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I was reading TUB today. I had just finished part three when it occured to me to read the forward. I was rather shocked by the clarity of the forward when taking this approach.
So, with that in mind, I was thinking about an experimental UB reading schedule. Let us put ourselves in the minds of those who were given the book.
In the histories of the ub we are never told exactly when the forward was written. So, I am going to make some assumptions. Feel free to add to this or give a contrary oppinion.
Based on the papers themselves, I am going to assume that paper 119 wasn’t put in there at first. Paper 119 simply doesn’t fit except as a bridge to part four. None of the other parts have a bridge leading to the next part. We know that several rounds of questions and answers were done as a result of said questions. We know that, for example, papers were expanded on or whole papers added in order to answer the many questions asked and that a final round of editing was done at the request of the revelators.
So, as a result of that final edit they were able to put refferences to the next part of the book in the previous part of the book. I’m not sure where, but I made a mental note of that everytime a refference to the next part was mentioned. Based on this, I had an idea at witch point the forward was written. And my answer is… before paper 119!
How does this fit into a reading schedule? I’ll explain!
I plan on reading one paper daily Monday through Friday. I’ll use weekends for catch up days if I miss a day.
The order I plan to use is this.
Papers 1 through 118, forward, papers 119 through 196.
I plan on starting on the first Monday in January. Anyone care to join me?Hi Chuck,
A peculiarity about the foreword is that it’s a guide for Part I really instead of the book as a whole. I’d recommend that you give the foreword a read after finishing Part I.
From 0:0.4 :
“This Foreword is not, therefore, a finished statement within itself; it is only a definitive guide designed to assist those who shall read the accompanying papers dealing with Deity and the universe of universes which have been formulated by an Orvonton commission sent to Urantia for this purpose.”
The only part of the book that is formulated by an Orvonton commission is Part I, which is also the part with the papers on Deity and the universe of universes.
The book goes from high to low, from the topics most distant to us, given by high beings on the superuniverse level of Orvonton (Part I), to topics delivered from beings from the local universe (Parts II and III), then down to the life and teachings of Jesus given by the closest cousins to us in the overall scale of things.
Here’s another passage from the Foreword to indicate it’s intended to be an introductory statement for Part I, seeing as that’s the part of the book that is from an Orvonton corps:
“…I have been directed to formulate this introductory statement in explanation of the meanings which should be attached to certain word symbols as they may be hereinafter used in those papers which the Orvonton corps of truth revealers have been authorized to translate into the English language of Urantia.”
That’s from the end of the first paragraph of the book.
Take a look also at the Acknowledgment at the end of the foreword. I think often people just assume that the acknowledgment is talking about the whole rest of the book that follows, but it says it’s talking about a subset of papers, those having to do with “the character of the Universal Father and the nature of his Paradise associates, together with an attempted description of the perfect central universe and the encircling seven superuniverses.” That’s Part I.
tas wrote: The book goes from high to low, from the topics most distant to us, given by high beings on the superuniverse level of Orvonton (Part I), to topics delivered from beings from the local universe (Parts II and III), then down to the life and teachings of Jesus given by the closest cousins to us in the overall scale of things.
And the reason for this is explained below:
(215.2) 19:1.5 For example: The human mind would ordinarily crave to approach the cosmic philosophy portrayed in these revelations by proceeding from the simple and the finite to the complex and the infinite, from human origins to divine destinies. But that path does not lead to spiritual wisdom. Such a procedure is the easiest path to a certain form of genetic knowledge, but at best it can only reveal man’s origin; it reveals little or nothing about his divine destiny.
While I’ve heard the argument of the forward being an introduction to part one only, how do you explain this? I did a search and found that one of the concepts in the forward isn’t explained until part 3.
search term supertime
results
0:2.17 [Part I]6. God the Ultimate — the eventuating God of supertime and transcended space. The second experiential level of unifying Deity manifestation. God the Ultimate implies the attained realization of the synthesized absonite-superpersonal, time-space-transcended, and eventuated-experiential values, co-ordinated on final creative levels of Deity reality.0:9.2 [Part I]God the Ultimate is designative of personal Deity functioning on the divinity levels of the absonite and on the universe spheres of supertime and transcended space. The Ultimate is a supersupreme eventuation of Deity. The Supreme is the Trinity unification comprehended by finite beings; the Ultimate is the unification of the Paradise Trinity comprehended by absonite beings.117:7.6 [Part III]It may be that on the upper limits of the finite, where time conjoins transcended time, there is some sort of blurring and blending of sequence. It may be that the Supreme is able to forecast his universe presence onto these supertime levels and then to a limited degree anticipate future evolution by reflecting this future forecast back to the created levels as the Immanence of the Projected Incomplete. Such phenomena may be observed wherever finite makes contact with superfinite, as in the experiences of human beings who are indwelt by Thought Adjusters that are veritable predictions of man’s future universe attainments throughout all eternity.118:2.4 [Part III]If God the Supreme ever assumes direct control of the universes of time and space, we are confident such a Deity administration will function under the overcontrol of the Ultimate. In such an event God the Ultimate would begin to become manifest to the universes of time as the transcendental Almighty (the Omnipotent) exercising the overcontrol of supertime and transcended space concerning the administrative functions of the Almighty Supreme.The only way I can convey how I feel when I read those things you referred to chuck is to post this picture of myself taken at that moment.
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