Chapter 1, Birth and Infancy of Jesus

“Son of Man: Urantia,” 2nd edition

Chapter 1

Birth and Infancy of Jesus

Mary and Joseph: Choosing the Parents

After Michael chose Urantia for his final bestowal in submission to God the Father, Gabriel chose the Jews to host our creator’s life on Earth. At the time, their religion and philosophy held more truth than those of other cultures. Next his staff searched for potential parents among the Hebrews, the descendants of Abraham, and eventually nominated three couples. Gabriel chose Mary and Joseph: biologically they both had excellent genes and socially they held enough status to offer Jesus his best chance to fulfill his destiny.

Joseph was a Jew of the Jews. His father’s family line went back to Abraham and far beyond, but not quite all the way back to Adam. His most recent ancestors came from the trades: masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, etcetera. Joseph began as a carpenter and then later contracted his own jobs. Mary’s lineage also went back into the mists of time, and it was one of the most illustrious of the Jews. Her line was a composite of many different tribes and included some of the most important women in Earth’s history, including Eve.

Gabriel Appears to Elizabeth

Mary had a distant relative named Elizabeth whose husband was Zacharias, a Jewish rabbi. They had been married for many years but had never been blessed with a child. One day toward the end of June, 8 B.C. while Zacharias was praying in the temple, Elizabeth was by herself in their house when all of the sudden Gabriel made himself visible to her. After Elizabeth calmed down, Gabriel told her that the long-awaited savior is coming soon; that Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, would be the mother of this divine teacher; that a man named John would come first to prepare the way for this savior; that Elizabeth and her husband Zacharias would be the parents of John, who would be known as John the Baptist, and finally, that he was going to tell Mary this same story.

Elizabeth did not know what to do. It took her five months before she even told her husband and at first Zacharias did not believe her. But when Elizabeth realized she was pregnant, that changed everything. Furthermore, Zacharias trusted Elizabeth: he did not think she was lying so he was forced to at least consider the possibility that maybe Elizabeth did see an angel. Then, six weeks before John was born Zacharias had a dream that convinced him of everything. No one knows if this dream was just Zacharias’ mind wandering, or if an angel came to him. But in the morning he believed Elizabeth’s story and accepted that they were going to be the parents of a distinguished spiritual teacher.

John was born in the City of Judah on March 25, 7 B.C. Elizabeth and Zacharias were happy and proud: their dream had finally come true. Eight days later Zacharias and Elizabeth took their newborn to the temple and according to Jewish law he was circumcised. They named their son John like they were told to do by Gabriel.

From birth, Zacharias and Elizabeth began telling John that he was a special child: he was raised knowing he was going be a great man who prepared people for the coming of someone even more imposing than himself. John took his responsibility to heart and spent much of his childhood at the temple when his father was teaching.

Gabriel’s Announcement to Mary

Mary was in her house and Joseph was still at work when Gabriel appeared to her in mid-November. After Mary calmed down Gabriel told her what he had told Elizabeth and also that she was pregnant with a son; that her pregnancy was blessed by God; that she and Joseph were supposed to name their son Joshua, and that their son Joshua would announce the kingdom of heaven on Earth.

Gabriel warned Mary to not tell anyone except Joseph and Elizabeth about his visit. He told her not to doubt, that God would make her strong, and that he, Gabriel, would keep watch over their family. Then he vanished from Mary’s sight.

Like with Elizabeth, Mary did not know what to think. Then she, too realized that she was pregnant. Mary told Joseph about Gabriel’s visit and then left to stay with Elizabeth and Zacharias for three weeks in the City of Judah. This was about four miles away from Mary and Joseph’s house in Nazareth. After the two women compared stories Mary became more convinced that she had in fact been visited by an angel.

Joseph, like Zacharias, trusted his wife but the story was hard to accept. He spent many sleepless nights before finally believing Mary. When he did, that brought its own set of problems: how could two humans have a baby that was supposed to be divine? They pondered their secret for weeks and finally decided that it was true. Neither of them knew how, but they had been selected by God to be the parents of the coming messiah.

Gabriel waited until after Mary was already pregnant before appearing to her. There was no virgin birth: Jesus was conceived as normal the night before Gabriel’s visit, which was the only supernatural event that happened.

