See the Ancient Texts
Behind The Urantia Book

UB · 95:4.5

Amenemope taught: "Riches make themselves wings and fly away," and, "All men are the work of God." This Egyptian, the second Moses, gave to the world a moral philosophy and a religion of common sense, and his teachings are now embalmed in the so-called "Wisdom of the Hebrews," the Book of Proverbs.

Egyptian (New Kingdom)

Give thy ears, hear the sayings, give thy heart to understand them. To put them in thy heart is worth while. Beware of robbing the poor, and of oppressing the afflicted. Cast not thy heart in pursuit of riches, for riches make themselves wings, like geese, and fly away to the heavens. Better is poverty in the hand of God than riches in the storehouse.

UB · 74:8.6

The Genesis story of creation, postdating the times of Adam by almost fifteen hundred years, was a brief, composite, and somewhat distorted narrative of these events. The Hebrew creation narrative was first reduced to writing about one thousand years after Moses' death; only then did the Hebrews compile their existing creation narrative as it is now found associated with the early portions of the Old Testament.

Babylonian / Akkadian

When on high the heaven had not been named, and below the earth had not been called by name, then there was naught but primordial Apsu and Tiamat, the salt sea, who mingled their waters together. The gods were created within them. Marduk split Tiamat in two like a shellfish; from one half he formed the heavens, from the other the earth. He set up the constellations, fixed the year, and assigned the moon to mark the months.

UB · 78:7.3

For thousands of years the survivors of this disaster told the story of the great flood, and from this nucleus has come down to us the legends of Noah and the ark. But there never was a worldwide flood since life was established on Urantia. The only universal flood was the Caligastia rebellion when the spiritual currents of the planet were dammed up.

Sumerian / Akkadian

Ea spoke to Utnapishtim: "Tear down thy house, build a ship. Forsake possessions, save life. Take the seed of all living things into the ship." The storm raged six days and six nights; on the seventh the flood subsided. The ship came to rest on Mount Nisir. I sent forth a dove, and the dove went forth and came back; no resting place appeared, so she returned. Then I sent forth a raven, and the raven did not return.

UB · 96:5.4

Moses endeavored to elevate Yahweh to the dignity of a supreme Deity when he presented him as the "God of truth and without iniquity, just and right in all his ways." He sought to depict Yahweh as a "God of mercy, gracious and longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth." But the Hebrew people of those days could hardly grasp this advanced concept; they understood Yahweh as one who would "by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children."

Babylonian

If a man has destroyed the eye of another free man, his eye shall be destroyed. If he has broken the bone of a free man, his bone shall be broken. If a man has knocked out the tooth of a man of his own rank, his tooth shall be knocked out. If a builder has built a house and his work is not strong, and the house falls and causes the death of the owner, that builder shall be put to death.

UB · 98:7.4

By the end of the third century after Christ, Mithraic and Christian churches were very similar both in appearance and in the character of their ritual. The majority of such churches were practically identical, except for the sacrifice of the bull and the absence of women members. Many groups practiced both religions side by side. By the fourth century the two religions had largely merged through the wholesale conversion of the Mithraists to a nominal Christianity.

Roman Mithraism (with Iranian roots)

Mithras was born of a rock on the 25th of December, witnessed by shepherds bearing gifts. His followers were initiated through baptism and sealed on the forehead. They shared a sacred meal of bread and wine, mingled with water, in remembrance of the bull sacrifice. Sunday was the day of the Lord (dies Solis). The faithful believed in the immortality of the soul, a final judgment, the resurrection of the dead, and the eventual triumph of light over darkness.

UB · 95:6.6

Many of the most striking concepts of later Judaism, Christianity, and Islam regarding the doctrines of God and the devil, of angels and demons, of heaven and hell, and of a judgment day and the resurrection of the dead, were derived from the Zoroastrians. From the time of the Babylonian exile of the Jews up through the times of Christ, Persian religious concepts had been steadily and persistently penetrating Hebrew theology.

Persian Zoroastrianism

I will speak of the two primal Spirits, of whom the holier said unto the destroyer at the beginning of existence: "Neither our thoughts nor our doctrines, neither our wills nor our deeds, neither our consciences nor our souls agree." At the end of time the dead shall arise, and the saved shall cross the bridge of Chinvat into the House of Song; the wicked shall fall into the House of Lies. Ahura Mazda shall reign and Angra Mainyu shall be destroyed.

UB · 111:0.4

The presence of the divine Adjuster in the human mind makes it forever impossible for either science or philosophy to attain a satisfactory comprehension of the evolving soul of the human personality. The morontia soul is the child of the universe and may be really known only through cosmic insight and spiritual discovery.

