Because of an apparent lack of transition a loose reading of The URANTIA Book makes it seem that Jesus departed the planet on the same day that the Spirit of Truth arrived, but both the calendar and the necessary time of Jesus' transit deny this.

The problem is that it LOOKS continuous because the time of Jesus' ascension, 7:45 a.m. (2057 D,193:5:5) is almost immediately followed by the time that the120 gathered at Mary Mark's home, 10:30 a.m (2057 D,193:6:1). Then at 1:00 p.m. the Spirit of Truth arrived. But the hard facts of the calendar tell us that there was a period of ten days between the time that Jesus left the planet at 7:45 a.m. on May 18 and when the Spirit of truth was poured out on all flesh at 1:00 p.m. on what had to be May 27, the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus was crucified on Passover (April 7).

It is as if once there could have been a transition between the end of Paper 193 section 5, where Jesus ascended, and the start of section 6, "Peter Calls a Meeting" but that somehow it got deleted.

We just have to understand that the two events and apparent countdown between them are NOT continuous. It took time -- ten days, obviously -- for Jesus to ascend to the Father and for the Spirit of Truth to arrive on earth. This was unlikely to have been accomplished in just five hours!

For instance, three days seems pretty much to be a minimum bestowal transport time. Michael's first four bestowals each employed three-day transits at least to the planet of his bestowal (the other times are not given). But, of course, in those he became neither material nor morontial in form. And the normal time of an Avonal Son's transit directly to Paradise after completing a bestowal mission on a mortal world is likewise three days. The Avonal bestowals and Creator Son bestowals, such as was Jesus' are in most ways identical.

But the whole dematerialization, transit, and rematerialization of Planetary Adams takes "ten to twenty eight days of Urantia time". This consists of the following: "About three days" of this is consumed by transport preparations. (See, 582 B-D, 51:2:2-4) . And "from the time of their arrival ten days passed before [Adam and Eve] were re-created . . . ." (828 B, 74:0:1). There may be something unique about Urantia in this respect because it took exactly ten days to repersonalize the one hundred corporeal staff members of the Planetary Prince as well (see, 743 A, 66:2:9).

Subtracting the preparation time plus the rematerialization time from the entire Planetary Adam transition leaves an approximate fifteen days for actual transit:

This would likely vary in respect to the actual distances to be traveled.

In the case of bestowal Avonals, after arriving on Paradise three days following their deaths in the flesh, they have still to "return to the Creator Son at the headquarters of the local universe" before the two Sons "send their joint spirit, the Spirit of Truth, into the bestowal world" (596 C, 52:5:6). So a longer time period than that of the duration of just the journey to Paradise is likely to be involved.

We are told the exact time that Jesus "began the ascent to the right hand of the Father". But, unlike a bestowal Avonal he did this indirectly, first stopping at Jerusem, then Edentia, where he was released from the morontia state.

A brief study seems to show that midwayers must be translated before leaving the planet, but Jesus -- likewise a morontia being at the time -- was NOT translated first as we have seen. He traveled to Jerusem and Edentia as a semi-material, morontia being!

Afterwards he passed "through the spirit channels of ascension" to the "status of Paradise sonship and supreme sovereignty on Salvington". While on Salvington he had other duties to perform. Before getting underway he had to await proclamations of his new status from both Uversa and Paradise. And he had to deal with personnel rearrangements ensuing from that new status (see, 1317 D, 119:8:1). Only then was he able to continue onward to Paradise! I have not yet been able to determine if he used the services of a transport seraphim for any part of the journey.

So we see that since it falls between the 3-day minimum and the up to15-day Planetary Adam transit maximum, accounting 10 days for Jesus to have accomplished all he had to is at least in the ballpark. Perhaps a more thorough study could pinpoint it exactly.

More confusion in The URANTIA Book rendition is caused where the 40 days and Pentecost (50 days) meet in the same paragraph in adjoining sentences:

"The apostles had been in hiding for forty days. This day happened to be the Jewish festival of Pentecost . . . ." (see, 2060 A, 194:1:1)

But it can be read without making the assumption that the forty days were both continuous and ended on Pentecost because linguistically, two sentences allow for two different subjects. However since a paragraph is required to contain a "complete thought" some justification for the remark about the apostles having been in hiding must be found to account for its placement there. And sure enough we are told about the frightened apostles having "emerged from their weeks of seclusion to appear boldly in the temple" on Pentecost two sentences on in the same paragraph. So according to the rules of grammar there is no real problem (just potential confusion). At the end of their forty days of hiding which began on the day of Jesus' crucifixion (Passover), the apostles emerged from hiding on the fiftieth day (Pentecost) after the day of Jesus' crucifixion.

The time the apostles spent in hiding did indeed end on Pentecost, but it was not continuous from the moment it had begun on Passover, the day of Jesus' crucifixion (most of the apostles actually went into hiding the night before). It was broken up both by specific instructions from the resurrected Jesus to leave their places of concealment and/or by time which they spent in close association -- experiencing genuine quality time -- with their resurrected Master. Mainly, and perhaps significantly, most of their "out of hiding" time was also spent in transit!

