Urantia21: A Restatement of The Urantia Book for the 21st Century

Jesus, the apostles, and some of the former followers of John, spent about two months travelling around Galilee on this preaching tour. “This was the first time Jesus permitted these associates to preach without restraint, on this tour cautioning them to remain away from Nazareth and to be discreet when passing through Capernaum and Tiberias. It was a source of great satisfaction to the apostles t...

“Now that John the Baptist had been executed, Jesus prepared to launch out into the first open and public preaching tour of Galilee.” Jesus taught in the Capernaum synagogue during their visit there, using the Hebrew scriptures to illustrate the message. It was also a time when a large number of people came to be healed of their infirmities by Jesus. The fame of this healing “spread throughout all...

”There were a number of reasons why Jesus and the apostles were in retirement at this time on the borders of Samaria and the Decapolis. The Jerusalem religious rulers were very antagonistic; Herod Antipas still held John in prison, continuing to entertain suspicions that John and Jesus were in some way associated. These conditions made it unwise to plan for aggressive work in either Judea or Galil...

“For more than six hundred years the Jews of Judea, and later on those of Galilee also, had been hostile to the Samaritans.” “The religious hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans dated from the return of the former from the Babylonian captivity, when the Samaritans worked to prevent the rebuilding of Jerusalem.” “The antagonisms between the Jews and the Samaritans were time-honored and hist...

“Throughout this month Jesus or one of the apostles taught each day in the temple. When the Passover crowds were too great to find entrance to the temple teaching, the apostles conducted many teaching groups outside the sacred precincts.” “The multitudes who came to celebrate the Passover heard this teaching of Jesus, and hundreds of them gladly received it.” “Besides teaching in and about the tem...

Jesus and the apostles spent more than two weeks teaching and preaching to several hundred people who had gathered near them. “Jesus did no public preaching. Andrew divided the multitude and assigned the preachers for the morning and afternoon assemblies. After the evening meal Jesus talked with the twelve, teaching them nothing new but reviewing former teaching and answering their many questions....

Jesus told the twelve, “Now that you are ambassadors of the Creator’s realm, you have become a class separate and distinct from all other people on earth. You are not now as mortals among mortals but as the enlightened citizens of another realm among the creatures of this dark world. It is not enough that you live as you were before this time, but you must now live as those who have tasted the glo...

“The apostles learned from Jesus about the realm of the Creator, and Jesus learned much from them about the realm of mortals, human nature as it lives on Urantia and on the other evolutionary worlds of time and space. These twelve represented many different types of human temperament...” “Do not make the mistake of regarding the apostles as being altogether ignorant and unlearned.” “When your reco...

“Until after the resurrection, Jesus’ entire family had very little to do with the public ministry.” As for the six apostles, Jesus directed them “...to go out, two and two, to teach the glad tidings of the new age. Jesus forbade them to baptize and advised against public preaching, going on to explain that later they would be permitted to preach in public, but that for a while, and for many reaso...

After the period of isolation, Jesus returned and began the work of choosing the apostles, starting with Andrew and Peter, who had been followers of John, and also including James and John Zebedee. “...the term apostle was employed to distinguish the chosen family of Jesus’ advisers from the vast multitude of believing disciples who subsequently became followers.” Two more apostles, Philip and Nat...

“Jesus began public work at the height of the popular interest in John’s preaching and at a time when the Jewish people of Palestine were eagerly looking for the appearance of the Messiah.” “In the days of John and Jesus the more learned Jews had developed an idea of the coming Messiah as the perfected and representative Israelite, combining the threefold office of prophet, priest, and ruler.” “Th...

This paper tells the story of John, the cousin of Jesus, who was selected to become the herald of Jesus’ bestowal mission. John grew up knowing that there was a significant role to be played in that mission, and spent years studying the sacred writings to determine what that role might be. Finally, John settled on a method of proclaiming a new age, accepted the role of announcing the arrival of Je...

