Subject: The Urantia Book. Part 3. April 29, 2008.
Here they mention the birth of the nice person.
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"6. THE HOME AT NAZARETH"
The home of Je--s was not far from the high hill in
the northerly part of Nazareth, some distance from the
village spring, which was in the eastern section of the
town. Jes--' family dwelt in the outskirts of the city,
and this made it all the easier for him subsequently to
enjoy frequent strolls in the country and to make trips
up to the top of this near-by highland, the highest of
all the hills of southern Galilee save the Mount Tabor
range to the east and the hill of Nain,
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which was about the same height. Their home was located
a little to the south and east of the southern
promontory of this hill and about midway between the
base of this elevation and the road leading out of
Nazareth toward Cana. Aside from climbing the hill,
--sus' favorite stroll was to follow a narrow trail
winding about the base of the hill in a northeasterly
direction to a point where it joined the road to
Sepphoris.
The home of Joseph and Mary was a one-room stone
structure with a flat roof and an adjoining building
for housing the animals. The furniture consisted of a
low stone table, earthenware and stone dishes and pots,
a loom, a lampstand, several small stools, and mats for
sleeping on the stone floor. In the back yard, near the
animal annex, was the shelter which covered the oven
and the mill for grinding grain. It required two
persons to operate this type of mill, one to grind and
another to feed the grain. As a small boy J--us often
fed grain to this mill while his mother turned the
grinder.
In later years, as the family grew in size, they
would all squat about the enlarged stone table to enjoy
their meals, helping themselves from a common dish, or
pot, of food. During the winter, at the evening meal
the table would be lighted by a small, flat clay lamp,
which was filled with olive oil. After the birth of
Martha, Joseph built an addition to this house, a large
room, which was used as a carpenter shop during the day
and as a sleeping room at night.
"7. THE TRIP TO BETHLEHEM"
In the month of March, 8 B.C. (the month Joseph and
Mary were married), Caesar Augustus decreed that all
inhabitants of the Roman Empire should be numbered,
that a census should be made which could be used for
effecting better taxation. The J-ws had always been
greatly pr-judiced against any attempt to "number the
people," and this, in connection with the serious
domestic difficulties of Herod, King of Judea, had
conspired to cause the postponement of the taking of
this census in the -ewish kingdom for one year.
Throughout all the Roman Empire this census was
registered in the year 8 B.C., except in the
Palestinian kingdom of Herod, where it was taken in
7 B.C., one year later.
It was not necessary that Mary should go to Bethlehem
for enrollment Joseph was authorized to register for
his family but Mary, being an adventurous and
aggressive person, insisted on accompanying him.
She feared being left alone lest the child be born
while Joseph was away, and again, Bethlehem being not
far from the City of Judah, Mary foresaw a possible
pleasurable visit with her kinswoman Elizabeth.
Joseph virtually forbade Mary to accompany him, but
it was of no avail; when the food was packed for the
trip of three or four days, she prepared double rations
and made ready for the journey. But before they
actually set forth, Joseph was reconciled to Mary's
going along, and they cheerfully departed from Nazareth
at the break of day.
Joseph and Mary were poor, and since they had only
one beast of burden, Mary, being large with child, rode
on the animal with the provisions while Joseph walked,
leading the beast. The building and furnishing of a
home had been a great drain on Joseph since he had also
to contribute to the support of his parents, as his
father had been recently disabled. And so this Je-ish
couple went forth from their humble home early on
the morning of August 18, 7 B.C., on their journey to
Bethlehem.
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Their first day of travel carried them around the
foothills of Mount Gilboa, where they camped for the
night by the river Jordan and engaged in many
speculations as to what sort of a son would be born to
them, Joseph adhering to the concept of a s-iritual
teacher and Mary holding to the idea of a Je-ish
M-ssiah, a deliverer of the Hebrew nation.
Bright and early the morning of August 19, Joseph and
Mary were again on their way. They partook of their
noontide meal at the foot of Mount Sartaba, overlooking
the Jordan valley, and journeyed on, making Jericho for
the night, where they stopped at an inn on the highway
in the outskirts of the city. Following the evening
meal and after much discussion concerning the
oppressiveness of Roman rule, Herod, the census
enrollment, and the comparative influence of Jerusalem
and Alexandria as centers of J-wish learning and
culture, the Nazareth travelers retired for the night's
rest. Early in the morning of August 20 they resumed
their journey, reaching Jerusalem before noon, visiting
the temple, and going on to their destination, arriving
at Bethlehem in midafternoon.
