Episode:Jesus of Nazareth—Childhood Career (Part 1)
Joseph and Mary finally took leave of Alexandria in August, 4 B.C.; and Jesus was about three years and two months old at the time of their return to Nazareth. He had stood all these travels very well and was in excellent health and full of childish glee and excitement at having premises of his own to run about in and to enjoy. But he greatly missed the association of his Alexandrian playmates.
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Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Helpless Infancy, Mother Love, Adjuster Arrival
Opening thought: Start off a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
Summary by Brad
On travesties
- Travesty: 1. (noun) A burlesque translation or imitation of a work. 2. (verb) To translate, imitate, or represent, so as to render ridiculous or ludicrous. Webster's 1913 dictionary
So, once upon a time maybe you're like this author and you read [4:5.6] and agreed with the revelators that it's a "travesty" to put salvation into a human-conceived theologic concept frame like the atonement doctrine? Well, fine. But while we're talking about travesties, how about that popular burlesque act lately where the truths of The Urantia Book are put into the into a secular-humanistic concept frame? That's just another human-conceived concept frame—one that doesn't include God. Or worse, how about that thing where you distort The Urantia Book teachings to fit your individual wishful notions of salvation (e.g., "I'm a nice person, and that's good enough to get to Paradise.") These are travesties—or worse yet, some may be blasphemies.
Why? Because salvation is still on God's terms. It always has been, including for a million years of human history here on our world. The Urantia Papers do nothing to overturn this; they uphold this truth. They reveal new elements, yes, but they don't throw out that which must be conserved. Salvation is on God's terms, not human terms.
The 5th ER is a revelation, not affirmation. You should be a truth seeker, not an affirmation seeker. Are you actually reading The Urantia Book? Or (like me when I was younger) did you sort-of turn your brain off after [4:5.6] and bask in the "travesty?" You need to spend time reading the entire book; it's a synthetic wholeness.
Speaking of spending time, are you using the "one talent" of time given to you well? [28:6.9] You must "insure your survival." Time is all we are given. Use it well. This one thing is important to do with your time: "insure your survival." You can rest assured you have not done that if you've lived your life as if:
- Salvation has something to do with outer-life schemes, activities, or "dances." It doesn't.
- Savlation is automatic. No. Actually, Lucifer said that.
How to consider this arc
Jesus was a human boy, not the magical fetish man of New Testament apocrypha. No. He was Jesus the man, Jesus of Nazareth, starting out life as a baby just like we do. So this story, restored to us in The Urantia Papers, is immensely relevant to us: it illuminates the truth of our human life—what our human life really is. If you want an entertaining story about a boy, read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. If you want a boy's story that can help you and your family's life, study Jesus' childhood.
As we read this, consider:
- How did Jesus "insure" his eternal survival? How do any of us insure our survival?
- Was Jesus raised in a religious household?
- What role did his mother and father play? His neighborhood environment?
- What are we to do when we read what appears to be a "random factoid?"
- Why would the revelators really tell us something like Joseph's resume? Is that random? Or are they revealing a truth about a father who is providing a stable family setting?
Paper 123. The Early Childhood of Jesus
Joseph and Mary complement one another as parents. There must be a balance in a marriage of
- place-like-ness (female influence); and
- direction-like-ness (male influence).
But we live in times where many regard male and female as equivalent or interchangeable. But they're not. There is a reason male and female have the hard-wired instincts they do. Male and female exist in the cosmos because they are necessary. They're necessary here below as well as on high. If male and female were not necessary, they would not exist. Reality is "mind planned, mind made, and mind administered." [42:11.2] It is neither arbitrary nor random, as materialists would contend.
