
addressed to the Western peoples and presents its story much in the light of
the viewpoint of the later Alexandrian Christians, who were also disciples of
the teachings of Philo.
At about the time of Christ a strange reversion of feeling toward the Jews
occurred in Alexandria, and from this former Jewish stronghold there went forth
a virulent wave of persecution, extending even to Rome, from which many
thousands were banished. But such a campaign of misrepresentation was
short-lived; very soon the imperial government fully restored the curtailed
liberties of the Jews throughout the empire.
Throughout the whole wide world, no matter where the Jews found themselves
dispersed by commerce or oppression, all with one accord kept their hearts
centered on the holy temple at Jerusalem. Jewish theology did survive as it was
interpreted and practiced at Jerusalem, notwithstanding that it was several
times saved from oblivion by the timely intervention of certain Babylonian
teachers.
As many as two and one-half million of these dispersed Jews used to come to
Jerusalem for the celebration of their national religious festivals. And no
matter what the theologic or philosophic differences of the Eastern
(Babylonian) and the Western (Hellenic) Jews, they were all agreed on Jerusalem
as the center of their worship and in ever looking forward to the coming of the
Messiah.
7. JEWS AND GENTILES
By the times of Jesus the Jews had arrived at a settled concept of their
origin, history, and destiny. They had built up a rigid wall of separation
between themselves and the gentile world; they looked upon all gentile ways
with utter contempt. They worshiped the letter of the law and indulged a form
of self-righteousness based upon the false pride of descent. They had formed
preconceived notions regarding the promised Messiah, and most of these
expectations envisaged a Messiah who would come as a part of their national and
racial history. To the Hebrews of those days Jewish theology was irrevocably
settled, forever fixed.
The teachings and practices of Jesus regarding tolerance and kindness ran
counter to the long-standing attitude of the Jews toward other peoples whom
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they considered heathen. For generations the Jews had nourished an attitude
toward the outside world which made it impossible for them to accept the
Master's teachings about the spiritual brotherhood of man. They were unwilling
to share Yahweh on equal terms with the gentiles and were likewise unwilling to
accept as the Son of God one who taught such new and strange doctrines.
The scribes, the Pharisees, and the priesthood held the Jews in a terrible
bondage of ritualism and legalism, a bondage far more real than that of the
Roman political rule. The Jews of Jesus' time were not only held in subjugation
to the law but were equally bound by the slavish demands of the traditions,
which involved and invaded every domain of personal and social life. These
minute regulations of conduct pursued and dominated every loyal Jew, and it is
not strange that they promptly rejected one of their number who presumed to
ignore their sacred traditions, and who dared to flout their long-honored
regulations of social conduct. They could hardly regard with favor the
teachings of one who did not hestitate to clash with dogmas which they regarded
as having been ordained by Father Abraham himself. Moses had given them their
law and they would not compromise.
By the time of the first century after Christ the spoken interpretation of the
law by the recognized teachers, the scribes, had become a higher authority than
the written law itself. And all this made it easier for certain religious
leaders of the Jews to array the people against the acceptance of a new gospel.
These circumstances rendered it impossible for the Jews to fulfill their divine
destiny as messengers of the new gospel of religious freedom and spiritual
liberty. They could not break the fetters of tradition. Jeremiah had told of
the "law to be written in men's hearts," Ezekiel had spoken of a "new spirit to
live in man's soul," and the Psalmist had prayed that God would "create a clean
heart within and renew a right spirit." But when the Jewish religion of good
works and slavery to law fell victim to the stagnation of traditionalistic
inertia, the motion of religious evolution passed westward to the European
peoples.
And so a different people were called upon to carry an advancing theology to
the world, a system of teaching embodying the philosophy of the Greeks, the law
of the Romans, the morality of the Hebrews, and the gospel of personality
sanctity and spiritual liberty formulated by Paul and based on the teachings of
Jesus.
Paul's cult of Christianity exhibited its morality as a Jewish birthmark. The
Jews viewed history as the providence of God--Yahweh at work. The Greeks
brought to the new teaching clearer concepts of the eternal life. Paul's
doctrines were influenced in theology and philosophy not only by Jesus'
teachings but also by Plato and Philo. In ethics he was inspired not only by
Christ but also by the Stoics.
The gospel of Jesus, as it was embodied in Paul's cult of Antioch Christianity,
became blended with the following teachings:
1. The philosophic reasoning of the Greek proselytes to Judaism, including some
of their concepts of the eternal life.
2. The appealing teachings of the prevailing mystery cults, especially the
Mithraic doctrines of redemption, atonement, and salvation by the sacrifice
made by some god.
3. The sturdy morality of the established Jewish religion.
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The Mediterranean Roman Empire, the Parthian kingdom, and the adjacent peoples
of Jesus' time all held crude and primitive ideas regarding the geography of
the world, astronomy, health, and disease; and naturally they were amazed by
the new and startling pronouncements of the carpenter of Nazareth. The ideas of
spirit possession, good and bad, applied not merely to human beings, but every
rock and tree was viewed by many as being spirit possessed. This was an
enchanted age, and everybody believed in miracles as commonplace occurrences.
