© 2005 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
Is it possible that a new spiritual revelation has been transmitted to humanity in this era? In our current world invaded by megabytes and cyberspaces, where truly believing that angels exist has become something unusual?
This novel recreates the life of Jesus of Nazareth inspired by The Urantia Book, a book that was first published in 1955, and from which numerous translations have been made. Since January 2006, the original English edition is a public domain document and can be consulted at www.urantia.org.
The Urantia Book claims in its text to be a message sent by various types of angels to our civilization in order to clarify and expand our spiritual vision. In its many pages, it offers an explanation of who God is, how he relates to the universe, what is the origin of our world, and who Jesus of Nazareth really was.
Although this novel freely uses the English edition of The Urantia Book, special care has been taken to be faithful to and in accordance with the wonderful teachings offered in this book, which contains, possibly, the best account ever written of Jesus’ life on Earth, and the most complete and coherent explanation of his dual personality, both human and divine.
Who was Jesus of Nazareth really? Was he just another man of his time and was it his followers who made him into a god? Or was he, as Christians say, God himself who descended to Earth?
In this novel you will discover a new and conciliatory point of view between all the positions, a possibility that no one had considered until now. Jesus lived as an ordinary man of his time, but under that human appearance was actually a supernatural being, although not exactly the Christian God. The originality of The Urantia Book lies in presenting Jesus as a celestial being but subordinate to the Father; he is a divine being, but his divine prerogatives are inferior to the absolute ones of the Father. And this, as we will see, has important cosmic implications. Jesus would not be the creator of the entire universe, but only of a part of it, the equivalent of a star cluster within a galaxy; and there are many other beings like Jesus, creators in turn of their own star clusters. God the Father, therefore, is the indirect creator of all creation, since he delegated his power into the hands of other beings similar to him, his “divine Sons.”
And his teachings? Have they been transmitted to us faithfully? This is not the time to anticipate the many new things that this novel offers, but we can anticipate that Jesus never intended to create a religious institution, nor a new religion, nor did he ban women as preachers of his message, nor did he intend to modify Jewish rituals and replace them with new ones, nor did he preach some Christian teachings about divorce, the destiny of man after death, the forgiveness of sins and other topics as they have come to us. The message of Jesus, as you will read, was a much more optimistic and hopeful teaching than the dark precepts that Christianity has transmitted for centuries.
And without further ado, I hope that this brief introduction has unleashed the greatest of your curiosities. But remember, dear reader, what you are going to read is not the truth, it is something that seeks and pursues the truth, and like everything in this world, it is subject to error and to undoubted improvement. May your readings lead you along those paths of Galilee in search of the source of truth as much as they have led me, and will lead me.