THE SABOTAGE OF MICHAEL'S BESTOWAL

Based on the research of Chuck Thurston (April 2023)

Presented by Derek Samaras | Urantia Book Network | April 2026

This article is adapted from Chuck Thurston's 28-page scholarly paper, "The Sabotage of Michael's Bestowal." Chuck suffered a stroke on November 14, 2025, while continuing his lifelong pursuit of these questions. His work deserves to be read. What follows is a faithful presentation of his thesis, grounded in his citations and reasoning.

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The Lingering Question

Michael's bestowal on Urantia was, without question, a supreme spiritual triumph. But a very important question remains largely unanswered in UB study circles: why was Jesus rejected by the leaders of the very people Machiventa Melchizedek had spent centuries preparing to receive him?

As Chuck Thurston frames it: was the tragic ending of Jesus' life simply the unfortunate outworking of ordinary events? Or would it be more accurate to say that the intended plan for the bestowal was deliberately sabotaged?

The Urantia Book provides a critical clue:

"Though Jesus knew that the plan for his death had its origin in the councils of the rulers of the Jews, he was also aware that all such nefarious schemes had the full approval of Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia." (183:0.4)

And more specifically:

"God in heaven did not will it, neither did the archenemies of Jesus dictate it, though they did much to insure that unthinking and evil mortals would thus reject the bestowal Son." (183:1.2)

"Did much to insure." Chuck's research asks: what exactly did they do?

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The Setup: Machiventa's Covenant

Machiventa Melchizedek's emergency incarnation at Salem, nearly 2,000 years before Jesus, was not a standalone mission. It was preparation. His covenant with Abraham was designed to cultivate a population of people who would have the spiritual capacity to recognize and receive the bestowal Son, and then carry his message to the world.

"Their leaders had taught the Israelites that they were a chosen people, not for special indulgence and monopoly of divine favor, but for the special service of carrying the truth of the one God over all to every nation." (97:10.1)

The public announcement that Michael had selected Urantia for his final bestowal was made shortly after the default of Adam and Eve (119:7.2). Caligastia, with assistance from Satan's periodic visits to Urantia, would have known well in advance that Michael would almost certainly appear among the descendants of those Machiventa had instructed.

Chuck argues that Caligastia's scheme to wreck the bestowal appears to have taken shape between 1,000 and 500 B.C., through two strategic moves.

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Move One: The Dispersion of the Israelites

The first move was the elimination of the northern kingdom of Israel.

The UB draws a clear distinction between the northern Israelites (Ephraimites) and the southern Judahites:

"The Israelitish consciousness took origin in the hill country of Ephraim; the later Jewish consciousness originated in the southern clan of Judah. The Jews (Judahites) always sought to defame and blacken the record of the northern Israelites (Ephraimites)." (97:9.2)

The "genuine Israelites" of the north would have received Jesus gladly. We can see this reflected in Jesus' encounter with Nathaniel:

"Behold a genuine Israelite, in whom there is no deceit." (137:2.7)

But the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria in 721 B.C. The Israelites vanished from history as a separate people. Chuck suggests this was not merely an unfortunate geopolitical event. Given Caligastia's access to rebel midwayers and his ability to influence "unthinking and evil mortals" (183:1.2), the strategic convenience of eliminating the very population Machiventa had prepared deserves serious consideration.

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Move Two: The Corruption of Hebrew Scripture

With the genuine Israelites dispersed, Caligastia's second move targeted the remaining Judahites and their Levite priesthood.

Chuck traces the pivotal moment to 621 B.C., when the earliest version of Deuteronomy was first read aloud in the Jerusalem temple. In this document, as edited and compiled by the Levite priests and scribes, the high spiritual meaning of Machiventa's covenant with Abraham was inverted. The promise to become "the light-bearers of truth to every nation" was replaced with commandments demanding racial separation and the pitiless destruction of all who stood in the way.

The original teachings of Moses, as preserved in the UB, were centered on an expansive concept of God:

"He sought to enlarge their concept of divinity when he taught them that Yahweh was the 'God of the spirits of all flesh.'" (96:4.6)

But in Deuteronomy, this expansive vision was replaced with a merciless nationalism. Commandments to "utterly destroy" other peoples, to "show no mercy," to "save alive nothing that breatheth" appear throughout the text. Chuck notes that the words "destroy," "destroyed," "utterly destroy," and "utterly destroyed" appear 129 times in the Books of Moses alone.

Jesus himself was well aware of this corruption:

"Nathaniel, never permit yourself for one moment to believe the Scripture records which tell you that the God of love directed your forefathers to go forth in battle to slay all their enemies, men, women, and children. Such records are the words of men, not very holy men, and they are not the word of God." (159:4.5)

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The Mechanism: How Could Caligastia Influence Scripture?

Chuck raises a question that deserves careful attention: how could a superhuman rebel influence the content of human religious texts?

Before Pentecost, Thought Adjusters were not universally bestowed. Many of the priests and scribes who compiled Deuteronomy were not Adjuster-indwelt. This gave Caligastia unrestricted access to their minds. He also had assistance from rebel seraphim and rebel secondary midwayers, who were still operating on the planet at that time.

