NASHVILLE, TN (PinionNewswire) —
The Urantia Corps for Spiritual Progress (UCSP) today announced its response to PBS NOVA’s new series Human—and the finale episode, Building Empires, presented by paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi—arguing that recent 2025 discoveries from Türkiye’s Taş Tepeler (“Stone Hills”) region invite a wider dialogue about the spiritual-cultural forces behind the rise of civilization.
After the first discovery of the 11,500-year-old temple at Göbekli Tepe, scientists were astounded because by their estimation, this was a time when all of mankind was still at the hunter-gatherer stage of civilizational development. The remnants of houses have now been discovered in the vicinity complete with grinding stones, and yet, Al-Sharmahi insists this must have been for “wild wheat,” as agriculture is not in evidence yet anywhere in the world at that time.
The Urantia Corps for Spiritual Progress humbly suggests that agriculture had spread from the Second Garden of Adam and Eve located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers beginning around 38,000 years ago and had spread throughout the fertile crescent some 20,000 years before the building of Göbekli Tepe. Urantia Book readers confidently predict that evidence of widespread agriculture at this early date will eventually be found.
Author JJ Johnson writes:” Could it be that Göbekli Tepe is a remnant of that influence, a place where people gathered to connect with the spiritual and cultural legacy of the Adamites? Maybe they came together here, drawn by a sense of purpose or higher calling, and built something magnificent to reflect that inner drive. If so, it’s no wonder this site doesn’t resemble the typical hunter-gatherer or early farming settlements we’d expect—it’s a reflection of something entirely different.”[1]
“Certainly, these people were expressing a unique cultural identity, and what seems to be the spectacular rise of Sumer, may actually be the remnant of a much more ancient culture,” said Rebecca Bynum, founder of UCSP. “The Urantia book describes both climactic and population pressure on the fertile crescent, which was eventually overrun and conquered by barbaric horsemen from the east – a theme that recurred in historic times with the Mongols and the Huns. This is why, we believe, the temple was deliberately buried before the final migration of the inhabitants around 8,000 years ago, as they were pushed into Europe, Asia, the Greek Isles and Egypt, carrying the seeds of civilization with them as they went.”
Graham Hancock famously postulates that a global catastrophe destroyed the more advanced earlier civilization, and although the Urantia Book describes numerous catastrophes in our ancient past, both natural and man-made, it does not support Hancock’s Younger Dryas impact theory. Rather, The Urantia Book explains that civilization did not proceed in world-wide lock-step from stone-age to iron-age to bronze. Even today, there are remnants of stone-age cultures in isolated pockets on the planet. In the past, civilization developed in certain areas and then spread with the people as they moved. Historical civilizational centers flourished first in Mesopotamia, then Egypt, Greece, and finally Western Europe due to the movement of human beings.
In short, the advancement of civilization has never been a foregone conclusion; it proceeds in fits and starts in different areas at different times, and spiritual progress, though overlooked by modern science, is a core requirement for civilizational development. Recent archaeological discoveries from 2025, including new structural findings and material evidence at Göbekli Tepe, increasingly affirm the Urantia Book’s perspective on early human society and its spiritual-cultural dimensions. This evidence invites a richer understanding that integrates cutting-edge science with ancient spiritual revelation, making the Urantia narrative both compelling and credible in light of modern research.
[1] JJ Johnson, Exploring the Urantia Revelation: Bridging Science and Spirit with the Truth of Reality, Skyhorse, 2025, p. 47
