Following are additional statements erroneously attributed to Jesus.

     Christians have long been taught that every word in the Bible was inspired by God. However, as we now know, the Apostles were writing their account of the life and teachings of Jesus from memory. They presented a truthful account as they remembered it. Of course, writing as they did many years after Jesus lived, their memory of certain events in his life had grown hazy. The fact that they wrote from memory tells us they were not writing by inspiration from God.

     But even if their every word had been inspired by God, the four Gospels as they have come down to us would still contain numerous errors. One reason is because the early Christian religious leaders made many revisions in the Gospels. The early Christian leaders did not hesitate to ascribe numerous statements to Jesus that he positively did not make. Also, numerous of his statements were distorted in the records so that part of a statement may be true and the remaining part false. [121:8]

     The early Christian leaders did not have the advantage of a printing press. Therefore, the records were necessarily subject to copying errors as well as other difficulties over a period of many centuries.
     For example: The vision in the Book of Revelation was presented to John by a celestial being. He recorded the vision as best as he could remember it.
     "When in temporary exile on Patmos, John wrote the Book of Revelation, which you now have in greatly abridged and distorted form. The Book of Revelation contains the surviving fragments of a great revelation, large portions of which were lost, other portions of which were removed, subsequent to John's writing. It is preserved in only fragmentary and adulterated form." [139:4:14]
     So we see that even if the Four Gospels had been totally inspired by celestial beings the chances of the Gospels surviving in their original form to this day would be just about zilch.

1. Peter's nighttime vision. Mark 4:35-41: "There arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full." [Verse 37] In verse 39 Jesus is quoted as saying to the wind: Peace, be still." [And the wind ceased.]
    Mark 6:45-51. In these verses we are told that Jesus walked upon the sea and calmed a strong wind. He then supposedly said: Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
    After feeding the five thousand, Jesus left to be alone in the hills. [152:3:3] While the Apostles were rowing toward Bethsaida on the western shore of the lake a sudden strong wind made progress almost impossible. After several hours of hard rowing, Peter, exhausted, fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion. It was then that Peter had a vivid nighttime vision. He believed that Jesus had actually come to them that night. Peter always insisted that Jesus did come to them on the water. Peter's night vision is described at 152:4.

2. Mark 6:11: And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.
    Jesus actually said: . . . And blessed indeed are these communities which have elected to believe the gospel of the kingdom. But woe upon the light-rejecting inhabitants of Chorazin, Bethsaida-Julias, and Capernaum, the cities which did not well receive these messengers. I declare that, if the mighty works done in these places had been done in Tyre and Sidon, the people of these so-called heathen cities would have long since repented in sackcloth and ashes. It shall indeed be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment. [163:6:5]

3. Mark 9:3-7: And Jesus' raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller [launderer] on earth can make them whiter. And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. . . . And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.
    When the three [Peter, James, and John] had been fast asleep for about half an hour, they were suddenly awakened by a near-by crackling sound, and much to their amazement and consternation, on looking about them, they beheld Jesus in intimate converse with two brilliant beings clothed in the habiliments of the light of the celestial world. And Jesus' face and form shone with the luminosity of a heavenly light. Jesus was talking with Gabriel and the Father Melchizedek.
    . . . a silvery cloud drew near and overshadowed the four of them. . . . they heard a voice, the same that had spoken on the occasion of Jesus' baptism, say: "This is my beloved Son; give heed to him." The cloud vanished. [158:1:8,10]

4. Mark 9:11-13: And the Apostles asked him, saying Why say the scribes that Elijah must first come? And Jesus answered: Elijah verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of Man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. But I say unto you, That Elijah is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.
    At Malachi 4:5 there appears the statement: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; . . .
    The Apostles had great difficulty with some of Jesus' statements. Invariably, when Jesus made a statement, they attempted to attach his comment to the Scriptures they had been taught. They could not always keep in mind that Jesus taught a new gospel. According to their understanding, Elijah returned as John the Baptist. On this occasion Jesus did not attempt to correct their misunderstanding regarding the time of Elijah's return.
    But even if we concede for a moment that Elijah did return as John the Baptist, it is apparent that John the Baptist did not "restoreth all things" as claimed in verse 12. But when Elijah assumes his duties as World Ruler, he will surely "set things straight."

