This unusually detailed book (with a 17-pp Table of Contents, a 3-pp Appendix, a 176-pp Index and a 5-pp Chronology) is Part IV of the 2100-pp Urantia Book by the Urantia Foundation. It was given to me by a friend from my church.

Here is a summary from its back cover: “Only 29 days of Jesus’ life are even partially described when the four Gospel narratives are overlaid. ‘Would you like to know more…? Such is the promise of this volume.’…’Is this a work of fiction? Or genuinely a new revelation? Whichever you conclude, this story is likely to affect you deeply, perhaps permanently.’…’This volume contains the final 78 Papers of The Urantia Book and a 9,300-entry Index...’ ‘Scan the Table of Contents or the Index for familiar episodes and see for yourself.’”

Now that certainly grabs your attention! But I felt that before I undertook to read a book of this nature and length, I first had to do a bit of research on The Urantia Book. The best, and probably the least biased, link I found in 2006 is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urantia, from which I took the following quote: ‘The Urantia Book has been enjoyed as a form of science fiction, historical fiction, or fantasy. The Urantia Book is noted for its high level of internal consistency and an advanced writing style. Even Gardner, in his critical book, writes that it is “highly imaginative” and that the “cosmology outrivals in fantasy the cosmology of any science-fiction work known to me.” Parts I, II, and III are chiefly written in expository language. The papers are informational, matter-of-fact, and instructional. Part IV of the book is written as a biography of Jesus’ life, and some feel it is a rich narrative with well-developed characters, high attention to detail, woven sub-plots, and realistic dialogue. Considered as literature, Part IV is favorably compared to other retellings of Jesus’ life, such as “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” by José Saramago and “Behold the Man” by Michael Moorcock. Skeptic Martin Gardner considers Part IV to be an especially “well-written, impressive work,” and says, “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.” ’

Considering it as literature (a work of fertile imagination), I found the book to be both fascinating and inspiring (whether or not one considers it fiction or revelation). {I believe it is fiction primarily because Paper 131: The World’s Religions (which covers 10 religions) does an exceedingly poor job in describing the religions – they are described so similarly that one could almost interchange the religious labels! This tells me that the author(s)’ great familiarity with the NT did not extend to knowledge of the world’s religions.} However, it is wonderful literature. With the author(s)’ skill in developing the characters and in composing a truly rich narrative, I became totally enthralled by the book. Except for Paper 131, I found it to be all one could hope for in a biography of Jesus’ life. It is much more than a historical narrative as it gives the inner thoughts of all the characters. This later aspect would lead to sharp criticism from traditional Christianity. To name just two such aspects, Jesus’ mother Mary’s role would greatly upset Catholics and Jesus’ 40 days in the desert (his decisions about how to do his ministry) are far from the canonical NT 40-day desert story. But the major criticism this book makes of traditional Christianity is that it failed to follow Jesus’ wishes for a religion about “the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” – instead the “religion of Jesus” was turned into a “religion about Jesus.” The form of Christian religion of the Urantia Foundation book is neither traditional nor fundamentalist and it does not readily fit any of the modern classifications – it is probably best to say it has its own unique and special worldview.

In this book Jesus tells his disciples and followers over-and-over-and-over again that he is here to bring about on earth a “kingdom of heaven” that is a spiritual kingdom to be had here and now on earth, and that he is not here as the expected Messiah to restore a physical Jewish kingdom in Judah. It is very poignant how often he tells them this, but they soon revert to expecting the later of him. This book succeeds very well in making you feel the disappointment Jesus must have felt at his disciples’ inability to understand what he was telling them. It is hard to point out only a few parts of this book that I found exceptionally insightful and inspiring, but here are some: the two Discourses on Religion in Paper 155:5-6; the Spirit of Truth in Paper 180:5; the meaning of and the lessons from The Cross in Paper 188:4-5. I was especially taken by the deep wisdom of Paper 170: The Kingdom of Heaven and the concluding Paper 196: The Faith of Jesus. I am very happy my friend gave me this book – I give it my highest recommendation – it has great uplifting, spiritual power that makes you think “real hard.” Whether it is fiction or revelation probably will remain an open question, perhaps answered when more becomes known about its creators.