© 1996 Richard Jernigan, Lauri_Korpelainen, Suzanne Kelly, Emmanuel Lou, William Wentworth, Carole Jett, Torsti Äärelä
© 1996 International Urantia Association (IUA)
A QUARTERLY NEWS JOURNAL AND MAGAZINE OF THE IUA
Issue No 2-1996: (1) The Remarkable Ikhnaton; (3) Mary’s Sister Mary; (5) Methinkus to Agnosticus on the Reality of God; (8) Lao Shou Hsing—God of Longevity; (9) The Family; (11) Channeling; (11) Waiting for a New John the Baptist
¶ In This Issue
- The Remarkable Ikhnaton — Richard Jernigan, USA
- Mary’s Sister Mary — Lauri_Korpelainen, Finland
- Methinkus to Agnosticus on the Reality of God — Suzanne Kelly, USA
- Lao Shou Hsing—God of Longevity — Emmanuel Lou, Tahiti
- The Family — William Wentworth, Australia
- Channeling — Carole Jett, USA
- Observing the World While Waiting for a New John the Baptist — Torsti Äärelä, Finland
¶ The Remarkable Ikhnaton
Richard Jernigan
Dallas, Texas, USA
Few figures of ancient times stir up as much passion and controversy among historians as the Egyptian pharaoh Ikhnaton. The URANTIA Book calls him “the remarkable Ikhnaton,” credits him with writing twelve Psalms preserved in the Old Testament, and states that his subsequent followers influenced Moses (UB 95:5.1-UB 95:6.4). Still later, The URANTIA Book describes how a small group of Ikhnaton’s descendants presented the child Jesus’ parents with a complete copy of the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures during their stay in Alexandria (UB 123:0.3).
The URANTIA Book’s assessment of Ikhnaton’s influence on the history of religion has inspired this summary of how historians, archeologists, and Biblical scholars regard this intriguing pharaoh.
¶ Mary’s Sister Mary
Lauri Korpelainen
Helsinki, Finland
Close by Jesus’ cross were standing his mother and her sister as well as Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. (Translated from the latest version of the Finnish Bible.)
This piece of text, some two thousand years old, is an unceremonial record of the four women who witnessed Jesus’ death on the cross. In its emotional charge it must be one of the most thrilling single verses in the New Testament. Of the four evangelists, only John was able to tell us that near the cross there were Jesus’ mother and her sister, and that present was also his “most beloved disciple.”
It is somewhat embarrassing that this emotionally charged verse of the Fourth Gospel (John 19:25) has proven to be very problematic for the Bible translators and the exegetists. The core of the problem is the original Greek text which is subject to multiple interpretations.
¶ Methinkus to Agnosticus on the Reality of God
Suzanne Kelly
Euless, Texas, USA
Methinkus is having a conversation with Agnosticus about the reality of God. Agnosticus is not convinced that there is such a thing as God and wants Methinkus to explain the understanding or revelation that led him to believe.
Agnosticus: I am still not personally convinced. Methinkus, how have you come to the conclusion that there is a God or Creator? What proof or explanation can you give me so that I may see the one you refer to as God to be a reality?
Methinkus: Well, Agnosticus, I must preface my explanation with a statement: to man, all things must have a beginning save only the ONE UNCAUSED—the primeval cause of causes. Is that not so?
Agnosticus: Yes.
Methinkus: Let us look at the fact that we, mankind, are self-realized. As my good friend says “I think- therefore I am.” Following that path let us now understand the connection of man’s mind and through its activity, our recognition of self.
¶ Lao Shou Hsing—God of Longevity
Emmanuel Lou
Tahiti
And Chinese tradition preserves the hazy record of the evolutionary past. UB 79:8.15
One of the gods of Chinese tradition is the God of Longevity. The Chinese people have an ardent desire for longevity whose divinity, Shou Lao, or, Shou Hsing, resides in the star Canopus in the constellation Argo.
Old-fashioned Chinese families, especially in diaspora, possessed a set of statues of eight immortals (Pa Hsien) which decorated the banquet table on anniversaries. It portrays two children on the backs of water buffaloes, whom they had dispatched to fetch the God of Longevity beyond the hills.
It is believed that this stellar divinity of long life descended to earth in human form. He is represented as a delightful old man with a high and dome-shaped forehead, armed with a rugged staff and bearing in the other hand a fruit from the tree of immortality. This fruit, a peach of immortality (p’ang t’ao) enjoys an enormous popularity in Chinese art. The peach is culled from a miraculous tree which blossoms once in three thousand years and only yields its fruit three thousand years after.
¶ The Family
William Wentworth
Towamba, New South Wales, Australia
It has become a cliché to point out that western civilisation is changing more rapidly as the years go by, and that the pace of change confuses and worries us. Many of the changes do not appear to be improvements. We are accelerating sideways, and The URANTIA Book predicts that [t]his secularistic human society, notwithstanding its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly disintegrating. UB 195:8.10. It certainly feels like it.
We are also informed that the foundations of civilisation are spiritual, and the only way to rehabilitate it is by renewed dedication of its citizens to live by true spiritual values. The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. UB 195:6.3. No social system or political regime which denies the reality of God can contribute in any constructive and lasting manner to the advancement of human civilization. UB 195:10.7. Intelligence may control the mechanism of civilization, wisdom may direct it, but spiritual idealism is the energy which really uplifts and advances human culture from one level of attainment to another. UB 81:6.27
¶ Channeling
Carole Jett
Los Angeles, California, USA
Let’s put this subject to rest, as in rest in peace, once and for all. The URANTIA Book does this so well. Among the so-called channelers and their devotees, there are individual differences, but the main premise that they all adhere to is as follows: The Lucifer rebellion has been adjudicated. Urantia is no longer under quarantine. Therefore, the channelers, individual human personalities, are now receiving messages from various beings, and this constitutes the restoration of the universal broadcasts. Broadcast is the key word here.
In Paper 67, “The Planetary Rebellion,” the subject of the interruption of the broadcasts is being discussed:
¶ Observing the World While Waiting for a New John the Baptist
Torsti Äärelä
Helsinki, Finland
Monopolies now find themselves in a state of dissolution. This is true of social, legislated monopolies as well as of practices which came into being through the exercise of spiritual tyranny. In the following, I shall discuss the shattering of the monopoly of the partaking of holiness. By this term I mean disregard for the imagined hegemony and special privileges of the priesthood. Such a disregard presumes a time when fearless men and women are going to create their own traditions and superimpose a new and better spirit and spiritual content upon the time-honoured feasts and ancient mores. The sacraments, founded on the dogma of the church, will likewise be disregarded. There will be an absence of a special caste of intermediaries between man and God.
Every justification for the monopoly of the partaking of holiness was shattered by Jesus’ lifework and his teachings, whose strength, though, will become manifest only after they have been brought to everyone’s knowledge:
¶ International URANTIA Association
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Any interpretations, opinions, conclusions, or artistic representations, whether stated or implied, are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the International URANTIA Association, the national or local URANTIA Associations, the Coordinating Committee, the Trustees of URANTIA Foundation, or the editors.
Quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from The URANTIA Book, © 1955 URANTIA Foundation.
The method of identifying quotations is the method used in The URANTIA Book Concordance, © 1993 URANTIA Foundation
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© 1996 International URANTIA Association