At his first appearance to the apostles, Jesus told them to go to Galilee. (2040 D, 191:2:1). It is about seventy miles as the crow flies from Jerusalem to Bethsaida, or over one hundred and forty miles round trip by land routes. They departed Jerusalem early on Monday, April 17 and arrived late on Wednesday night. And they left Bethsaida on April 30 to arrived back in Jerusalem on May 3. The "out of hiding" time of their round trip adds up to six days.

One other "out of hiding" day began with fishing in the waters off of Bethsaida (obviously they had less to be afraid of in Galilee). That was when Jesus appeared to them for a third time -- the second had been in their Jerusalem hideout where, apparently lingering only a matter of minutes, he again had told them that they must go to Galilee (2043 D, 191:5:6). He directed them during his third appearance where to cast their fishing net and afterward spoke with them privately in pairs, spending a total of four hours with them. Upon leaving he instructed them to be on the mount of their ordination at the next noon. That makes seven days.

The next day the apostles went to the hill just outside of Capernaum where originally they had been made ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, during the hour he spent with them, was able to manipulate their minds in some manner so as to cause them to picture the former scene of their consecration in their memories. But when he prayed, he spoke in new tones of majesty and power which they had never before heard, giving this "out of hiding" day a significance which stayed with them for the remainder of their lives. Their understanding was that he would appear at a gathering in Galilee and afterwards they were to return to Jerusalem (2051 A, 192:4:4). That adds up to eight.

Whether the lakeside gathering of 500 believers to whom Peter preached in "his first public sermon since the resurrection" could be considered "out of hiding" is problematical. They were among friends and supporters. Even Osama bin Laden (likewise considered to be a spiritual teacher) might speak at a large gathering of Al Qaeda and Taliban while in "hiding". In any event Jesus, himself, made only a token appearance lasting but a few moments, wherein he merely wished the assembly peace, after which he disappeared. And the next morning the apostles departed for Jerusalem, where, when they arrived, they purposely entered the city during the night, thereby hiding their movements in order to avoid being seen by the Jewish authorities (thus, May 3 is not counted as an "out of hiding" day, above).

Their next "out of hiding" day was on May 18 when Jesus appeared to them in their "upper chamber" Jerusalem hideout and led them about a mile out of the city to Mt. Olivet, spending a total of several hours in contact with them before his ascension. This makes nine days.

The apostles' tenth and last "out of hiding" day should be counted as the 50th day itself, Pentecost, when the "frightened apostles emerged from their weeks of seclusion to appear boldly in the temple". Then they were neither in transit nor with Jesus in person, as during their previous "out of hiding" days, but they had received the Spirit of Truth!

So, since ten "out of hiding" days had been interspersed throughout the fifty days between Passover and Pentecost, the statement in The URANTIA Book makes perfect sense:

"The apostles had been in hiding for forty days. This day happened to be the Jewish festival of Pentecost . . . . Now these frightened apostles emerged from their weeks of seclusion to appear boldly in the temple, where they began to preach . . . ." (see, 2060 A, 194:1:1)

The Bible version is well worth looking at because in it there is no problem. Also it parallels quite closely the events as related in The URANTIA Book. Acts 1, like The URANTIA Book, has Jesus speaking to his apostles on Mt. Olivet on day 40 (verse 3) of his mortontia appearances. But he at that time tells them, "ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (v. 5). Also, the Book of Acts, Chapter 2 begins, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come . . . ." (v. 1), and it goes on to relate the coming of the Spirit of Truth. So there is plenty of literary transition as well as an indication of actual intervening time between the two events.

However, that URANTIA Book morontia-spirit transit of Jesus from earth to the Paradise embrace of the Father, via Edentia, Jerusem, and Salvington, represents the only literary transition between the 40 days and Pentecost (50 days), but we are likely to ignore it because it represents a spiritual occurrence (and we unconsciously may view it as being instantaneous). It might, therefore, be instructive to contemplate the fact that the Bible uses a material, earth-based transition, whereas The URANTIA Book uses (an easily overlooked) spiritual, mega-universe one.

It would seem that the midwayers wished to impart a lesson to us by making their apparent lack of clarity the focus of our attention. The Bible is primarily concerned with earth events, but the revelators perhaps wanted us to keep our eyes on the bigger picture. In the Bible the ascended Jesus hazily abides in a nebulous heaven at the right hand of the Father, whereas The URANTIA Book gives him a vivid, living persona as an actual universe ruler -- someone who has a "life" -- and who lives in a real place, in a universe teeming with places and personalities! By alluding to the transition time they revealed (again!) to us that we live in a real universe of law and order NOT one of magic! Time is almost always a factor which must be considered.

The puzzle of the 40/50 days is so amenable to solution that I think it was put in the Book on purpose, both to make us stretch our creative imaginations and to increase the Book's revelatory authority. I suggest that a human work merely posed as a supernal revelation (that is, a fake revelation) would neither hide so many truths which might only be found by genuine study, nor scatter the facts needed for their apprehension throughout the book like nuggets rolled downstream in a river bed. The URANTIA Book is made to be studied, and conundrums like this are mind-candy to whet our appetites for it!

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