OBSTACLES TO A LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE, ACCORDING TO THE URANTIA BOOK. We all face the problem of trying to interpret the Bible literally, as if each word has been directly dictated by God and is therefore "written in stone" on a page in the Bible. The biggest problem is that the Bible has been changed so many times that its meaning lies hidden somewhere between the truth and the multitudinous changes that human beings have made to the original writings. Even those original writing were not made by God, but by human beings struggling to find God and describe their search as best they could. So the passages in the Bible cannot be interpreted word for word as the undisputed Word of God. Even reading the "acts" of Jesus' apostles as if they perfectly represent what Jesus taught leads to many distortions. Paul of Tarsus was the biggest offender of all in this regard, even though he was also the outstanding evangelist who spread the teachings of Christianity all over the known world, even out-distancing Peter. So there is no simple solution to the problem of how to interpret passages from "the Bible"; however, this book is an attempt to use information given to us by "higher beings" to help us decide which interpretation is the best one to use. In our attempt to approach this complicated problem, we will draw on four spiritual texts that were all "revealed" to us during the 20th century by Jesus and other "high beings" as follows: THE URANTIA BOOK (published in 1955) A COURSE IN MIRACLES (published in 1976) THE REVEALED TRANSLATION OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION GIVEN BY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (published in 1908) THE HISTORICAL FULFILLMENT OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION AS REVEALED BY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (transmitted in 1908) All four of these texts are either BY Jesus or ABOUT Jesus, the authenticity of which each reader is responsible for deciding about on their own."