The inn was overcrowded, and Joseph accordingly
sought lodgings with distant relatives, but every room
in Bethlehem was filled to overflowing. On returning to
the courtyard of the inn, he was informed that the
caravan stables, hewn out of the side of the rock and
situated just below the inn, had been cleared of
animals and cleaned up for the reception of lodgers.
Leaving the donkey in the courtyard, Joseph shouldered
their bags of clothing and provisions and with Mary
descended the stone steps to their lodgings below. They
found themselves located in what had been a grain
storage room to the front of the stalls and mangers.
Tent curtains had been hung, and they counted
themselves fortunate to have such comfortable quarters.
Joseph had thought to go out at once and enroll, but
Mary was weary; she was considerably distressed and
besought him to remain by her side, which he did.
"8. THE BIRTH OF JES--"
All that night Mary was restless so that neither of
them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of
childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon, August
21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of
women fellow travelers, Mary was delivered of a male
child.
Je--s of Nazareth was born into the world, was
wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for
such a possible contingency, and laid in a near-by
manger.
In just the same manner as all babies before that day
and since have come into the world, the promised child
was born; and on the eighth day, according to the
J-wish practice, he was circumcised and formally named
Joshua (J--us).
The next day after the birth of Je--s, Joseph made
his enrollment. Meeting a man they had talked with two
nights previously at Jericho, Joseph was taken by him
to a well-to-do friend who had a room at the inn, and
who said he would gladly exchange quarters with the
Nazareth couple. That afternoon they moved up to the
inn, where they lived for almost three weeks until they
found lodgings in the home of a distant relative of
Joseph.
The second day after the birth of Jes--, Mary sent
word to Elizabeth that her child had come and received
word in return inviting Joseph up to Jerusalem to talk
over all their affairs with Zacharias.
The following week Joseph went to Jerusalem to confer
with Zacharias. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth had become
possessed with the sincere conviction that --sus was
indeed to become the Je-ish
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deliverer, the Mes-iah, and that their son John was to
be his chief of aides, his right-hand man of destiny.
And since Mary held these same ideas, it was not
difficult to prevail upon Joseph to remain in
Bethlehem, the City of David, so that Jes-- might grow
up to become the successor of David on the throne of
all Israel. Accordingly, they remained in Bethlehem
more than a year, Joseph meantime working some at his
carpenter's trade.
At the noontide birth of Je--s the seraphim of
Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing
anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these
utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No
shepherds nor any other mortal creatures came to pay
homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the day of the
arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down
from Jerusalem by Zacharias.
These priests from Mesopotamia had been told sometime
before by a strange r-ligious teacher of their country
that he had had a dream in which he was informed that
"the light of life" was about to appear on earth as a
babe and among the -ews. And thither went these three
teachers looking for this "light of life." After many
weeks of futile search in Jerusalem, they were about to
return to Ur when Zacharias met them and disclosed his
belief that J--us was the object of their quest and
sent them on to Bethlehem, where they found the babe
and left their gifts with Mary, his earth mother. The
babe was almost three weeks old at the time of their
visit.
These wise men saw no star to guide them to
Bethlehem. The beautiful legend of the star of
Bethlehem originated in this way: Je--s was born August
21 at noon, 7 B.C. On May 29, 7 B.C., there occurred an
extraordinary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the
constellation of Pisces. And it is a remarkable
astronomic fact that similar conjunctions occurred on
September 29 and December 5 of the same year. Upon the
basis of these extraordinary but wholly natural events
the well-meaning zealots of the succeeding generation
constructed the appealing legend of the star of
Bethlehem and the adoring Magi led thereby to the
manger, where they beheld and worshiped the newborn
babe. Oriental and near-Oriental minds delight in fairy
stories, and they are continually spinning such
beautiful myths about the lives of their re-igious
leaders and p-litical heroes. In the absence of
printing, when most human knowledge was passed by word
of mouth from one generation to another, it was very
easy for myths to become traditions and for traditions
eventually to become accepted as facts.
(JW Please don't be surprised if you find out that
the Star of Bethlehem was not an actual star but is
and was an alien spacecraft.)
Part 3.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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