5. Mark 9:14-20: In this account the Apostles attempted unsuccessfully to heal an epileptic boy. After Jesus healed the young boy, he is erroneously quoted as saying to his Apostles: "This kind [of unclean spirit] can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." [Mark 9:29]
    What actually happened is described in The Urantia Book in Paper 158, Sections 4-6.
    On the practice of fasting: Jesus did not teach that fasting was necessary for spiritual growth. He did not fast during the forty days he spent in the hills after his baptism by John the Baptist. [136:4:3]
    Jesus did not go into retirement during the forty days for the purpose of fasting and for the affliction of his soul. He was not an ascetic, and he came forever to destroy all such notions regarding the approach to God. [136:3:3]     On another occasion Jesus said: To pray is natural for the children of light, but fasting is not a part of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. [147:7:2]
    And then long into the night Jesus propounded to his Apostles the truth that it was their faith that made them secure in the kingdom of the present and the future, and not their affliction of soul nor fasting of the body. [147:8:5]

6. Mark 9:42: And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones [children] that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
    See Matthew 18:6 for a similar erroneous statement supposedly made by Jesus.
    Jesus did not make this statement. Some fundamentalists might interpret this passage as condoning the death penalty.

    Mark 9:43-49: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
    And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into the hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
    Jesus never stated that such cruel self-mutilation was required for entrance into heaven. Further, there is no such place as hell, no such place containing a fire that will never be quenched, no such circumstance where their worm dieth not. These beliefs would surely have been quite a home in a barbaric tribe of thousands of years ago. It is mind-boggling that Christians today are still taught that such teachings are the inspired Word of God.
    Exodus 21:24: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot . . . At Matthew 5:29,30 an expanded version of the Exodus passage is erroneously attributed to Jesus.
    Early Christian religious leaders considered it safe to revise the scriptures with impunity in the manner of their choosing. After all, they had total control of the scriptures.

7. Mark 10:9: Said Jesus to the Pharisees: What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
    It is . . . unfortunate that certain groups of mortals have conceived of marriage as being consummated by divine action. Such beliefs lead directly to the concept of the indissolubility of the marital state regardless of the circumstances or wishes of the contracting parties. But the very fact of marriage dissolution itself indicates that Deity is not a conjoining party to such unions. If God has once joined any two things or persons together, they will remain thus joined until such a time as the divine will decrees their separation. . . . Marriage is a human institution . . ., not a department of the church. [83:8:4]

8. Mark 10:2-12: And the Pharisees came to Jesus, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. Jesus answered and said "What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
    Later Jesus supposedly said to his Apostles: Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
    Jesus did not make those statements. But he did make the following statements in answer to a question of James Zebedee:
    Master, what shall we teach the people regarding divorcement? Shall we allow a man to divorce his wife as Moses has directed?
    Jesus answered: I have not come to legislate but to enlighten. I have come not to reform the kingdoms of this world but rather to establish the kingdom of heaven. It is not the will of the Father that I should yield to the temptation to teach you rules of government, trade, or social behavior, which, while they might be good for today, would be far from suitable for the society of another age. I am on earth solely to comfort the minds, liberate the spirits, and save the souls of men. But I will say, concerning this question of divorcement, that, while Moses looked with favor upon such things, it was not so in the days of Adam and in the Garden. [140:6:6].
    The Apostles encountered much difficulty in their attempt to understand the words of Jesus. Jesus made the following statements to enable them to understand his teachings:
    You find it difficult to receive my message because you would build the new teaching directly upon the old . . . The new gospel of the kingdom cannot be made to conform to that which is. You have wrong ideas of the Son of Man and his mission on earth. But do not make the mistake of thinking that I have come to set aside the law and the prophets; I have not come to destroy but to fulfill, to enlarge and illuminate. I come not to transgress the law but rather to write these new commandments on the tablets of your hearts. [140:6:2]

9. Mark 10:29,30: Said Jesus: Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel, But he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. [My emphasis]
    Jesus did not make the extravagant promise that a person who received him and his gospel would be rewarded a hundredfold while on earth. He did not promise that a person would obtain vast riches by receiving him and his gospel. It appears that the early Christian leaders indulged in a bit of misleading advertising in their zeal for new converts! [If Mark 10:29,30 is a valid statement, why aren't all Christians rich?]
    The only reward which he [Jesus] held out for his children was: in this world--spiritual joy and divine communion; in the next world--eternal life in the progress of the divine spirit realities of the Paradise Father. [141:7:5]

10. Mark 10:33,34: Said Jesus: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles. And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again.
      Several times Jesus predicted his death, but verses 33 and 34 are a distortion of what he actually told his Apostles. He did not get so specific in his predictions.

