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CHAPTER 43 MATTHEW BLOCK IN HIS OWN WORDS
A Bibliographic Essay on Some
Human Sources Used in The Urantia Book
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| Here Matthew quotes partially from the two Acknowledgments given on pages 16 and 1343 of The Urantia Papers. Refer to my full quotations in the previous chapters. | I offer a few minor comments in this reproduction of his statement. I mark those with ****. He then makes the following remarks: |
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Following these introductory remarks
is a list of nineteen books which appear to have been considered worthy
of use by the revelators, in pursuance of their mandate to give preference
to human sources whenever possible. All of these books (with a few exceptions,
to be noted in the list) contain sentences, paragraphs or even whole chapters
whose phrasings and organization of thoughts or information are so closely
paralleled in The Urantia Book as to strongly suggest their use.
While a few of these have long been known to some UB readers (e.g., the
Breasted book and one of the two books by Bundy and by Jones), most were
apparently first discovered in libraries and used bookstores in the Chicago
area during the spring, summer and autumn of 1992, in the course of my
research into The UB's human sources. The research so far has been so fruitful
mainly because none of the books were obscure; they were all written by
authorities in their respective fields (often by professors from prominent
American universities) and many were reviewed in the popular and academic
press. Further, the book titles themselves are often giveaways to the alert
Urantia Book reader; by their very titles, for instance, I targeted Purposive
Evolution and The Architecture of the Universe (listed below)
as likely primary sources.
It is interesting to note that, although
these books cover many fields, including religion, philosophy, archaeology,
physics, astronomy and history, the revelators directly acknowledge using
only the highest human concepts and insights pertaining to God and the
seven superuniverses and to the life and teachings of Jesus (as the above
citations indicate). I was thus quite surprised, initially, at the extent
to which the revelatory culled from books which do not focus on these areas.
(As a matter of fact, I was surprised that the revelators culled extensively
from books at all, as I had always supposed that they had accessed some
sort of celestial concept registry to locate appropriate human concepts
and expressions, only referencing books in exceptional cases.) Nevertheless,
regardless of the lack of specific acknowledgments, it is clear that many
more textual sources in various fields will eventually be traced. I estimate
that writings published before 1936 form the basis of about one-third of
Parts I and II and at least two-thirds of Parts III and IV, and most of
these works will probably be found within the next few years. Eventually
we will be able to map out the whole Urantia Book according to which parts
were "revealed for the first time" and which were not. And, again, this
will not be too difficult since the revelators, while avoiding extensive
word-for-word borrowings, made no attempt to disguise their sources by
departing widely from the original human expressions. (It may be, however,
that some papers are not composed of direct restatements of specific texts
but are rather syntheses of several indirect sources. In this case, we
should be able to track down writings which discuss similar concepts or
issues in similar ways.)
Clearly, these findings are of pivotal
importance to serious Urantia Book readers. In providing a great deal of
new substantiation of the revelators' preferential use of human sources,
they spark new insights into what this revelation really is and how human
and superhuman voices and viewpoints interfaced in its production. As we
gain a better grasp of how original it is (in its function as pure revelation),
and how derivative (in it's function of presenting superhuman restatements
of human concepts and expressions), we will be better able to see how the
revelation positions itself with respect to evolutionary human knowledge,
wisdom and faith.
My own experience has taught me that,
as a result of my former ignorance and underestimation of early 20th century
thought and scholarship, my sense of this positioning had been skewed.
If unfamiliar with a concept or a piece of information presented in the
papers -- especially if it struck me as uncommonly beautiful, brilliant,
or incisive -- I would usually assume it was "revealed for the first time,"
little realizing that it might have been known or expressed, in some form
or other, by some people of earlier generations. But in becoming more familiar
with the thought trends of that period and others, and with the discovery
of more human sources, I've come to a better appreciation of the higher
reaches of human thought (as reflected in the book) and can now begin to
give the book's human side its proper due.
Along with this heightened awareness of the book's human component has come a greatly increased appreciation of the sheer bril1iance with which the revelators accomplished their purposes in referencing these sources. In comparing the source materials with the corresponding passages in The UB, I am |
continually struck by the presenters' ingenious ability to seamlessly integrate human observations with
revelatory supplementation or correction. Time and again they prove themselves deft and Creative editors, performing the difficult task of remaining true to the original expression
while at the same time slightly altering it to make the re-worded sentence(s) more congruent with revealed teachings.