Egyptian

The Ka is the vital essence given to a person at birth by the god Khnum, who fashions it on the potter's wheel as a spiritual double. The Ba is the soul that travels between worlds. The Akh is the transfigured spirit of the blessed dead. Without the Ka, life cannot be sustained; the Ka is what dwells with God when the body sleeps in the tomb.

UB · 111:1.5

The Adjuster is the wellspring of spiritual attainment and the hope of divine character within you. He is the power, privilege, and the possibility of survival, which so fully and forever distinguishes you from mere animal creatures. He is the higher and truly internal spiritual stimulus of thought in contrast with the external stimulus, which reaches the mind over the nerve energy mechanism of the material body.

Hindu / Vedantic

"That which is the finest essence, this whole world has that as its self. That is the Real. That is the Atman. That art thou, Svetaketu." And: "He who dwells in all beings, yet is other than all beings, whom all beings do not know, whose body is all beings, who controls all beings from within, He is thy Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal."

UB · 66:2.5

The corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince consisted of one hundred personalities. They were not creatures of sex, but they were of the order of beings who could partake of the food of the realm. With their Prince they constituted the visible government of Urantia. These one hundred were divided equally as to sex and according to their previous planetary status.

Sumerian / Akkadian

The Anunnaki, the great gods, the offspring of An, came down from heaven to the earth. They allotted the lots, they decreed the destinies. They taught humanity the arts of civilization: agriculture and the cutting of grain, the working of metal, the building of cities, the writing of words, the keeping of records, the laws of justice. The Anunnaki were the council of the senior gods, the staff of the supreme one.

UB · 98:0.2

The Salem teachings reached Europe by many routes, but chiefly they came by way of Egypt. They were embodied in the Occidental philosophy under the Hellenic name of the Cynics, whose teachers preached the Salem gospel as embellished by the Egyptian moralists.

Hellenic

Diogenes said: "I am a citizen of the world." He owned nothing, slept in a barrel, and called himself a dog because he barked at falsehood. He taught that virtue was the only good, that wealth and reputation were nothing, that all human beings were brothers regardless of city or race, and that the divine was discovered through living simply and honestly. Crates and Hipparchia gave away their wealth and walked the roads teaching these things.

UB · 95:6.2

Zoroaster taught that all things had been created by Ahura Mazda. Beneath this supreme God, who reigned with the seven Amesha Spentas, the divine archetypes of cosmic and moral order, existed the Yazatas, lesser beings worthy of worship. The seven Amesha Spentas were Zoroaster's elaboration of the truth, taught him by the Salem teachers, of the Seven Master Spirits.

Persian Zoroastrian

Around Ahura Mazda stand the seven Amesha Spentas, the Bounteous Immortals: Vohu Manah (Good Mind), Asha Vahishta (Highest Truth), Khshathra Vairya (Desirable Dominion), Spenta Armaiti (Holy Devotion), Haurvatat (Wholeness), Ameretat (Immortality), and Spenta Mainyu (the Holy Spirit). These seven proceed from the One and through them the worlds are governed.

UB · 111:3.7

When such a transaction of mortal mind has finally taken place, either the new soul grows up to function indissolubly with the associated Adjuster on the eternal career, or else the soul, as such, gradually disappears. Eternal survival is determined by the choosing of the soul. When the soul finally and really chooses survival, it is then no longer subject to the limitations of human time as related to opportunity for evolution.

Egyptian

I have not done iniquity. I have not robbed with violence. I have not stolen. I have not slain man or woman. I have not uttered falsehood. I have made none to weep. The heart of the deceased is placed in the balance against the feather of Ma'at, the truth. Thoth records the verdict. If the heart is light, the soul passes into the Field of Reeds. If the heart is heavy with evil, it is devoured by Ammit, and the soul ceases to be.

UB · 95:5.9

Ikhnaton wrote: "Thou art in my heart, there is no other that knoweth thee save thy son Ikhnaton; thou hast made him wise in thy designs and in thy power." This Egyptian gospel of love continued throughout Palestine and largely influenced the religious teachings of the prophet Amos, who in turn influenced the religion of Israel.

Egyptian (Amarna period)

How manifold are thy works! They are hidden from the face of man, O sole God, like whom there is no other. Thou didst create the earth according to thy desire, being alone: men, all cattle large and small, all that are upon the earth. Thou settest every man in his place, thou suppliest his necessities. The world came into being by thy hand, according as thou hast made them.