A loving and engrossing examination of The Urantia Book for devotees.
A writer explores a cult classic.
In this revised edition of his nonfiction work, Lucas delves into the meanings, minutiae, and occasional mistakes found in The Urantia Book, an enormous, anonymous volume of scientific, philosophical, and religious speculation first published in 1955. Over the course of more than 2,000 pages, The Urantia Book makes a veritable blizzard of claims about the nature of reality, and Lucas here provides essentially an exhaustive, close reading of many of those contentions. (Readers unfamiliar with The Urantia Book won’t be entirely at sea in Lucas’ work, but even so, this is an account mostly aimed at Urantia fans.) The Urantia Book asserts that Jesus was one of the “Creator Sons,” each of whom constructed his own universe, and it goes on at great length, laying out essentially an alternate cosmology and a Unified Theory of Mythology. Throughout his volume, Lucas relates key Urantian narratives and personalities (the Planetary Prince Caligastia, for instance, and his assistant Daligastia). The author quotes extensively from The Urantia Book, as when Jesus is asked about India’s caste system and delivers the kind of diction readers will find nowhere in the King James Bible: “Mankind can appropriately be divided into many classes in accordance with differing qualifications, as they may be viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally, but as these different classes of mortals appear before the judgment bar of God, they stand on an equal footing; God is truly no respecter of persons.” The Urantia Book has had many thousands of passionate fans in the decades since its first appearance, and Lucas here serves those readers well with his clear summaries and innovative linking of his source material to writings as varied as Zecharia Sitchin’s works and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The flaws in Lucas’ volume mirror the failings of the original: Both offer combinations of New Age fantasy and questionable scientific assertions (the author’s first line, for instance, is “Today’s astrophysicists assure us there are hundreds of thousands of universes out in space”). But Urantia fans won’t be bothered by those defects.
A loving and engrossing examination of The Urantia Book for devotees.Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-62310-8
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