8. PREVIOUS WRITTEN RECORDS
As far as possible, consistent with our mandate, we have endeavored to utilize
and to some extent co-ordinate the existing records having to do with the life
of Jesus on Urantia. Although we have enjoyed access to the lost record of the
Apostle Andrew and have benefited from the collaboration of a vast host of
celestial beings who were on earth during the times of Michael's bestowal
(notably his now Personalized Adjuster), it has been our purpose also to make
use of the so-called Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
These New Testament records had their origin in the following circumstances:
1. The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the earliest (excepting the notes of
Andrew), briefest, and most simple record of Jesus' life. He presented the
Master as a minister, as man among men. Although Mark was a lad lingering about
many of the scenes which he depicts, his record is in reality the Gospel
according to Simon Peter. He was early associated with Peter; later with Paul.
Mark wrote this record at the instigation of Peter and on the earnest petition
of the church at Rome. Knowing how consistently the Master refused to write out
his teachings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apostles and other
leading disciples, was hesitant to put them in writing. But Peter felt the
church at Rome required the assistance of such a written narrative, and Mark
consented to undertake its preparation. He made many notes before Peter died in
A.D. 67, and in accordance with the outline approved by Peter and for the
church at Rome, he began his writing soon after Peter's death. The Gospel was
completed near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote entirely from his own memory and
Peter's memory. The record has since been considerably changed, numerous
passages having been taken out and some later matter added at the end to
replace the latter one fifth of the original Gospel, which was lost from the
first manuscript before it was ever copied. This record by Mark, in conjunction
with Andrew's and Matthew's notes, was the written basis of all subsequent
Gospel narratives which sought to portray the life and teachings of Jesus.
2. The Gospel of Matthew. The so-called Gospel according to Matthew is the
record of the Master's life which was written for the edification of Jewish
Christians. The author of this record constantly seeks to show in Jesus' life
that much which he did was that "it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet." Matthew's Gospel portrays Jesus as a son of David, picturing him as
showing great respect for the law and the prophets.
The Apostle Matthew did not write this Gospel. It was written by Isador, one of
his disciples, who had as a help in his work not only Matthew's personal
top of page - 1342
remembrance of these events but also a certain record which the latter had made
of the sayings of Jesus directly after the crucifixion. This record by Matthew
was written in Aramaic; Isador wrote in Greek. There was no intent to deceive
in accrediting the production to Matthew. It was the custom in those days for
pupils thus to honor their teachers.
Matthew's original record was edited and added to in A.D. 40 just before he
left Jerusalem to engage in evangelistic preaching. It was a private record,
the last copy having been destroyed in the burning of a Syrian monastery in
A.D. 416.
Isador escaped from Jerusalem in A.D. 70 after the investment of the city by
the armies of Titus, taking with him to Pella a copy of Matthew's notes. In the
year 71, while living at Pella, Isador wrote the Gospel according to Matthew.
He also had with him the first four fifths of Mark's narrative.
3. The Gospel by Luke. Luke, the physician of Antioch in Pisidia, was a gentile
convert of Paul, and he wrote quite a different story of the Master's life. He
began to follow Paul and learn of the life and teachings of Jesus in A.D. 47.
Luke preserves much of the "grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" in his record as he
gathered up these facts from Paul and others. Luke presents the Master as "the
friend of publicans and sinners." He did not formulate his many notes into the
Gospel until after Paul's death. Luke wrote in the year 82 in Achaia. He
planned three books dealing with the history of Christ and Christianity but
died in A.D. 90 just before he finished the second of these works, the "Acts of
the Apostles."
As material for the compilation of his Gospel, Luke first depended upon the
story of Jesus' life as Paul had related it to him. Luke's Gospel is,
therefore, in some ways the Gospel according to Paul. But Luke had other
sources of information. He not only interviewed scores of eyewitnesses to the
numerous episodes of Jesus' life which he records, but he also had with him a
copy of Mark's Gospel, that is, the first four fifths, Isador's narrative, and
a brief record made in the year A.D. 78 at Antioch by a believer named Cedes.
Luke also had a mutilated and much-edited copy of some notes purported to have
been made by the Apostle Andrew.
4. The Gospel of John. The Gospel according to John relates much of Jesus' work
in Judea and around Jerusalem which is not contained in the other records. This
is the so-called Gospel according to John the son of Zebedee, and though John
did not write it, he did inspire it. Since its first writing it has several
times been edited to make it appear to have been written by John himself. When
this record was made, John had the other Gospels, and he saw that much had been
omitted; accordingly, in the year A.D. 101 he encouraged his associate, Nathan,
a Greek Jew from Caesarea, to begin the writing. John supplied his material
from memory and by reference to the three records already in existence. He had
no written records of his own. The Epistle known as "First John" was written by
John himself as a covering letter for the work which Nathan executed under his
direction.