11. Mark 11:12-14; 20,21: And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.
     Jesus never made such a statement. He would never use his divine power to destroy anyone or anything.

12. Mark 11:23-24: For verily I [Jesus] say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
     Jesus did not say that through the prayer of a mortal a mountain could be removed and cast into the sea. [Has anyone reported a missing mountain?]
     The statement What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them needs some clarification. For example:
     The sincerity of any prayer is the assurance of its being heard; the spiritual wisdom and universe consistency of any petition is the determiner of the time, manner, and degree of the answer.
     When you have become wholly dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven, the answer to all your petitions will be forthcoming because your prayers will be in full accordance with the Father's will, and the Father's will is ever manifest throughout his vast universe. What the true son desires and the infinite Father wills IS. Such a prayer cannot remain unanswered, and no other sort of petition can possibly be fully answered.
     The motive of the prayer gives it right of way to the divine ear, not the social, economic, or outward religious status of the one who prays.

     Guard against the great danger of becoming self-centered in your prayers. Avoid praying much for yourself; pray more for the spiritual progress of your brethren. Avoid materialistic praying; pray in the spirit and for the abundance of the gifts of the spirit.
     All believers in the gospel of Jesus should pray sincerely for the extension of the kingdom of heaven.
     Jesus taught that the prayer for divine guidance over the pathway of earthly life was next in importance to the petition for a knowledge of the Father's will. In reality this means a prayer for divine wisdom. Jesus never taught that human knowledge and special skill could be gained by prayer.
     Jesus warned his followers against thinking that their prayers would be rendered more efficacious by ornate repetitions, eloquent phraseology, fasting, penance, or sacrifices.
[146:2]

     Thus, we see that mortals will not always receive an immediate answer to a request when they pray. It may be necessary to delay the fulfilling of a request made in prayer until a distant date after we have been resurrected in heaven. But a worthy request will be answered even if long delayed.
     [The passage Mark 11:23-24 appears to be a very confused statement attributed to Jesus. John the Baptist made the following comment in answer to a question posed by a delegation sent by the priests and Levites: Go tell your masters that you have heard "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," as spoken by the prophet, saying, "make ready the way of the Lord, make straight a highway for our God. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; the uneven ground shall become a plain, while the rough places shall become a smooth valley; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."(135:6:6) Do some of these statements refer to events of the End Times?]

13. Mark, Chapter 13: Signs of the End. This chapter is a very confused account of Jesus' actual words. He did make some of the statements in chapter 13. However, the early Christian writers apparently borrowed information from several sources and erroneously attributed these statements to Jesus.
     The authors of Part IV of The Urantia Book, who were witnesses of Jesus' entire life while he lived on earth, present the events of Jesus' life in chronological order.
     A student of The Urantia Book finds it a very disheartening task to read highly disorganized passages such as those recorded in Mark, Chapter 13. We should not hold the original authors of the Four Gospels totally to blame for the confused manner in which the Gospels have come down to us after many centuries. Remember, they were writing from memory. They also borrowed from the notes of other writers. Further, Christian religious leaders who followed the original Apostles did not hesitate to change the written accounts in order to make their point. They thought nothing of making erroneous statements which they then attributed to Jesus.
     It appears that the Bible is simply not "fixable." The only remedy that comes to mind is to leave the Bible in its present form and completely rewrite it. In essence, that is what The Urantia Book does for us. [I fully expect that the wrath of Christian leaders will fall on my head from everywhere!]

14. Mark 14:21: The Son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
     This statement is a distortion of what Jesus actually said. His actual words to Judas are presented in The Urantia Book, Paper 179, Section 4: "Last Words to the Betrayer."

15. Mark 14:22-24: And they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
     The statements actually made by Jesus about the cup of wine and the bread were:
     Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my remembrance. This is the cup of the blessing of a new dispensation of grace and truth. This shall be to you the emblem of the bestowal and ministry of the divine Spirit of Truth. . . .
     Take this bread of remembrance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Father and the Son in one gift. The word of the Father, as revealed in the Son, is indeed the bread of life.
     Jesus did not say that the wine represented his blood and he did not say that the bread represented his body.
     See The Urantia Book, Paper 179, Section 5:Establishing The Remembrance Supper, for a detailed account of what actually transpired during the establishment of the Remembrance Supper.

