“Jesus began public work at the height of the popular interest in John’s preaching and at a time when the Jewish people of Palestine were eagerly looking for the appearance of the Messiah.” “In the days of John and Jesus the more learned Jews had developed an idea of the coming Messiah as the perfected and representative Israelite, combining the

This paper tells the story of John, the cousin of Jesus, who was selected to become the herald of Jesus’ bestowal mission. John grew up knowing that there was a significant

“During the Mediterranean journey Jesus had made a careful study of the people and the countries ...encountered, and at about this time reached a final decision as to the remainder of the bestowal mission. Jesus had fully considered and now finally approved the plan to be born of Jewish parents in Palestine, and therefore deliberately returned to Galilee to await the start of a career as a public teacher of truth...” “Jesus had found out through personal and human experience that Palestine was the best place in all the Roman world in which to enact the final scenes of the bestowal mission, and for the first time became fully satisfied with the program of revealing the divine identity among the Jews and gentiles of Palestine.”

The trip to Rome marked a “chapter in the life of the incarnated Local Universe Creator which might be termed: The mission of Joshua the teacher. When a year had

This paper provides greater detail about Jesus’ time in Rome. “At this time the Roman Empire included all of southern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and northwest

For the full text of this paper it is necessary to read it in the original version of The Urantia Book. Those “writings portraying monotheism were largely derived, directly or indirectly, from the teachings of the missionaries of Machiventa Melchizedek, who went out from their Salem headquarters to spread the doctrine of the Most High to the ends of the earth.” Those teachings were carefully selected, and often depart from present-day understandings of the same traditions, which have changed in many ways during the past two thousand years.

The Urantia Book provides an account of a time in Jesus’ life in which almost two years was spent touring the Roman world, learning about the various elements of that broader civilization and sharing advanced teachings along the way, laying “the foundation for the quick reception of the later teachings when the first missionaries from Jerusalem arrived.” This trip was also an opportunity for Jesus to engage in much personal ministry to people along the way who were in need of physical, mental, or spiritual comfort and enlightenment.

“Jesus had fully and finally become separated from the management of the domestic affairs of the Nazareth family

“With the attainment of adult years Jesus began in earnest and with full self-consciousness the task of completing the experience of mastering the knowledge of the life of the lowest form of intelligent creatures, thereby finally and fully earning the right of unqualified rulership of the universe.

“Jesus, upon entering the adolescent years, became the head and sole support of a large family. Within a few years after Joseph’s death all their property was gone. As time passed, Jesus became increasingly conscious of having a pre-existence, and at the same time began to understand that the reason for being present on earth was for the express purpose of revealing the Paradise Creator to mortals.” “No adolescent who has lived or ever will live on this world or any other world has had or ever will have more weighty problems to resolve or more intricate difficulties to