Matthew 28:1-17
Mark 16:1-14
Luke 24:1-49
John 20:1-21:25
Regis College was all about reading and writing. They forced us to read more than was possible, three sometimes four textbooks per class, and write more than humanly possible. I learned fairly quickly I cannot read as I usually do, that is, not move on until I comprehend fully, just read, put down the book and pick up the next and read it, do that again, then write about what I received from all that. The method served very well. After graduating I could finally read what I wanted. I devoured the science fiction section, candy compared to Regis textbook. And fun. I read all of the Nebula and Hugo award winners and all the ones that didn't win that the bookstore proprietors recommended. Literally hundreds of paperback books. Then I moved onto the historic novels. To exhaustion. Then I moved onto the metaphysical shelves. Having experienced Regis religion and philosophy required courses I was open to weird things that my mind was closed to previously. I read everything on their shelves popular at the time. All the Seth book, the Casey books, the UFO books, the mystical books, the religious novels, the Shirley Maclaine books everything weird. But the weirdest of all was Urantia, the thickest of all of them, the densest of all, the thinnest paper, the most words per page, the best most seriously bound. But no author. I liked reading books that were channeled. But this book didn't identify who did the channeling nor what entity is channeled. I put it off until there wasn't anything left.
It is simply the most bizarre science fiction ever written. The tightest story ever told. The book begins discussing the nature of God then divides into trinity and discusses each one, then divides into triads and triumvirates and triunes, the super universes, the celestial personalities therein, the local universes and the personalities that inhabit them. The types of beings, the hierarchy of beings, their makeup, their functions, their types. And the whole time I'm reading it, I'm going, "Holy Cow! Whoever wrote this is truly bizarre. But this thing is tighter than Dune." The story shatters into a million separate pieces and each piece is described and neatly tucked back in its place. It is outstanding.
The higher super universe personalities are doing the channelling at the beginning describing the history and the state of the super universe, the voices are remote and the concepts nothing to do with physical reality, they're discussing things we don't even have words for, then the discussion moves down to the local universe and those voices are closer, more relatable, such as astronomers speak, and finally the spiritual voices of Earth are channelled describing the history of Earth and those voices are closest, the vocabulary concrete, the subject about physical reality and history as recorded. And as not recorded. Still, quite a lot of very bizarre material. The age of frogs, for example, and descriptions of ice ages and the intermediary periods, and the nature of human races is not seen anywhere else. The last 800 pages the whole thing calms down. Much like the sudden switch in tone between Old and New testaments. The voices are describing the life and time and teaching of Jesus and it is the most stunningly beautiful portion of the whole book. This is the dessert to a heavy meal. And I wondered, why don't they just stick with this? The rest is bizarre and too difficult to grasp on first read, why don't they just publish these last 800 pages and leave it at that? They'd have greater acceptance and a much wider audience.
They want readers to appreciate who Jesus is. He has a crucial position in the local universe. Without all that precedes the story of Jesus on Earth, there is only partial appreciation of who this man is. They want readers to know how he fits. So that readers can appreciate what he did and why he did it and how all this happened. They're purposefully weeding out readers. If you cannot get the first part, if that part is rejected, then that's just too bad, you're not fit for the best most touching, most meaningful part. And you cannot know or appreciate how you fit into the scheme. In the end, the book is about you.
The story of the crucifixion, the time in the tomb, the resurrection, the period of tarrying, the ascension are the most beautiful breathtaking reading I've ever seen. I've read this book now ten times, possibly eleven, I started losing count around nine times, and there were a few more times after that. For years I read nothing else. Because nothing else compares in greatness. It is the pinnacle of reading. I've been through two copies and my present copy is in torn pieces, of some 200 pages each like separate extremely dense magazines held together with a belt. Whole, the book is too heavy. There is simply nothing like it. The text fleshes out the life of Jesus such that Biblical versions are left wanting. There is so much more to the story. It is not possible to read it without being reduced to tears.
What follows is copy pasted from [urantia tomb] centering on Mary Magdaline. What comes before this is spectacular. However it uses too much terminology that will not makes sense without first reading the previous more science-fictiony portions.
189:4.3 (2025.4) A little before three o’clock this Sunday morning, when the first signs of day began to appear in the east, five of the women started out for the tomb of Jesus. They had prepared an abundance of special embalming lotions, and they carried many linen bandages with them. It was their purpose more thoroughly to give the body of Jesus its death anointing and more carefully to wrap it up with the new bandages.
189:4.4 (2025.5) The women who went on this mission of anointing Jesus’ body were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the Alpheus twins, Salome the mother of the Zebedee brothers, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Susanna the daughter of Ezra of Alexandria.
189:4.5 (2025.6) It was about half past three o’clock when the five women, laden with their ointments, arrived before the empty tomb. As they passed out of the Damascus gate, they encountered a number of soldiers fleeing into the city more or less panic-stricken, and this caused them to pause for a few minutes; but when nothing more developed, they resumed their journey.