Joseph and Mary considered raising Jesus in Alexandria and Bethlehem, both powerful political cities/towns. But Jesus didn't need politics and power, he needed ethics and religion [195:8.1]. Joseph and Mary debated the matter of Bethlehem for three weeks! Deciding on a wise course takes time: As experiential creatures we usually can determine the right only by the deduction of the wrong. We observed how Joseph and Mary "overcame" this matter, suggesting the superadditive consequence available when two opposing viewpoints are honestly debated and reconciled by two children of God, especially a husband and wife. And it's okay to be "outspoken" in ones views; this modern fashion of avoiding all conflict will produce no superadditive consequence.
A helpless infant needs many helpful influences; they need help with everything. One basic helpful item was Jesus' parents selecting who was "acceptable" to play with.
Speaking of which: Is your hometown actively hostile to raising your family in a Godly, healthy, nurturing environment? Does the culture there insist on little-to-no differential between male and female? Does it reject reality by rebelling against that which is plainly reality? Does it therefore reject God? If so, you might consider moving. A child's "entire afterlife" is enormously influenced by the cultural waters in which they swim. It may not be easy to discuss these matters these days; it's bound to stir up conflict. Please understand that here on SoS this is not some ideological agenda or political axe grinding. It's simply recognizing what is innate in reality, with the aid of the clear light of an epochal revelation.
123:1. Back in Nazareth
Joseph and Mary experienced "supreme happiness" because they had a positive response to a negative stimulus. They exhibited adaptability [130:4.7] and wisdom in their plans (notice the word wisdom's frequent use). We can aspire to wisdom, as well. Consider how wise it was of them to resist the urge to tell everyone Jesus was a "child of promise" and get these Messiah-expectant people all whipped up in his hometown.
We saw Jesus spending time on a farm and in a practical workshop at a young age. We were reminded how important it is for a child to have a grounding in the facts of natural reality. It's essential, yes, to to have a hunger that produces a perfectingness of goodness, but you must also have a foundation of fact (fact, truth, goodness).
The 5th ER validates that human mental development has average milestones around ages 3, 8, 12, 16, and 20. Science has speculated on such things, but because there are statistical distributions around these ages—and also because we are so prone to over-analysis—this has not been clear to us. But the revelators help clear up the waters here if we approach the 5th ER in a synthesizing mode. It was suggested that even the very Papers in our present study arc are laid out along these lines of these developmental milestones. Note, for example, how Paper 123 covers ages 3 to 8 in Jesus' life.
We also noted the textual implication—"unusual mental activity"—that the seven adjutant mind-spirits connected with Jesus more quickly than usual. Jesus here is fully human, yes, but he's precocious. As we read, bear in mind he isn't in the middle of the bell curve of average human developmental stages.
123:2. The Fifth Year (2 B.C.)
We only started this section, again seeing that Jesus is precocious: he receives a Thought Adjuster over a year earlier than the average of our day and age. If we assume Jesus got an Adjuster about as early as can be possible, we can invert that math and we might conclude that basically all children these days will have an Adjuster by age 8.
Brad's Notes
- "Boy, am I glad I'm not like that Christian over there who believes that atonement doctrine!" That sounds terribly similar to the pharisee in that parable of the Pharisee and the publican. [167:5.1]
- Mary was already pregnant before they left Alexandria.
- What is revelation?
- Herod the Great is confirmed to have died sometime in the spring, 4 B.C. If the 5th ER is what is claims to be, this is an authoritative clearing up of something that has puzzled scholars for centuries.
- A puzzle for the future: why would the revelators tell us the name of the boat owner who took them on a trip? If there is nothing arbitrary in the 5th ER, does this suggest somewhere there is a registry of Alexandrian boat owners we may someday uncover and find Ezraeon listed there? Who knows!
- It offers precise details, even geographic details. Our authors do all they can to encourage us from fuzzing out with that unity consciousness they expect most readers to favor.
Our Merried Life Notes
- How much does Jesus' young life apply to us and our families?
- We'll be on the lookout: not take things too literally, but not dis miss something too hastily.
- These homes of Galilee were the best our world has ever seem. Something ought to be transformable to today.
- Further, Jesus' parents were the best parents, selected out of all in Palestine.
