© 1994 Matt Neibaur
© 1994 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
In 1572, a former professor of law from Bologna named Ugo Buoncompagni became Pope Gregory XIII; ten years later the Gregorian calendar was introduced. The Julian calendar, founded sixteen centuries earlier by Julius Caesar, was inaccurate and the need for reform was widely recognized. Its principal failure was the discrepancy between the mean length of its year, 365.25 days, and the tropical year, the average interval between successive transits of the apparent sun through the vernal equinox. By the time of the Gregorian reform, the error had grown to eleven days. Understandably, this was of concern to the Pope; if the calendar had continued unchanged, Easter would eventually be celebrated in the summer.
The attempts at reform set off a wide range of debates, both academic and religious. At one point excommunication was threatened by the Pope against anyone who refused to accept the new calendar. Protestants were understandably leery since Gregory the XIII was a vigorous, if not ruthless, promoter of the Counter Reformation. He accepted the head of the leader of the French Huguenots after the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, a blood bath that the pope celebrated as a Catholic victory, ordering a medal struck in its commemoration. In essence the calendar reform was accomplished by deleting 10 days and suppressing three leap years for every 400 years. The reform was put into effect by following Thursday, October 4, 1582 by Friday, October 15, and the suppression of all centurial years not evenly divided by 400 . This simple alteration of the Julian Calendar is so effective that not a single day will be lost in over 2000 years. The details and controversies created by the reform are presented beautifully by Gordon Moyer in, “The Gregorian Calendar,” Scientific American, May 1982.
Dates and weekdays are listed unequivocally. Is there any way to check on these dates? Was April 14, A.D. 2 really a Friday as stated? Would it make any difference if the dates and weekdays did not correlate? Will The Urantia Book have the same impact if major discrepancies are discovered?
Readers of The Urantia Book should find the calendar reform and methods of measuring time interesting. In part IV, The Life and Teachings of Jesus, many references to dates are given. Dates and weekdays are listed unequivocally. Is there any way to check on these dates? Was April 14, A.D. 2 really a Friday as stated? Would it make any difference if the dates and weekdays did not correlate? Will The Urantia Book have the same impact if major discrepancies are discovered?
Sometime in the fall of 1987 I set out to check these dates. Using information obtained from the book, Astronomical Formulae for Calculators by Jean Meeus, a program was written to calculate dates and weekdays. The program takes into account the Gregorian calendar reform. All dates are first converted to Julian Day numbers, and the results are divided by seven to obtain weekdays from the remainder. In this way a calendar was generated.
I remember entering the first set of numbers, 4 / 14 / 2, into my computer. The machine went to work as I stared at the blank screen. Would I be disappointed? Would my religious experience still be valid if the dates didn’t work out? Should my belief in God be based on a mathematical function? Maybe the equation is wrong? All of these thoughts racing through my mind vanished in a flash — FRIDAY — popped up on the screen. Elation! It was right! I found another date and entered it. Ditto! The right day popped up. I repeated it several more times. They all checked out — all eight of them. Relieved, I turned off my computer; the order of my little universe was still secure.
Acknowledging the difficulty of guessing several hundred dates, skeptics would likely argue fraud and deceit. But how does such a conspiracy of fraud remain concealed? Why would such conspirators wish such a hoax on their own children or spouse? And on a philosophical level, how could such a foundation of fraud and deceit give birth to the lofty ideals and values encountered in The Urantia Book?
But how secure should I feel? What did I prove? Could someone have gotten those dates and plugged them into the book? Of course, it was possible. Martin Gardner, of Skeptical Inquirer, argues that this is precisely how they got there. After doing my first computer search, I later discovered various algorithms to generate these dates. The 1911 Scholars edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica shows such an algorithm. I’ve even seen one in The Farmer’s Almanac, though I’m not sure how accurate it was. I’ve also heard of certain gifted people that have unusual abilities that include the ability to calculate a weekday for any given date.
Upon reflection, knowing that these dates check out is useful information. It puts certain constraints on what we can say concerning the origins of The Urantia Book. Could a counterfeit channeler have made so many lucky guesses? Acknowledging the difficulty of guessing several hundred dates, skeptics would likely argue fraud and deceit. But how does such a conspiracy of fraud remain concealed? Why would such conspirators wish such a hoax on their own children or spouse? And on a philosophical level, how could such a foundation of fraud and deceit give birth to the lofty ideals and values encountered in The Urantia Book?
So what did I prove? I simply verified a static fact in The Urantia Book. Nothing more, nothing less. There are implications to be sure. The Urantia Book is internally consistent, at least from the perspective of the calendar. All of the verifiable weekdays and dates have now been checked and found to be accurate.
So what did I prove? I simply verified a static fact in The Urantia Book. Nothing more, nothing less. There are implications to be sure. The Urantia Book is internally consistent, at least from the perspective of the calendar. All of the verifiable weekdays and dates have now been checked and found to be accurate
Does this prove the truth of The Urantia Book? Emphatically, No! In the words of Jesus, “Truth cannot be defined with words, only by living.” Just as scientific facts should be poked and tested on the touchstone of our external, intellectual experience, the spiritual truths must be explored on the touchstone of our inner religious experience.
[Addendum: Dr. Neibaur has done further research on the Star of Bethlehem. The major assumption is that it was the planetary conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. Johnnes Kepler, after discovering the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Pisces a few days before Christmas in 1603, calculated backward and discovered a similar conjunction(s) in 7 B.C. Kepler was not the first to describe this. In 1977, David H. Clark described a similar assertion in English church annals dating from A.D. 1285.
Various scholars and scientists have been involved in this research. Among them are Bryant Tuckerman (1962), the scientists at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1976), and Roger W. Sinnott (1986). The most accurate calculations recognized today date these Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions as occurring on May 29, September 29, and December 5. The Urantia Book dates are May 29, September 30, and December 5.
Although The Urantia Book record predates this modern research, it should be observed that C. Pritchard, in 1856, refined the work of Kepler and produced dates which were later used in planetariums for Christmas programs. These dates, including the crucifixion date, were almost identical to those in The Urantia Book text, and were available at the Chicago planetarium in 1949.]
Dr.Matthew Neibaur is an Internal Medicine physician and long time student of The Urantia Book.