Jesus: God and Man

IN 1976 I MET BERKELEY ELLIOTT IN TULSA, Oklahoma at a study group for The Urantia Book. When Berkeley learned that I am a writer, she suggested that I might be able to help her with a special project. I had no idea that the project would virtually consume my life for the next year. The Urantia Book is a huge tome of 2097 pages. About one-third of the book is devoted to the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The Urantia Book is grounded in the historical facts of the New Testament, yet it enlarges upon them and places Jesus in a bold new cosmic perspective. Berkeley explained that she wanted to develop a multimedia production about Jesus based upon the new information in The Urantia Book. All she had produced so far was the working title, ?Jesus: God and Man.? She told me Urantia Foundation had agreed to permit her to make this multimedia. (At that time Urantia Foundation was the owner of the copyright of The Urantia Book.*) However, the Foundation insisted that she could not use any direct quotes from The Urantia Book itself. Berkeley asked if I could ?dash off a few pages? of script for her toward the purpose of creating a derivative work. The ?few pages? became the book that is now in your hands. Jesus: God and Man was well received as a multimedia, and the Oklahoma study group decided they wanted to print the script in book form. For more than two decades, Urantia Foundation had zealously guarded The Urantia Book?s copyright and had refused to grant permission for any secondary works. However, after a period of scrutiny of the manuscript of Jesus: God and Man by several leading Urantians, the Trustees of Urantia Foundation granted permission for the private publication of 1,000 copies of the book Jesus: God and Man. The 1,000 copies soon sold out. So it was that very few new Urantia Book readers have ever heard of Jesus: God and Man. Once in a while a used copy appears on Amazon, usually priced at $150 or more. Jesus: God and Man was the first derivative work ever permitted by Urantia Foundation. I hope you find it of interest. Thanks to modern technology readers can have an exact replica of the book?s original contents. Jesus: God and Man. based upon revelatory information from The Urantia Book, does not contend with the Biblical gospels, but rather expands and enhances their presentation of the life and teachings of Jesus. The role of revelation is not to establish a new religion. It is rather to sweep away the logic-tight barriers between religion, science and philosophy: ?Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality.? [The Urantia Book, page 1106, par. 7] Some readers may consider this expanded treatment of the bestowal of Jesus in such a cosmic context as entertaining science fiction rather than revelation. However, our mission is to inspire a new generation of believers to truly ?follow after? the Master in the demonstration of his authentic life of religious devotion to the doing of God?s will and of his consecration to the unselfish service of humankind. Larry Mullins *The Urantia Book is now in the public domain.