One illustration of this technique will suffice for the purposes of the
present essay. In his discussion of chemical elements, W.F.G. Swann writes
on page 64 Of The Architecture of the Universe:
"Starting from any one of them, and noting some property such as the melting point, for example, the property would change as we went along the row, but as we continued it would gradually come back to a condition very similar to that which we started . . . The eighth element was in many respects like the first, the ninth like the second, the tenth like the third, and so on. Such a state of affairs pointed not only to a varied internal structure, but also to a certain harmony in that variation suggestive of some organized plan in building the atom."
Compare this with the parallel passage
on p. 480 of The UB:
"Starting from any one element, after
noting some one property, such a quality will change for six consecutive
elements, but on reaching the eighth, it tends to reappear, that is, the
eighth chemically active element resembles the first, the ninth the second,
'and so on. Such a fact of the physical world unmistakably points to the
sevenfold constitution of ancestral energy and is indicative of the fundamental
reality of the sevenfold diversity of the creations of time and space."
Notice the care - and flair - with
which the second passage was restated. While retaining the original sentence
structures and using similar wordings, the Mighty Messenger departs from
the speculative tone of Swann's last clause, inserting a revealed statement
of decisive significance in its place. Hundreds of other examples of this
technique appear in the books listed below: their cumulative effect is
quite astounding. Other patterns of referencing, equally ingenious, are
also discernible, but these will be brought forward in later essays. (In
this connection, it should be noted that in the listings, when I describe
passages in some of the books as being "reproduced with little change"
or "lightly rewritten," etc., the changes may be small in terms of form
but quite significant in terms of substance.)
Interestingly, these books have sometimes
been of great help in the further understanding of the papers that use
them. Often the presenters are obliged to present an abbreviated treatment
of a concept or a history which is discussed at greater length by the source.
For instance, my understanding of the book's puzzling reference to "cosmic
self-maintenance" (p. 482) was greatly enhanced when I came upon this concept
presented at length in the Noble book (see below). In light of these benefits
to comprehension of both content and context, I feel it would be helpful
for the readership to be made aware of these sources and perhaps some of
these books with expired copyrights could be re-published. Further, as
an organization dedicated to furthering the study of The Urantia Book,
The (Urantia) Fellowship would do well to openly acknowledge the existence
of these works in some way, perhaps even in its informational literature
about The Urantia Book. We should be aware, as well, that a confident
and well-reasoned acknowledgment would disarm debunkers who hold the notion
that revelation always and necessarily means, to its gulled believers,
complete superhuman inspiration.
The following listings are necessarily
brief and incomplete. In the coming months I intend to analyze some of
these books at greater length. My main goals in each of the essays, which
I hope to publish in The Journal and other periodicals of the Urantia
movement, will be: (1) to lay out the parallels between the book in question
and The UB, (2) to show how the superhuman presenters supplemented the
human statements with revelatory information or insights, and (3) to see
whether and how the book in question sheds light, in terms of content and/or
context, on the corresponding passages in The UB.
In the meantime I and other readers will continue to be on the lookout for more human sources. If anyone knows of books or writings not included in this list, I would be very grateful to hear from you. If anyone has any questions about these books or the projects, please feel free to contact me at: 3719 N. Southport Ave., #217, Chicago, IL 60613 (312/975-1764). |
| ****Matthew has since departed from
this address and telephone number. Also his expectations of his work have
been seriously delayed. At the moment of this writing he expects to publish
a book on only one part of his discoveries by the fall of 1999.****
Note made November 10, 2005: Matthew has several works privately published by Square Circles Publishing Company, 3890 Vista Campana South, #13, Oceanside, CA 920577. This is the address of Saskia Praamsma Raevouri, with whom Matthew now lives. I have been |
unable to determine that any of his works have been published by anyone else. For more information see: http://www.squarecircles.com/matarticles/ Or click here
ARTICLES.htm ****In an earlier document in the autumn of 1992 Matthew also made the
following remark but he did not included it in the above:****
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| [Clearly, these findings are of fundamental importance to serious students of the Urantia Papers, sparking new questions and insights into what this revelation really is and how human and superhuman voices and viewpoints interfaced in its production. As we gain a better grasp of how original it is, or how derivative, we will be better able to see how the revelation positions itself with regard to evolutionary human knowledge, wisdom and faith. We will also be better prepared to grapple with the perplexing questions of the nature and extent of the | book's authority, applicability and accessibility in the decades and centuries to come -- questions such as: What bearing does the book's being written in 1934-35 have on its future relevance and immediacy? What does it mean that, "this book is intended for the coming age," when so much of it directly addresses and responds to the thought trends and world situation of the early 20th century -- no longer our own, much less that of later generations? (Of course, the revelators themselves broach these questions somewhat in "The Limitations of Revelation" and elsewhere).] |
| Matthew's Source List as of December 1992 | |
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1. Aston, W.G. 1905. Shinto (The
Way of the Gods). Longmans, Green, and Co., New York. (Paper 131 The
World's Religions, section 7.) Sentences from Aston's translation of the
"Wa Rongo" collection of Shinto Oracles, lightly rewritten or paraphrased,
constitute the entire selection of Ganid's abstract of Shinto.