Joseph’s Dream

It was also a dream that convinced Joseph to believe Mary’s story. In it, a spirit told him that his son would bring the light of God to the world. The angel said his son’s own people, the Jews, would reject him but the gentiles would believe and welcome his son. For the people who did accept him, Joseph’s son would bring them a higher revelation of God the Father through the example of his life on Earth.

The angel never told Joseph that his son was coming to save the Jews, or that Joseph was a descendent of the House of David. For hundreds of years the Jews had been waiting for someone to come and assume David’s throne. This new king, like Moses, would use miracles to defeat the Jew’s enemies and control all of Palestine. After Jesus was crucified many of the stories in the Old Testament where altered to better align with his incarnation on Earth. Those changes have caused tremendous confusion. Jesus himself stated that he had no link to the family of David or any intention to sit on his throne. Other changes to the scriptures included altering Mary and Joseph’s family lines, and stating that a virgin instead of a maiden was going to bear a son.

Jesus’ Mortal Parents

Joseph had dark hair and dark eyes. He was the kind of quiet easy-going man that we would call a deep thinker. He was pious and always concerned for the welfare of others. At the same time, he was human and had moments where he was discouraged and doubted his faith.

Mary was just the opposite. She had blond hair and brown eyes, and was the type of person who is always happy and cheerful and never seems to let anything get her down. At least that was the case throughout Jesus’ childhood. Later when Jesus began his mission and the problems with the Jews and Romans started, she became quieter and more reserved. Still, throughout all the chaos Mary showed strength, kept her composure, and was an outstanding mother for Jesus and his siblings.

Jesus carried traits from both of his parents. From Joseph he acquired his deep love for and understanding of people, and some of his tendency to at times become discouraged. Joseph also taught Jesus his religion and the history of the Jewish people.

Mary’s personality was stronger than Joseph’s. She was outgoing and not shy expressing herself. Mary was better at managing a household than most women, and she was a master at getting things done. From his mother Jesus learned how to plan, teach, and adapt. But Mary could also get angry on the spot if someone blasphemed God, a trait Jesus acquired from her later in life.

The story goes that one day young Joseph was working for Mary’s father putting an addition on his house. During the lunch break Mary came outside and handed Joseph a glass of water, and that is evidently where the relationship began. Two years later when Joseph was twenty-one years old they were married. With the help of his brothers Joseph built a small house for them in Nazareth, the one where Gabriel later visited Mary.

The Home in Nazareth

Jesus’ childhood home was on the northern edge of Nazareth. It was nearby some hills that Jesus would climb when he was playing in the countryside. The house was made of stone with one open room and a flat roof. Next to it was a small hut for the animals. There was not much in the way of furniture—just some stools, a stone table, an olive-oil lamp for light, and Mary’s loom for making cloth to sew their cloths. At night the family slept on mats on the dirt floor. Outside and behind the house was the mill; when Jesus was young he would pour in the wheat while Mary turned the grinder to crush it into flour. As Mary and Joseph’s family grew they built additions on to the house.

The Trip to Bethlehem

Mary and Joseph were married in March, 8 B.C. That same month Caesar Augustus passed a law requiring a census: he wanted to know how many people were paying taxes. But the Jews had always resisted being counted, and they managed have the census in Palestine delayed until a year later in 7 B.C. Mary was pregnant that year when the Romans held the census in Palestine, so Joseph decided that he would go Bethlehem and register the family by himself. Mary disagreed: she did not want to take the chance of giving birth when Joseph was gone. Also, her cousin Elizabeth lived nearby Bethlehem and Mary argued that the two of them could visit. At first Joseph held firm and said Mary had to stay home. But she just ignored him and packed enough food for both of them, winning the argument. They left for Bethlehem at dawn the next day, August 18, 7 B.C. Mary rode the donkey with their food and Joseph walked ahead leading the way.

The first night they camped by the Jordan River, the second night was spent in Jericho, and toward the end of the third day they walked into Bethlehem. The city was over crowded with people and there were no rooms in any of the lodges. Finally an inn-keeper cleaned out his stables to make room for more people, and Mary and Joseph found themselves living in what was normally the granary just in front of the stalls and mangers. For added privacy they hung tent curtains and then settled in for the night.