All these writers presented honest pictures of Jesus as they saw, remembered,
or had learned of him, and as their concepts of these distant events were
affected by their subsequent espousal of Paul's theology of Christianity. And
these records, imperfect as they are, have been sufficient to change the course
of the history of Urantia for almost two thousand years.
top of page - 1343
[Acknowledgment: In carrying out my commission to restate the teachings and
retell the doings of Jesus of Nazareth, I have drawn freely upon all sources of
record and planetary information. My ruling motive has been to prepare a record
which will not only be enlightening to the generation of men now living, but
which may also be helpful to all future generations. From the vast store of
information made available to me, I have chosen that which is best suited to
the accomplishment of this purpose. As far as possible I have derived my
information from purely human sources. Only when such sources failed, have I
resorted to those records which are superhuman. When ideas and concepts of
Jesus' life and teachings have been acceptably expressed by a human mind, I
invariably gave preference to such apparently human thought patterns. Although
I have sought to adjust the verbal expression the better to conform to our
concept of the real meaning and the true import of the Master's life and
teachings, as far as possible, I have adhered to the actual human concept and
thought pattern in all my narratives. I well know that those concepts which
have had origin in the human mind will prove more acceptable and helpful to all
other human minds. When unable to find the necessary concepts in the human
records or in human expressions, I have next resorted to the memory resources
of my own order of earth creatures, the midwayers. And when that secondary
source of information proved inadequate, I have unhesitatingly resorted to the
superplanetary sources of information.
The memoranda which I have collected, and from which I have prepared this
narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus--aside from the memory of the
record of the Apostle Andrew--embrace thought gems and superior concepts of
Jesus' teachings assembled from more than two thousand human beings who have
lived on earth from the days of Jesus down to the time of the inditing of these
revelations, more correctly restatements. The revelatory permission has been
utilized only when the human record and human concepts failed to supply an
adequate thought pattern. My revelatory commission forbade me to resort to
extrahuman sources of either information or expression until such a time as I
could testify that I had failed in my efforts to find the required conceptual
expression in purely human sources.
While I, with the collaboration of my eleven associate fellow midwayers and
under the supervision of the Melchizedek of record, have portrayed this
narrative in accordance with my concept of its effective arrangement and in
response to my choice of immediate expression, nevertheless, the majority of
the ideas and even some of the effective expressions which I have thus utilized
had their origin in the minds of the men of many races who have lived on earth
during the intervening generations, right on down to those who are still alive
at the time of this undertaking. In many ways I have served more as a collector
and editor than as an original narrator. I have unhesitatingly appropriated
those ideas and concepts, preferably human, which would enable me to create the
most effective portraiture of Jesus' life, and which would qualify me to
restate his matchless teachings in the most strikingly helpful and universally
uplifting phraseology. In behalf of the Brotherhood of the United Midwayers of
Urantia, I most gratefully acknowledge our indebtedness to all sources of
record and concept which have been hereinafter utilized in the further
elaboration of our restatement of Jesus' life on earth.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART IV: The Life and Teachings
of Jesus : The Bestowal Of Michael On Urantia The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
Birth And Infancy Of Jesus The Early Childhood Of Jesus The Later Childhood Of
Jesus Jesus At Jerusalem The Two Crucial Years The Adolescent Years Jesus'
Early Manhood The Later Adult Life Of Jesus On The Way To Rome The World's
Religions The Sojourn At Rome The Return From Rome The Transition Years John
The Baptist Baptism And The Forty Days Tarrying Time In Galilee Training The
Kingdom's Messengers The Twelve Apostles The Ordination Of The Twelve Beginning
The Public Work The Passover At Jerusalem Going Through Samaria At Gilboa And
In The Decapolis Four Eventful Days At Capernaum First Preaching Tour Of
Galilee The Interlude Visit To Jerusalem Training Evangelists At Bethsaida The
Second Preaching Tour The Third Preaching Tour Tarrying And Teaching By The
Seaside Events Leading Up To The Capernaum Crisis The Crisis At Capernaum Last
Days At Capernaum Fleeing Through Northern Galilee The Sojourn At Tyre And
Sidon At Caesarea-philippi The Mount Of Transfiguration The Decapolis Tour
Rodan Of Alexandria Further Discussions With Rodan At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Ordination Of The Seventy At Magadan At The Feast Of Dedication The Perean
Mission Begins Last Visit To Northern Perea The Visit To Philadelphia The
Resurrection Of Lazarus Last Teaching At Pella The Kingdom Of Heaven On The Way
To Jerusalem Going Into Jerusalem Monday In Jerusalem Tuesday Morning In The
Temple The Last Temple Discourse Tuesday Evening On Mount Olivet Wednesday, The
Rest Day Last Day At The Camp The Last Supper The Farewell Discourse Final
Admonitions And Warnings In Gethsemane The Betrayal And Arrest Of Jesus Before
The Sanhedrin Court The Trial Before Pilate Just Before The Crucifixion The
Crucifixion The Time Of The Tomb The Resurrection Morontia Appearances Of Jesus
Appearances To The Apostles And Other Leaders Appearances In Galilee Final
Appearances And Ascension Bestowal Of The Spirit Of Truth After Pentecost The
Faith Of Jesus
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