189:4.6 (2025.7) They were greatly surprised to see the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, inasmuch as they had said among themselves on the way out, “Who will help us roll away the stone?” They set down their burdens and began to look upon one another in fear and with great amazement. While they stood there, atremble with fear, Mary Magdalene ventured around the smaller stone and dared to enter the open sepulchre. This tomb of Joseph was in his garden on the hillside on the eastern side of the road, and it also faced toward the east. By this hour there was just enough of the dawn of a new day to enable Mary to look back to the place where the Master’s body had lain and to discern that it was gone. In the recess of stone where they had laid Jesus, Mary saw only the folded napkin where his head had rested and the bandages wherewith he had been wrapped lying intact and as they had rested on the stone before the celestial hosts removed the body. The covering sheet lay at the foot of the burial niche.
189:4.7 (2026.1) After Mary had tarried in the doorway of the tomb for a few moments (she did not see distinctly when she first entered the tomb), she saw that Jesus’ body was gone and in its place only these grave cloths, and she uttered a cry of alarm and anguish. All the women were exceedingly nervous; they had been on edge ever since meeting the panicky soldiers at the city gate, and when Mary uttered this scream of anguish, they were terror-stricken and fled in great haste. And they did not stop until they had run all the way to the Damascus gate. By this time Joanna was conscience-stricken that they had deserted Mary; she rallied her companions, and they started back for the tomb.
189:4.8 (2026.2) As they drew near the sepulchre, the frightened Magdalene, who was even more terrorized when she failed to find her sisters waiting when she came out of the tomb, now rushed up to them, excitedly exclaiming: “He is not there — they have taken him away!” And she led them back to the tomb, and they all entered and saw that it was empty.
189:4.9 (2026.3) All five of the women then sat down on the stone near the entrance and talked over the situation. It had not yet occurred to them that Jesus had been resurrected. They had been by themselves over the Sabbath, and they conjectured that the body had been moved to another resting place. But when they pondered such a solution of their dilemma, they were at a loss to account for the orderly arrangement of the grave cloths; how could the body have been removed since the very bandages in which it was wrapped were left in position and apparently intact on the burial shelf?
189:4.10 (2026.4) As these women sat there in the early hours of the dawn of this new day, they looked to one side and observed a silent and motionless stranger. For a moment they were again frightened, but Mary Magdalene, rushing toward him and addressing him as if she thought he might be the caretaker of the garden, said, “Where have you taken the Master? Where have they laid him? Tell us that we may go and get him.” When the stranger did not answer Mary, she began to weep. Then spoke Jesus to them, saying, “Whom do you seek?” Mary said: “We seek for Jesus who was laid to rest in Joseph’s tomb, but he is gone. Do you know where they have taken him?” Then said Jesus: “Did not this Jesus tell you, even in Galilee, that he would die, but that he would rise again?” These words startled the women, but the Master was so changed that they did not yet recognize him with his back turned to the dim light. And as they pondered his words, he addressed the Magdalene with a familiar voice, saying, “Mary.” And when she heard that word of well-known sympathy and affectionate greeting, she knew it was the voice of the Master, and she rushed to kneel at his feet while she exclaimed, “My Lord, and my Master!” And all of the other women recognized that it was the Master who stood before them in glorified form, and they quickly knelt before him.
[The next passages uses terms established earlier that will make sense to readers who covered those portions but not to anyone else. Morontia is a semi-spiritual state between clunky slow thick physical reality and more energized, refined, more acute spiritual state. Transformers are perfect chunks of God that inhabit our order of ascendent physical beings. Midwayers are an order of beings close to our order but not transformer (thought adjuster) inhabited and not ascendent.]
189:4.11 (2027.1) These human eyes were enabled to see the morontia form of Jesus because of the special ministry of the transformers and the midwayers in association with certain of the morontia personalities then accompanying Jesus.
189:4.12 (2027.2) As Mary sought to embrace his feet, Jesus said: “Touch me not, Mary, for I am not as you knew me in the flesh. In this form will I tarry with you for a season before I ascend to the Father. But go, all of you, now and tell my apostles — and Peter — that I have risen, and that you have talked with me.”
189:4.13 (2027.3) After these women had recovered from the shock of their amazement, they hastened back to the city and to the home of Elijah Mark, where they related to the ten apostles all that had happened to them; but the apostles were not inclined to believe them. They thought at first that the women had seen a vision, but when Mary Magdalene repeated the words which Jesus had spoken to them, and when Peter heard his name, he rushed out of the upper chamber, followed closely by John, in great haste to reach the tomb and see these things for himself.
189:4.14 (2027.4) The women repeated the story of talking with Jesus to the other apostles, but they would not believe; and they would not go to find out for themselves as had Peter and John.
The story continues at the link. Jesus appears again to the women several times before appearing to his disciples. The men are freaked out, afraid, scattered, and Jesus allows them time to gather their wits before appearing to them, but when he does, OMG, the reading, the revelations, are just spectacular.
1 comment:
They forced us to ... write more than humanly possible.
Sounds like my high school days. I figured out how many words on average would go on a line of paper and wrote to fit the amount required.
PS Very interesting flick called "Risen". The centurion who is in charge of the execution of Christ, tough Roman combat vet, is given a unique assignment after He's dead - detail a guard for the tomb, so the fanatics don't try something weird. When it looks like they have, Pilate tells him to find the body regardless of who has to suffer.
The tagline of the movie is, "Have you come a long way?".
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