•  That the beautiful, the true, and the good are the "comprehensible elements of Deity."
• That evolution is a technique of creation. 
• That the phenomenology of the "evolutionary impulse" felt by humans reveals evolution's larger purpose of spiritual growth.
• That the worlds religions are best understood as "lines of spiritual development."
• That The Urantia Book's "seven psychic circles" resonate with the evolutionary stages of consciousness and culture revealed by integral philosophy.
• That integral philosophy bears many similarities to the needed "new philosophy" described in The Urantia Book, and may well fulfill at least part of this promise.
• That the coming "end of the secular panic" described inThe Urantia Book may be achieved through the discoveries of science itself.

Click here to the rest of the article: http://urantiabook.org/archive/readers/Coming_sci_val_abstr2.htm 

David Kantor left for Jerusalem on 1/9/2012 to take up again his efforts on behalf of the Joshua ben Joseph Project.  The following is his most recent report:

Just a note to let you know that things are progressing well here on a cold rainy winter day in Jerusalem.  I'm staying at a wonderful place--the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in East Jerusalem.  It is an oasis of civility and order in a turbulent environment. The libraries and research facilities are open 24 hours a day for residents who are staying here.  There are a dozen or so scholars in residence (people doing PhD work or researching for field work, books they are writing, etc.) and the conversation at evening meals is an experience in itself. People studying here at this time include a Polish archaeologist who did much of the work on the Hippos excavation, an American archaeologist currently working on the Acco site, an orthodox Jewish woman doing PhD work on concepts of free will vs. determinism in first century Jewish thinking (mostly related to Essene and Pharisaic thinking of the time), a man from China studying the development of glass-making technology in ancient Mesopotamia--and the list goes on.  

It has been interesting to get some background on W.F. Albright, after whom this institution is named.  Albright completely shifted the perspective on Biblical archaeology from the early 20th century view that archaeology should be used to prove the tenets of Christian belief to a perspective that views the Biblical text as another piece in the puzzle about human origins and destiny that must be understood and interpreted in the context of other ancient texts and archaeological discoveries.  This is an important shift in perspective and one which bears on our understanding of The Urantia Book. 

It is easy to view a study of archaeology and history through the eyes of 1920s Biblical archaeologists--an effort to prove the validity of the Urantia Book text.  But I find it much more productive to view The Urantia Book as another piece in a much larger puzzle (albeit an important piece). The effort to integrate the text with contemporary knowledge will validate it if the combined result deepens meanings and enhances values--which I believe it does in a profound way.  I also believe that this is the way we make The Urantia Book relevant to other people, particularly Christians.  We can show how it illuminates and enriches existing conceptual structures rather than being something isolated and separate or something which threatens those structures. Revelation provides structure for ordering experience and thought, but not unearned knowledge.  Reality is, after all, an integrated whole, not a fragmented universe in which individual parts are fighting for dominance.  

I'm hopeful that the Joshua ben Joseph project will enrich a Urantia student's understanding of the life and teachings of Jesus by expanding their understanding of the context in which he lived and taught.  At the same time I'm hopeful that it will point the way for readers of The Urantia Book to enrich and deepen their life experience--not just by studying The Urantia Book, but by deepening their understanding of its Biblical foundations, by developing habits of exploration and by fostering an appetite for the adventure of discovery.  This will help the entire reader community to move forward towards meaningful integration of the teachings of The Urantia Book with the incredibly rich and rapidly growing domains of insight and revelation emerging from some of the sciences here in the early 21st century--particularly the massive undertaking currently in progress to unravel the human past. 

There are some 34,000 volumes here at the Institute plus maps going back before the times of the British Mandate and a vault of old manuscripts that all relate to our Joshua ben Joseph project in one way or another.  Among other things I'm finding locations of exposed sections of the Roman road system that Jesus and his emissaries would have used which I can photograph as well as the locations of newly excavated synagogues in which Jesus and his apostles would have taught.  I'm also getting good information on the ecological changes that have altered the physical environment over the past 2,000 years and the locations of the few remaining stands of the older tree cover.  I've even found some references to Phoenician mining and iron smelting in the Hermon region that have proven illusive up this time (and need some follow up).  The remaining pieces of the Roman road system are disappearing as more land is plowed for agricultural use. There are the remains of a rare first century synagogue a short distance from Jerusalem with a highway passing within 50 feet of it.  The actual physical infrastructure related to the Jesus story in Part 4 of The Urantia Book is disappearing at an increasing rate.  Much of the ecology of the region has been completely destroyed with many species of his time--particularly birds--now extinct. I'm hopeful we can record as much of what remains as possible.

One noteworthy thing I picked up is the insight that social differentiation based on religious belief developed as a Christian concept.  In the Jewish world of Jesus' time there was a relatively uniform world view based on the law of Moses--it was the interpretation of the requirements for ritual purity which created the religious-based social differentiation in Jesus' day and it is this concept of ritual purity that we see Jesus coming up against in a number of places. 

A Jewish scholar here told me that it was completely out of place for the Pharisees to get on Jesus' case for healing on the Sabbath because in the Jewish tradition of the time, healing was most likely to occur in conjunction with the Sabbath. 

Here's a great title I found last night:  "The Historical Background of Caravan Travel Between Syria and Mesopotamia."  Now how could any self-respecting Urantia Book reader pass up a gem like that?

In the continuing adventure,

David