16. Mark 14:47-52: And one of them that stood by drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Said Jesus to the soldiers: Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled.
      Peter and several others drew their swords and rushed forward to smite Malchus. But Jesus said to Peter: "Peter, put up your sword. They who take the sword shall perish by the sword. . . ." No one cut off the ear of a guard.
      Jesus did not say: "but the scriptures must be fulfilled." [183:3:The Master's Arrest]
      The reason why Jesus submitted to the cruel death on the cross is fully explained in Paper 183, Section 1:The Father's Will. It should be emphasized that God the Father "had nothing whatever to do with instigating the barbarous behavior of those supposedly civilized human beings who so brutally tortured the Master and so horribly heaped successive indignities upon his nonresisting person. These inhuman and shocking experiences which Jesus was called upon to endure in the final hours of his mortal life were not in any sense a part of the divine will of the Father . . . " However, "The Father in heaven desired the bestowal Son to finish his earth career naturally, just as all mortals must finish up their lives on earth and in the flesh." . . . "And every bit of all this astounding manifestation of hatred and this unprecedented demonstration of cruelty was the work of evil men and wicked mortals. God in heaven did not will it, neither did the archenemies [Caligastia, Satan, Lucifer] of Jesus dictate it, though they did much to insure that unthinking and evil mortals would thus reject the bestowal Son."
     The death of Jesus on the cross in no way paid for the sins of a spiritually depraved mankind.
      The young man who escaped naked from the soldiers was John Mark. [verses 51,52] [183:3:9]
      Numerous passages in the Old Testament which purport to predict the coming of Jesus and his death on the cross were written and inserted into the record long after Jesus died. Then statements in the New Testament were revised to make it appear that Jesus was fulfilling the predictions in the Old Testament.

17. Mark 14:61,62: [Jesus before the Sanhedrin] But Jesus held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest [Caiaphas] asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said: I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
     That is not exactly what Caiaphas and Jesus said. Asked Caiaphas: I adjure you, in the name of the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Deliverer, the Son of God. Jesus answered: I am. Soon I go to the Father, and presently shall the Son of Man be clothed with power and once more reign over the hosts of heaven. [184:3:11]
     Note: Jesus manifested no interest in any question asked him when before Annas or the Sanhedrists except the one question relative to his bestowal mission. When asked if he were the Son of God, he instantly and unequivocally answered in the affirmative. [184:3:13]

18. Mark 15:33-38. In verse 34 Jesus is quoted as saying: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
      During the hour of approaching death the human mind of Jesus resorted to the repetition of many passages in the Hebrew scriptures, particularly the Psalms. A few times those standing by were able to hear the scriptures quoted. One verse they heard was a passage from the twenty-second Psalm, which begins with "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" [187:5:2]
      The temple veil was not rent in twain from the top to the bottom as claimed in verse 38.
      The darkness referred to in verse 33 was caused by a hot-wind from the Arabian desert. Shortly after twelve o'clock the sky darkened by reason of the fine sand in the air. The people of Jerusalem knew that this meant the coming of one of those hot-wind sandstorms from the Arabian desert. Before one o'clock the sky was so dark the sun was hid, and the remainder of the crowd hastened back to the city. It was shortly after one o'clock, amidst the increasing darkness of the fierce sandstorm, that Jesus began to fail in human consciousness. [187:5:1,2,4]

19. Mark 16:15-18: And Jesus said unto his Apostles: Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
      These statements are a gross distortion of what Jesus actually said at various times during his ministry. Jesus did say numerous times that the Apostles and those following them were to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The statements in verses 16-18 were erroneously attributed to Jesus. They were apparently inserted into the scriptures by someone who had his own ax to grind. They were certainly not inspired by any celestial being loyal to Jesus and God.
      Verse 16 states: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
      In the beginning the twelve Apostles of Jesus did not baptize those who received the new gospel. It was only after the Apostles of Jesus and the Apostles of John the Baptist began to work together that it became the practice to baptize believers. Baptism is not necessary for salvation.
      The Ordination of the Twelve is described in detail in Paper 140. The detailed account of the Ordination of the Seventy is presented in Paper 163.