© 1995 Ken Glasziou
© 1995 The Brotherhood of Man Library
There are more than one hundred and sixty items of archaeological interest—place names or information about places and people—contained in Part 4 of The Urantia Book. The revelators state that their mandate required that they use human sources whenever possible. For Part 4 more than 2000 such sources have been used. (UB 121:8.13) It follows that we may be able to discover many of the sources of archaeological information in Part 4 that pertain to first century Palestine. Over the years, a number of Urantia Book readers have taken an interest in locating these sources.
For many readers, the spiritual and cosmic truths of The Urantia Book are self-authenticating, and the factuality of its materialistic content is of little consequence. But there are others, in particular new or casual readers, who have yet to attain the necessary degree of confidence in the ministry of the Spirit of Truth enabling them to embrace, in faith, the spiritual and cosmological truths revealed in the book. It is for these people that attention needs to be drawn to the predictive science component of The Urantia Book, as well as the wealth of its archeological and historical content that, at the very least, required an enormous input of time and effort to extract and verify from obscure and difficult-to-obtain source materials.
Assertions have been made that the text of The Urantia Book was channeled, perhaps by Wilfred Kellogg, and later edited by Dr. Sadler. Our current research shows that the authors (hypothetical or otherwise) were extremely well versed in the history and content of the Old Testament, had a profound knowledge of the archaeology of first century and Old Testament Palestine, a first hand knowledge of the terrain of parts of Galilee, and a detailed geographical, sociological, and historical knowledge of both the Roman Empire and Palestine itself.
Rather than being the nocturnal meanderings of an unconscious human mind, we perceive Part 4 of The Urantia Book as being an unsurpassed exposition of historical, ideological, and spiritual realities associated with the life of Jesus, the description of which is commensurate with the highest levels of scholarship embracing a wide diversity of fields of knowledge.
The quality of the textual material of Part 4 is surely indicative of the dedication and sincerity of its authors. Curiously though, it appears to describe its own version of the life and teachings of Jesus as bequeathing to the universe an inspirational and idealistic inheritance suitable for the spiritual guidance and moral instruction of all ages on all worlds, then goes on to add that the teachings it describes stand apart from all religions and, as such, are the living hope of every one of them. (UB 140:8.29) Coming from human authors, such statements would usually be taken as a sign of deranged and deluded minds.
In future issues of Innerface, we will provide an index of archaeological material and also articles on items of interest concerning Part 4 of The Urantia Book. Perhaps these will aid hestitant readers to decide for themselves whether Part 4 could have been the product of unconscious, deranged, or insincere human minds.
The article that follows concerns the location of Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee. To gather the necessary information about places such as Tarichea, human authors could not have been unaware that the exact location of Tarichea was a matter of considerable dispute. Hence such authors would have had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by even referring to a definite location, which is what they have done. From the available evidence, we think that there was a Tarichea as identified in the book. However, over the period under consideration it is also quite possible that the name, Tarichea, became associated with more than one location on the Sea of Galilee.