“During the Mediterranean journey Jesus had made a careful study of the people and the countries ...encountered, and at about this time reached a final decision as to the remainder of the bestowal mission. Jesus had fully considered and now finally approved the plan to be born of Jewish parents in Palestine, and therefore deliberately returned to Galilee to await the start of a career as a public...

The trip to Rome marked a “chapter in the life of the incarnated Local Universe Creator which might be termed:  The mission of Joshua the teacher. When a year had gone by after the departure from Rome, “...small groups of those who had known Jesus found themselves drawn together by their common interest in the new teachings and through mutual memory of their good times together. And these small gr...

This paper provides greater detail about Jesus’ time in Rome. “At this time the Roman Empire included all of southern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and northwest Africa; and its inhabitants embraced the citizens of every country of the Eastern Hemisphere. The desire to study and mingle with this cosmopolitan aggregation of Urantia mortals was the chief reason why Jesus consented to make this j...

For the full text of this paper it is necessary to read it in the original version of The Urantia Book . Those “writings portraying monotheism were largely derived, directly or indirectly, from the teachings of the missionaries of Machiventa Melchizedek, who went out from their Salem headquarters to spread the doctrine of the Most High to the ends of the earth.” Those teachings were carefully sele...

The Urantia Book provides an account of a time in Jesus’ life in which almost two years was spent touring the Roman world, learning about the various elements of that broader civilization and sharing advanced teachings along the way, laying “the foundation for the quick reception of the later teachings when the first missionaries from Jerusalem arrived.” This trip was also an opportunity for Jesus...

“Jesus had fully and finally become separated from the management of the domestic affairs of the Nazareth family and from the immediate direction of its individuals, although continuing right up to the event of the baptism to contribute to the family finances and to take a keen personal interest in the spiritual welfare of every member of the family. And Jesus was always ready to do everything hum...

“With the attainment of adult years Jesus began in earnest and with full self-consciousness the task of completing the experience of mastering the knowledge of the life of the lowest form of intelligent creatures, thereby finally and fully earning the right of unqualified rulership of the universe. Jesus entered this stupendous task with the full realization of having a dual nature, but had alread...

“Jesus, upon entering the adolescent years, became the head and sole support of a large family. Within a few years after Joseph’s death all their property was gone. As time passed, Jesus became increasingly conscious of having a pre-existence, and at the same time began to understand that the reason for being present on earth was for the express purpose of revealing the Paradise Creator to mortals...

“Of all Jesus’ earth-life experiences, the fourteenth and fifteenth years were the most crucial. These two years, after initially becoming self-conscious of divinity and destiny and before achieving a large measure of communication with the indwelling Adjuster, were the most trying. It is this period of two years which should be called the great test, the real temptation. No human youth, in passin...

Jesus, when almost thirteen years old, went with the family to Jerusalem to participate in the celebration of the Passover. “No incident in all Jesus’ eventful earth career was more engaging, more humanly thrilling, than this first remembered visit to Jerusalem. Jesus was especially stimulated by the experience of attending the temple discussions alone, and it stood out as the great event of Jesus...

At Nazareth, Jesus “had such a splendid environment for working out life problems with a minimum of educational guidance, at the same time enjoying the great advantage of constantly contacting with such a large number of all classes of people coming from every part of the civilized world.” This paper tells the story of Jesus’ life starting at age nine and ending just before turning thirteen, a per...

Because Mary had been told about Jesus’ having a special role to play in the spiritual progress of the planet, “[all] through these early years of Jesus’ helpless infancy, Mary maintained one long and constant vigil in case anything should happen to the child which might jeopardize the welfare or in any way interfere with the future mission of Jesus on earth...” This paper tells the story of Jesus...

This paper tells the story of the events leading to, and culminating in, the birth of Jesus. Because it is being told by those who were actually there at the time, it contains many details that are missing from the human documentation of the same period, corroborating some and correcting others. It includes the criteria involved in the selection of the location on the planet and the choice of Jesu...