2. Bishop, William Samuel. 1926.
The
Theology of Personality. Longmans, Green, and Co., New York. (Foreword,
section XII; Paper 106 Universe Levels of Reality, section 8.) Though there
appears to be no superhuman lifting of content here, Bishop uses the terms
"trinity," "triunity," and -- amazingly -- "A Trinity of Trinities"; in
the exposition of his constructive theology. These terms are completely
re-worked in The UB.
3. Breasted, James Henry. 1933. The
Dawn of Conscience. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. (Paper 95 The
Melchizedek Teachings in the Levant, sections 2-5; Paper 111 The Adjuster
and the Soul, preamble.) Breasted's analysis and assessments of early Egyptian
social idealism and religion -- including the teachings of Amenemope and
Ikhnaton, the ka and the ha, Egypt's influence on the Hebrews, etc. --
are incorporated into The UB's corresponding discussions.
4. Bundy, Walter E. 1928. The
Religion of Jesus. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. (Paper
196 The Faith of Jesus, preamble, sections 1-2; etc.) Portions from every
chapter of this book, whose thesis is that the human Jesus founded the
religion of personal experience and that we must recover the religion of
Jesus from the religion about Jesus, are deftly concentrated in Paper 196
with the retention of many of Bundy's exact wordings.
5. Bundy, Walter E. 1929. Our
Recovery of Jesus. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. (Paper
196 The Faith of Jesus, preamble, sections 1-2.) A companion volume to
the preceding book, this one has material that parallels paragraphs in
Paper 196 which were not paralleled by the preceding one. The two books
together supply about 95% of the basis of the preamble and the first two
sections. The last section differs in tone and content and may be original
with the mldwayers.
6. Burton, Ernest DeWitt and Mathews,
Shailer. 1901, 1927. The Life of Christ. University of Chicago Press.
Chicago. (Part IV, passim.) The content of this book does not appear to
be used but rather its chapter and section titles. Parallel titles include:
"The Crisis at Capernaum," "Discourse on Spiritual Freedom," "The Widespread
Fame of Jesus (Christ)," "The Man with the Withered Hand," "The Woman Taken
in Adultery," and (More) Parables by the Sea."
7. Cowdry, E. V., editor. 1930. Human Biology & Racial Welfare. Paul B Hoeber, Inc., New York. (Paper 51 The Planetary Adams, section 4; Paper 65 The Overcontrol of Evolution, section 2; Paper 82 The Evolution of Marriage, section 6; etc.) The revelators tacitly reference essays by Hrdlicka, Conklin and Davenport in their discussions of race differences, the dangers and benefits of race mixing and the feasibility of a modest eugenics program.
8. Edwards, Tryon, original compiler,
1890-1934 and later. The New Dictionary of Thoughts. Classic Publishing
Co., London & New York. (Paper 48 The Morontia Life, section 7.) The
vast majority of the 28 "statements of human philosophy" in the Morontia
Mota section are taken well-nigh consecutively from the first 35 Pages
of this 750-page book, which is arranged alphabetically by subject. The
subjects from which the revelators cull quotations include: Ability, Accident,
Action, Adversity, Affectation, Affliction, Anger, Anxiety, Art, Aspiration.
These quotes are usually not reproduced verbatim in The UB but are recast
so as to have a more cosmic and spiritual tone.
9. Fosdick, Harry Emerson. 1933. The Hope of the World. Harper and Brothers, New York & London. (Paper 171 On the Way to Jerusalem, section 7.) "Goodness is effective only when it is attractive", on p. 18 is the essence of Fosdick's
sermon "The Fine Art of Making Goodness Attractive."
10. Frost Jr., S.E., c,ompiler and
editor. 1943. The Sacred Writings of the World's Great Religions.
The New Home Library, New York. (Paper 131 The World's Religions.) This
book is a selection from previous - and, unfortunately, uncited - translations
of various holy books. The UB appears to use the same translations of the
Jain, Zoroastrian and Confucian writings as Frost, as well as the Aston
Shinto translation. There is a remarkable degree of overlap in the passages
selected in the two books.
11. Hartshorne, Charles. 1941. Man's Vision of God. Willett, Clark and Co., Chicago. (Foreword, section I.) Hartshorne's list of the seven conceivable types of perfection is reproduced almost verbatim on p. 3 of The UB. I suspect that Hartshorne |
published
an earlier (Pre-1936) presentation of this system in a journal, so it may
already have been in print before the Foreword was written.
