This problem was discussed in correspondence dated March 9, 1959 between Dr Sadler and Dr Earl L. Douglass, whose expertise was biblical studies. It makes it clear that Dr. Sadler and associates were aware of the problem prior to the book being printed.

   Dr Sadler offers the comment that perhaps the noonday meeting described at the end of Paper 193 was not the same meeting as described at the beginning of Paper 194.

   An intensive and detailed examination of the evidence indicates that this cannot be. The number of people is the same--120 believers. Paper 193, concludes with the apostles returning to the upper room about noon having chosen Matthias to replace Judas. Paper 194 commences with the believers, at about one oçlock becoming aware of a strange presence in the room.

   The meeting mentioned in both Papers was between the apostles and the one hundred and twenty foremost disciples in Jerusalem. Included are Jesus' mother and family members.   

   Dr Sadler's proffered explanation falters in the very first paragraph of Paper 194, Section 1, "The Pentecost Sermon" which reads, "The apostles had been in hiding for forty days." Read in context, it means what it says and not that, "Up until ten days ago, the apostles had been in hiding for forty days"--which is what would be expected if the meeting took place at fifty and not forty days after Jesus' crucifixion (the expectation if the meetings are not the same one).

   Further along in this same paragraph, "the frightened apostles emerged from their weeks of seclusion to appear boldly in the temple.…" According to Dr Sadler's explanation they must have actually come out of  hiding ten days earlier! So why are they still frightened yet no longer in hiding?

   The facts given at the end of Paper 193 and the beginning of Paper 194 are a perfect fit if they refer to the same meeting. They are at variance with those facts if we try to make them fit to the "independent meetings" hypothesis.

Why was it not corrected?

   Independently of all this, we must ask why the error was not corrected prior to printing. The authors were the midwayers who are located on Urantia. This same group is credited with a major role in the receipt of the Papers because of their ability to penetrate the human mind and to mediate communication via our Thought Adjusters.
   There is no reason to believe that the midwayers no longer have this ability. And what about that noble group, the Reserve Corps of Destiny? Why did they not step in to address this disastrous forty day error, or at least mediate an explanation? And in any case, if there is just a modicum of truth in what is supposed to have happened at 533 Diversey Parkway prior to the book's printing, then our celestial supervisors could have found ways to fix the problem.

Meant to be there?

   The more we examine the detail of this problem, the more it appears to be that the "forty days" was meant to be there.

   Curiously, it has lain dormant for all these years but now pops up independently in several places. One is a recent article by Seppo Kanerva in the IUA Journal, another is in E-mail discussions between various fundamentalist readers and our editors--and probably there are others. Is it a signal that the time for radical change in the Urantia movement has now arrived?

   In closing, and just in case any fundamentalist manages to find a way to call black white, we'll leave them with another task. Take a trip to the hill top at Nazareth, face due east, and see if you can see the rocky hills of Moab far to the east beyond the Jordan valley. (1363)