Urantia Book - What Is It?

This book breaks down into some very interesting sub-sections.

Part I falls into four very clear-cut categories:

• A. The Foreword is in a class all by itself. But it is a part of Part I -- it is not outside of Part I.

• B. Deity is the beginning of the story of God, and this B group of papers and the Foreword are releated to the A group of papers in Part II, which is the second story of deity, and is further related to the last paper in Part II, which is the third story of deity, and in turn they are related to the third group of papers in Part III.

• There are four stories of deity: First, the story that begins in the Foreword, then one in Part I, two in Part II, and one in Part III. In Part I, deity breaks down into 9 papers dealing with personal deity, and one with total deity, the Trinity.

• C. Universes. There are four papers that deal with cosmography -- with things, with the geography of the cosmos. In a sense, Paradise is a part of this story, but Paradise is the source, and then, moving outward from Paradise, they discuss its derivations.

• D. Personalities. The rest of Part I, 16 papers, is people. There are three groups discussed; Those of origin on Paradise, the Family of the infinite Spirit, and a couple of general papers.

Part I is the most clearly organized of the parts; three groupings in the story itself: Deity, Universes, and Personalities. (You will find among Paradise origin personlaities three levels of God the Sevenfold included in personalities, but this is Absolute deity. We will come to that distinction when we discuss God the Sevenfold.)

Part II, The Local Universe is the shortest of the parts. Its organization is not quite as clear-cut as Part I, but it begins with a discussion of deity, and goes on into a discussion of personalities. Here is the second discussion of Sons of God and also of Ministering Spirits, which was buried in the classification in Part I. "The Local Universe" is a continuation of the story of the universe begun in Part I. Then we have a lonesome paper at the end -- Universal Unity -- the third discussion of deity.

Part III, The History of Urantia. This is the second longest part of the book and breaks down into three rather clear-cut groupings:

• A. Historical papers. Twenty eight papers which tell the story of this planet from four different aspects.

• B. Religion. Nineteen papers which tell how it came to be, what Melchizedek taught, and what we have now.

• C. Deity. There are sixteen papers that are not altogether homogeneous, but they embrace the story of the Triunities, of Thought Adjusters, Seraphic Guardians, the Supreme Being, and the Bestowal paper. They all pertain to deity as such, or to the ministry of deity.

Part IV. The Life and Teachings of Jesus. This is the longest, and it seems to break down into four very clear-cut groupings of papers:

• A. The fifteen papers dealing with his mortal career.

• B. His public work as the Son of Man, the twenty two papers dealing with the period extending from the baptism to the Mount of Transfiguration.

• C. His public work after he openly proclaimed himself as the Son of God, the thirty one papers dealing with the period from the Transfiguration to the Crucifixion.

• D. The post-mortal career, the nine papers starting with the resurrection and continuing to the end of the book.