The UB preserves an instructive example. The story of the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28) describes a woman who called up the "spirit of Samuel" to advise King Saul. Jesus explained to his apostles what was really happening:

"The stray and rebellious midwayers who had oftentimes impersonated the supposed spirits of the dead would soon be brought under control so that they could no more do these strange things." (146:7.1)

If rebel midwayers could impersonate the dead to deceive a king, Chuck argues, it would have been a straightforward matter for "the self-proclaimed God of Urantia" (67:2.4) to employ a rebel secondary midwayer to pose as divine authority before the Levite priesthood, dictating commandments that would lock the Hebrew nation into a spiritual prison of legalism and self-righteousness.

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The Result: A People Who Could Not Receive Jesus

The consequences of these developments are described with precision in the UB:

"By the times of Jesus the Jews had arrived at a settled concept of their origin, history, and destiny. They had built up a rigid wall of separation between themselves and the gentile world; they looked upon all gentile ways with utter contempt. They worshiped the letter of the law and indulged a form of self-righteousness based upon the false pride of descent." (121:7.1)

"The scribes, the Pharisees, and the priesthood held the Jews in a terrible bondage of ritualism and legalism, a bondage far more real than that of the Roman political rule." (121:7.3)

"These circumstances rendered it impossible for the Jews to fulfill their divine destiny as messengers of the new gospel of religious freedom and spiritual liberty. They could not break the fetters of tradition." (121:7.5)

The people Machiventa had prepared were no longer prepared. The covenant designed to produce a spiritually receptive population had been systematically inverted into a system that made reception of Jesus' universal message structurally impossible.

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Machiventa's Response

Machiventa was watching. And by 600 B.C., he could see the danger:

"About six hundred years before the arrival of Michael, it seemed to Melchizedek, long since departed from the flesh, that the purity of his teaching on earth was being unduly jeopardized by general absorption into the older Urantia beliefs. It appeared for a time that his mission as a forerunner of Michael might be in danger of failing." (94:6.1)

His response was the extraordinary wave of prophetic activity in the 6th century B.C.: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others. These courageous teachers struggled to restore the high spiritual principles that the priesthood had buried under legalism and nationalism. Some of their teachings were recorded and eventually included in written scriptures. But the prophets themselves were typically silenced or put to death by rulers who opposed any teaching that threatened their authority.

Meanwhile, the priesthood was systematically destroying the older records:

"After the priests of the Babylonian exile had prepared their new record of God's supposedly miraculous dealings with the Hebrews, they carefully and completely destroyed the existing records of Hebrew affairs." (97:8.1)

"The Hebrew scribes... destroyed every record of these momentous times which they could find." (93:9.9)

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The Abrogation of the Covenant

Jesus exhausted every possibility of mercy. His Last Temple Discourse, delivered on Tuesday, April 4, A.D. 30, represents the final appeal:

"Even now it is not too late for this people to receive the word of heaven and to welcome the Son of Man." (175:1.3)

"I am just now offering you your last chance..." (175:1.6)

That same evening, the Sanhedrin voted unanimously to impose the death sentence:

"Israel had repudiated the Son of the God who made a covenant with Abraham, and the plan to make the children of Abraham the light-bearers of truth to the world had been shattered. The divine covenant had been abrogated, and the end of the Hebrew nation drew on apace." (175:3.2)

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The Triumph Within the Tragedy

Chuck's thesis is not a story of defeat. It is a story of sabotage met by something stronger.

Caligastia's scheme succeeded in its immediate objective: it put Jesus in the hands of his enemies and brought the bestowal to what appeared to be a humiliating end. But Jesus' enemies failed to anticipate what he would do with the cross.

"The great thing about the death of Jesus, as it is related to the enrichment of human experience and the enlargement of the way of salvation, is not the fact of his death but rather the superb manner and the matchless spirit in which he met death." (188:4.12)

"On millions of inhabited worlds, tens of trillions of evolving creatures who may have been tempted to give up the moral struggle and abandon the good fight of faith, have taken one more look at Jesus on the cross and then have forged on ahead, inspired by the sight of God's laying down his incarnate life in devotion to the unselfish service of man." (188:5.5)

"He made the cross an eternal symbol of the triumph of love over hate and the victory of truth over evil when he prayed, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" (188:5.6)

The sabotage was real. The preparation was corrupted. The covenant was abrogated. But the bestowal was not a failure. Jesus made the best possible use of every factor that became associated with his life and work, transforming even the instrument of his death into a revelation of the Father's love.

Caligastia's scheme produced the cross. Jesus made the cross mean something the rebels never imagined.

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Chuck's Legacy

Chuck Thurston spent years developing this thesis, carefully tracing the textual evidence through dozens of UB papers and cross-referencing with biblical scholarship. His full paper, "The Sabotage of Michael's Bestowal" (April 2023), contains extensive analysis of Deuteronomy's specific commandments, the role of the Most Highs in mitigating the damage, and Jesus' awareness of the rebel influence on the Jewish leadership.

On November 14, 2025, Chuck suffered a stroke while continuing his research into these questions. His work represents some of the finest independent scholarship in the Urantia Book reading community, combining textual precision with spiritual insight and intellectual courage.

This article is offered in his honor. The full paper is available through the Urantia Book Network.

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All citations reference The Urantia Book by Paper:Section.Paragraph. The full text is freely available at urantia.org.