An accurate account of the trial before Pilate is at http://www.ubook.org/upapers/ubpaper185.html
Link to Staff Report, edited in by CKDH: Who killed Jesus?
So, what makes you think this is accurate?
I hardly believe the Urantia Papers qualifies as a source of straight dope!
I find this report morally repugnant and historically dubious.
The opening section: “Although these Jews were not at all bothered in conscience as they intrigued to effect the judicial murder of Jesus, they were nonetheless scrupulous regarding all these matters of ceremonial cleanness and traditional regularity.”
This is one of the anti-Jewish sentiments that Christianity has used for the last two millenia to persecute and murder Jews. The Jews were arguably the only civilization in those days that placed any value on morality, justice, and legalized procedures. The death penalty was rarely if ever carried out within Jewish courts.
In contrast, the Roman Emperors could execute whom they wished whenever they wished, without any moral constraint.
I do not know what these Urantia papers are, but this account is positively dripping with anti-semitism, distortion, and fantasy.
I cite one simple example: Urantia says, “[Pilate] never fully recovered from the regretful condemnation of having consented to the crucifixion of Jesus.”
This is pure make-believe. We have no information whatsoever about Pilate’s attitudes, but it seems absurd to think that he was remorseful about the death of one individual when he had cheerfully ordered dozens (if not hundreds) of similar executions, with far less justification. He was removed from office, let us not forget, for “outrages and wanton injustices, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the endless and supremely grievous cruelty” according to Philo (more or less a contemporary of Pilate.) To think that such an individual would feel remorse about one very minor case is absurd.
From our vantage point 2000 years later, we can note that Jesus’ execution marked a major turning point in Christian history (and thus in world history). But, at the time, it was a tiny, insignificant event, unnoticed except by Jesus’ followers and recorded nowhere except in the gospels. Pretending that Pilate felt such heavy remorse blah blah is anti-Jewish propaganda, pure and simple, and I am surprised that anyone would cite such drivel today.
Oh, man. The Urantia papers are the same as the Urantia Book, but different sects of the Urantia cult use somewhat different versions of the book. The book was published in the 1950s by William Sadler of Chicago, who had previously written such gems as Long Heads and Round Heads, or, What’s the Matter with Germany? (1918) and Racial Decadence: An Examination of the Causes of Racial Degeneracy in the United States (1922). Supposedly The Urantia Book had been dictated decades earlier by an extraterrestrial intelligence channeled by Sadler’s brother-in-law. The book is intended to be a suplement to the Bible. It is, as you noticed, blatantly anti-Semitic, not to mention racist and eugenicist.
And its style leaves something to be desired. “It’s what the Bible would have been like if it had been written by lawyers…” [Donna Kossy]
Thanks, bib.
I wasn’t sure whether what I saw was just the drivel of the lunatic fringe, or was viewed as mainstream drivel.
[Looks down ruefully]
ummm… guys…
… I have a confession to make…