(Refer to my discussion in preceding
chapters. EPM)
12. Hopkins, E. Washburn. 1923. Origin
and Evolution of Religion. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. The
whole of Paper 85 The Origins of Worship is derived directly from the first
several chapters of this book, each section in the paper corresponding
almost exactly to a chapter in the book. Paper 92 The Later Evolution of
Religion incorporates some of Hopkins' comments, as do Papers 90 and 96;
and the preamble and section 1 of Paper 104 Growth of the Trinity Concept
are based directly on Hopkins' chapters on "The Triad," "The Hindu Trinity,"
"The Buddhistic Trinity," and "The Christian Trinity."
13. Jones, Rufus M. 1932. A Preface
to Christian Faith in a New Age. Macmillan Co., New York. (Paper 195
After Pentecost, sections 5-10.) Every chapter of the book is used in the
revelators' discussions of Christianity's struggle to awaken to its spiritual
mission in the face of modern secularism and its own institutional shortcomings.
Virtually every paragraph of Section 10 (The Future) is drawn consecutively
from the last half of this book.
14. Jones, Rufus M. 1916. The
Inner Life. Macmillan Co., New York. (Paper 102 The Foundations of
Religious Faith, preamble). Jones quotes the same two extracts of Bertrand
Russell's "A Free Man's Worship" (1903) which the Melchizedek paraphrases
in the first two paragraphs of the paper. Both Jones and The Melchizedek
use these passages to illustrate materialistic despair, which can only
be remedied by faith in God and a spiritual interpretation of the universe.
15. Noble, Edmund. 1926. Purposive
Evolution: The Link Between Science and Religion. Henry Holt and Co.,
New York. (Paper 42 Energy - Mind and Matter, section 11; Paper 116 The
Almighty Supreme, section 7.) Noble's theory of cosmic self-maintenance
(the universe as purposive) is referred to in The UB on p. 482; his chapter
"Is the Universe an Organism?" (in which he gives a negative answer) seems
to be responded to by the revelators on p. 1276-77: "The Living Organism
of the Grand Universe".
16. Osborn, Henry Fair Held. 1928.
Man
Rises to Parnassus: Critical Epochs in the Prehistory of Man. Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ. (Paper 64 The Evolutionary Races of Color,
sections 2, 4; Paper 80 Andite Expansion in the Occident, sections 3, 8,
9; etc.) This book seems to be the prime source for The UB's discussion
of the successive human races in Europe from the Foxhall Peoples to the
Neanderthals, the cr o-Magnons and the ancestors of the Nordics. The UB
largely adheres to Osborn's geological, racial and cultural chronologies
and to his characterizations of the cultures of these various peoples.
Osborn's discussion of the Bretons is paralleled exactly on p. 899 of The
UB.
17. Palmer, George Herbert. 1930.
The
Autobiography of a Philosopher. Greenwood Press reprint, New York,
1968) (Paper 181 Final Admonitions and Warnings, section 1.) Palmer's assertion
of the superiority of the inner peace resulting from faith in the Father's
loving care, over the "two inferior forms of hardihood" (optimism and stoicism),
is paralleled in The UB's discussion on pgs. 1954-55.
18. Sabatier, Auguste. 1904. Religions
of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit. McClure, Phillips &
Co., New York. (Paper 155 Fleeing Through Northern Galilee, sections 5
& 6.) The sections in The UB on "The Discourses on True Religion, -
which distinguish the religions of authority from the religion of the spirit
- are an amplification of Sabatier's thesis. The UB's listing of the "three
manifestations of the religious urge" on p. 1728 correspond to Sabatier's
"Three Degrees of Religious Evolution." Sabatier's book was quite influential;
both Rufus Jones and Walter Bundy, among others, refer to the religions
of authority and the religion of the spirit, attributing the origin of
the latter to Jesus, as does Sabatier.
19. Swann, W.F.G. 1934. The Architecture of the Universe. The Macmillan Co., New York. (Paper 41 Physical Aspects of the Local Universe; Paper 42 Energy - Mind and Matter, passim. Parts of Swann's opening chapter On "The Dogmas of Natural Philosophy" are reproduced with little chance in section 9 ("Natural Philosophy") of Energy - Mind and Matter. Many of his temperature, size and distance estimates relating to intra-atomic and astronomic bodies are used in The UB as are several of his analogies and illustrations (e.g.., if the volume of a proton should be magnified to the size of a head of a pin, then, in comparison, a pin's head would attain a diameter equal to that of the earth's orbit around the sun.
Matthew asked that I not include other reference sources known to me, prior to his own publication. |