The Urantia Book

The Urantia Book is a spiritual, philosophical, and religious book first published in Chicago in 1955 by the Urantia Foundation.

No human author is named. The text presents itself as a revelation transmitted by celestial beings, and the people around its origin, notably the physician William S. Sadler, always denied having written it.

It runs to 196 "papers" in four parts: the nature of God and the central universe, the local universe and its orders of beings, the history of "Urantia" — the book's name for Earth — and, in the longest section by far, a life of Jesus that goes well beyond the gospels. The passage below opens the first paper.

"The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said: "You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain." Only the concept of the Universal Father—one God in the place of many gods—enabled mortal man to comprehend the Father as divine creator and infinite controller."