© 2008 Jean Royer
© 2008 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Here is an extract of text on the sources of the UB consulted and analyzed by Matthew Block. The text is originally in two columns, here in four to have at the same time the original and the translation. The translation of Bundy’s text is mine. I tried to respect the bolding and the underlining without completely succeeding.
The following represents the parallels between [part of] page 208 of Bundy’s The Religion of Jesus and page 2089 of The Urantia Book. I have bolded some shared words and underlined significant differences.
see table on opposite page
Comment from Matthew Block:
In comparing the two texts, I will deal with two things: the content and the form. [Editor’s note: Here, for technical language reasons, we will only deal with the content.]
The Bottom Line: To Bundy, Jesus is the most religious man who ever lived. Jesus’ religious life is exemplary because he is essentially and exclusively religious. Bundy maintains that Jesus was not God, not the Son of God, not God-man. His most characteristic trait was neither self-control, perfection of character, nor attunement to divinity. Rather, in Bundy’s view, Jesus was, throughout his life, subject to the same struggles and weaknesses as the rest of humanity. The excellence of his religious life lay solely in his constant and absolute devotion to doing the will of God as he tried to understand it.
The Urantia Book does not endorse this understanding of Jesus’ nature and only partially shares his interpretation of Jesus’ spiritual attainments. Variations in the parallels indicate some of these fundamental differences. Some of Bundy’s descriptions, such as ‘need,’ ‘liberation,’ ‘relief,’ ‘conquest,’ ‘restoration,’ etc., indicate a Jesus still chronically subject to mood swings and ebbs and flows in faith. The UB cleverly replaces these terms to show Jesus’ prayer life as an expression of his triumphant faith and a validation of his self-mastery.
Translator’s comment.
Despite the fact that the translation makes the parallel more difficult, it seems indubitable that Matthew Block has, here, put his finger on a text which directly served as the basis for the text of the UB, but we can also see the difference between the original and the Urantian version. This is undoubtedly what also makes the difference between the text of a J.J. Benitez and the original version of the UB. Where the UB improves the text, Benitez depreciates it.
Translation by Jean Royer
