| From
Matthew Block:
These parallels represent my
attempt to trace how a human source was used as a base text in
inditing Paper 160 and the first two sections of Paper 161. If you
feel so moved, please peruse the parallels and share your thoughts
and feelings about them with me, either through e-mail or the
UBRON message board.
 Having
reflected on these parallels in relative isolation for a few
years, I've worked up an outline of my own observations, but I
won't share them until a loose forum of interested readers has
been formed to participate in ongoing conversation.
All I will say now is that I feel
the parallels shed light on a previously unappreciated dimension
of the Urantia Book: the creative genius and spiritual artistry
that went into adapting source texts for inclusion in the Papers.
I am awed when I see how comments from relatively mundane books
have been transformed by the writers of the Urantia Book into
passages of great beauty and inspirational power.
In the case of the Rodan papers,
the major source appears to have been Henry Nelson Wieman's 1930
book, The Issues of Life, the full text of which can be
found at the Urantia Book Fellowship's website: http://www.urantiabook.org.
Wieman
was a well-known theologian and philosopher of religion who began
his career as a Presbyterian pastor. In 1930, when The Issues of
Life was published, he was a professor at the University of
Chicago's Divinity School and had already written four books in
much the same vein as The Issues of Life. I do not know if
Wieman ever met Dr. Sadler, but it is certainly possible  that they
were acquainted. Sadler cites Wieman's Normative Psychology of
Religion (1935) in the bibliography of his 1936 psychiatry
textbook. Regina Westcott-Wieman (Wieman's wife, who was a
psychologist) wrote a mixed review of Sadler's textbook for The
Christian Century, in which she concluded, "Altogether, the
volume would not seem to be the wise selection to serve as a basic
reference for physicians, sociologists, psychologists, pastors or
nurses, either in practice or in training."
Henry Nelson Wieman was a
theological radical, as seen in The Issues of Life and
his other books. He did not believe in a personal God or in
survival after death, and denied the existence of a transcendent
spiritual dimension beyond the natural realm. Urantia Book
readers, such as myself, may well wonder how Wieman could have
been inspired by a God he defined as "the order of existence
and possibility which makes for greatest value." But he was
fervently dedicated to this concept, and The Issues of Life was
largely written in the attempt to inspire others with his
theological beliefs.
 Considering
how different Wieman's views are from the Urantia Book's, it is
remarkable that his book appears to have been chosen for
adaptation. But the author of Papers 160 and 161 performed a
splendid conceptual transformation of Wieman's worldview and
theology, which can be seen in many passages in the parallels. I
call the UB author's technique of spiritualizing paraphrasing
"meta-phrasing." (See my article
"Morontia
Mota: A
New Perspective" (2000) where I describe
"meta-phrasing.")
I hope you find the parallels as
fascinating and challenging as I have. Let's talk about them. -
Matt |
|
HOW TO
READ THE PARALLEL CHARTS
On the right column is the complete,
sequential text of Paper 160 and the first two sections of Paper
161. On the left are the corresponding passages from the first
edition of The Issues of Life. (The page number appears at the
end of each passage.)
Because Wieman's book was used mostly in
consecutive order, the left column reads coherently, for the most
part. I recommend that you read this column from top to bottom
first, before studying the parallel rows, to get an overview of
Wieman's teachings and vocabulary. (Note: The notation [contd]
means that the successive passages follow each other directly in
the book without intervening sentences.)
Some verbatim or near-verbatim parallelisms,
as well as exact synonyms, have been BOLDED. (This includes some
shared single words.) Words and clauses marking significant
deviations between Wieman and the UB have been UNDERLINED.
Certain phrases in the Urantia Book column
have been italicized and put into Arial typeface. This has been
done in an attempt to highlight the "meta-phrases"
introduced by the midwayer in spiritualizing and cosmicizing
Wieman's mundane worldview and naturalistic theology.
For
more on Henry Nelson Wieman
see
Source Authors of the Urantia Book
click on picture for details
|
