ODD BOOKS WITH WEIRD BACK STORIES: Urantia Papers
Loosely weaving in and out of the Old and New Testament, the Urantia papers is like the Bible meets Justinian code meets Stark Trek. It’s rumored Gene Roddenberry knew of this book when he created the latter and borrowed such ideas as the Seraphic transporters (in the Urantia papers these are used for angels instead of transporting guys on and off a ship…that’s a little Trivia not even most Trekkie’s know). Although there are many who are/were in awe of its existence (Jerry Garcia and Jimi Hendrix for example), Roddenberry kind of seems to have pulled some ideas directly from it.
Anyway, the book is over 2,000 pages and it outlines the hierarchy and bloodlines on Earth (Urantia) by means of celestial beings in a way that really takes out a lot of the romance. Whereas the bible is filled with stories, parables and metaphors, T.U.P. has literal explanations of the genesis of this planet and explains earth like a project i.e. how it began, what the purpose is and how to fulfill it. For instance, Adam and Eve were sent on a mission to Urantia from Jerusem by transporters. They left fifty of their offspring behind to fulfill their new job position after fighting in the rebellion against Lucifer and were originally eight feet tall. It is by merit they were sent to Earth in attempt to rehabilitate it because the existing tribes had been tainted by Lucifer’s presence and were considerably savage and underdeveloped. When the book gets to Jesus’ life there is a lot more detail about his upbringing and last days. From papers 120–196 https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/part-iv-life-and-teachings-jesus these chapters cover more of his journey than the KJB.
The story behind the T.U.P. gets weird. If you try and find out who the author is the Urantia organization claims there is none. The story is that angels communicated through an anonymous source; An unnamed man who was in a sleep-like state. Supposedly, the neighbor of this unnamed individual, Dr. William Sadler, was notified of this phenomenon and appointed himself scribe and organizer of the information. Dr. Sadler is described as a skeptic who up until this point dismissed psychic’s and faith-based religion. Soon he involved a coalition of his peers, published the writings and created the organization. Up to this day the book is only really marketed through word of mouth. The rights to the T.U.P. were made public in 1999 after a lawsuit was dismissed mostly due to the fact that “the conduit” (the receiver/channeller/man in coma) nor his heirs had renewed the copyright. Some people believe that Dr. Sadler himself was the author, but made up this crazy story to give it some kind of ethereal validity. I’ve also heard a rumor that some believe Edgar Cayce (renowned psychic) was the sleeping dude.
This is the only case I know of where copyrights were brought into question because the authors were not of this planet i.e. were not present to file themselves. In this case it seems that rights are granted to the conductor of such dictation.
