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According to Urantia Book history, the papers were received as a result of asking questions. Questions would be asked and the answers would appear in written form. Yet more questions would be asked as a result of the previous answers, and that is how the book was written. After a while, the revelators asked the readers to go back through the material again and ask yet more questions. More papers appeared as a result of said questions. This continued for a time, with each set of questions either causing more papers to appear or revisions of the previous papers.
In a simplified form, that is how the UB papers came to be. Yet how may this be applied to a study of the UB by todays’ students? How may we, as students, use this same method in our own personal study?
The plan is simple. We put ourselves, with a few modifications, in the shoes of those early readers.
Step 1. Download a copy of the text of the UB from the Foundations’ website.
Step 2. Open and save a word document for questions to be written in.
Step 3. Ignore the forward for the moment. This is because the early readers had no forward.
Step 4. Start with paper 1, section 0. Note: for the purposes of this plan, the introductory sections of each paper will be denominated as section 0.
Step 5. Read section 0 of paper 1 carefully. Every time a question comes up, no matter how small, write it down in your questions document.
Step 6. After you have completed the reading/question method of study on section 0, stop.
Step 7. Go back through all of the questions that were written down, deleting the ones that you are able to answer. This has two purposes. The first one is so that you will know which questions were answered. If they aren’t there anymore, then you know the unanswered ones. After all, they are the only ones left. The second purpose is to avoid, as much as possible, asking a duplicate question.
Step 8. Repeat the process on every section of every paper throughout part 1.
Step 9. Repeat the process on part 1 until as many questions have been asked/answered as possible. This may mean going over part 1, using this method, multiple times. Note: the reason for this has to do with the way revelations are given. A new revelation does not appear until we are ready for it. Look at the way that the UB papers were written. The revelators did not present more material until what was already given was thoroughly understood.
Step 10. Repeat steps 1 through 9 for parts 2 and 3.
Step 11. Read the forward. You will have a better grasp on the forward as a result of your study using this method. After all, the forward is a guide to things not fully explained until the end of part 3.
Step 12. Repeat steps 1 through 9 on part 4.
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