Jesus Is Born

Neither Mary nor Joseph slept much that night. By morning Mary knew she was going to deliver. With the help of some of the other woman staying at the Inn, Jesus was born at noon, August 21, 7 B.C.

The next day Joseph registered the family for the census. He found a man willing to give up his room at the inn for Mary and the baby, and they stayed there for the next three weeks. The third day Mary sent a message to Elizabeth, and the two of them made plans to visit a week later in the City of Judah. According to Jewish custom on the eighth day Jesus was taken to the temple, circumcised, and given the name Joshua—Jesus.

Mary, Elizabeth, and Zacharias were convinced that Jesus was supposed to be the king of the Jews and sit on David’s throne. They also thought that little John, Elizabeth and Zacharias’ son, would be Jesus’ second in command. Since they were already in Bethlehem and since Bethlehem was actually the City of David, the three of them managed to convince Joseph that they should all live there. Joseph agreed, and to support them he worked part time as a carpenter.

While it is true that the angels in heaven sung when Jesus was born, no one on Earth heard them. Three weeks later Zacharias met several priests traveling together. Many years before, these priests had met a strange man who told them that he had dreamt about a prophet who was going to be born to the Jews in a faraway land. He said this man would grow up to become the light of life for all of the world. When the priests told this to Zacharias, he of course thought about Jesus and told the priests what he knew. The priests then went and met Mary, saw Jesus, and left some gifts before heading home. There was nothing supernatural about these events. The tale about a star guiding the priests to Bethlehem was added later, and was based on a strange but natural alignment of the planets, in particular Saturn and Jupiter. Even more amazing, this alignment occurred three times the year Jesus was born—May 29^th, September 29^th, and December 5^th. While no miracles happened, back then it was normal for people to weave miracles into their stories: later these stories were written down and the people assumed them to be true.

The Presentation in the Temple

Jewish parents had to present all newborn babies to the priests at the temple, and Mary was forced to undergo the cleansing rites like all other mothers. The fee charged for these supposed blessings was five shekels. Mary and Joseph bundled up Jesus, took him to the temple, and entered the line with the other parents and their new babies.

Zacharias knew that Mary and Joseph were going to the temple to present Jesus. He believed that Jesus was a special child, and he wanted to somehow announce that fact to the people. There was a man and woman who were poets and musicians who were always hanging around the temple, and after Zacharias told them his beliefs about Jesus’ divinity the three of them made a plan to announce that news to everyone else. The couple wrote a lengthy poem and hid in the crowd waiting for Zacharias to signal them that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were passing by. When the two of them burst out in song the people were astonished and Mary and Joseph were shocked: they were not happy that their secret was now made public.

Herod Acts

Palestine was ruled by Herod the Idumean. He had been put in charge by the Caesar in Rome, and he had good relations with that far-off ruler. But in Palestine the Jews did not trust him. There had always been tension between them, so to keep his power Herod had spies reporting to him from all across his land. Herod knew that the Jews had been praying for a deliver to set them free from the Roman’s rule. After his spies told him about the priests who came to Bethlehem looking for this same person, he had them brought to his court for questioning. They were not much help, and could only tell Herod that a man and woman who had gone to Bethlehem to register for the census had been blessed with a male child. Herod did not trust these men so he tried to trick them by saying that he, too, wanted to pay his respects to this special child and he gave them some money to find Jesus again and report back to him. But the priests were on to Herod’s trick; they took his money and returned to their country far away.

Then Herod’s spies told him about the excitement in the temple when the poem was sung for this newborn child, and Herod knew he had a problem. He decided that he had to find this baby boy and put an end to any idea that a new King of the Jews had been born. Zacharias also had his own spies. When he was informed that Herod was searching for Mary, Joseph, and the newborn Jesus, those three went into hiding in Bethlehem while Zacharias and Elizabeth returned to their home in the City of Judah. They all stayed out of sight for more than a year.

Herod finally became frustrated with the search and ordered that all boys under two years old be killed just in case this child was still in Bethlehem. Again, Zacharias’ spies warned him and Mary and Joseph escaped Herod’s assassins in the nick of time. Sadly, sixteen other baby boys did not and were slaughtered the next day. The family made their way to Alexandria in Egypt and hid for two years. It was not until Herod died that Mary and Joseph felt safe enough to take Jesus back to Bethlehem.