Editions of the text

The API serves the Standard Reference Text of 2024 by default: the Urantia Foundation download 1.22. Add edition to a request to read an older edition, and include=variants to see each change to a paragraph since 1955.

Edition id	Edition	Changes adopted in its year
`1955`	First printing (1955)
`srt-2009`	Standard Reference Text, 2009	161
`srt-2015`	Standard Reference Text, 2015	7
`srt-2018`	Standard Reference Text, 2018	7
`srt-2021`	Standard Reference Text, 2021 (Foundation download 21)	4
`srt-2024`	Standard Reference Text, 2024 (Foundation download 1.22), the default	2

The API also accepts the Foundation’s number (1.22, 21) or its version stamp (UF-202412132348) as the id. GET /editions gives this list.

Get the text of an edition

curl "https://api.urantia.dev/paragraphs/98:3.8?edition=1955"

The 1955 text of 98:3.8 reads “more than twoscore self-elevated human deities”. The default edition reads “two-score”. Each paragraph in the answer has edition, and the answer has meta.edition:

"meta": {
  "edition": {
    "id": "1955",
    "label": "First printing (1955)",
    "year": 1955,
    "foundationVersion": null,
    "versionStamp": null
  }
}

edition works on:

GET /paragraphs/{ref}, GET /paragraphs/{ref}/context, and GET /paragraphs/random
GET /papers/{id}
The MCP tools paragraphs.get, paragraphs.context, and papers.get
@urantia/api 0.13.0: api.paragraphs.get(ref, { edition: '1955' }) and api.papers.get(id, { edition: '1955' })

Search reads the default edition only, and its answers say so in meta.edition. Older editions are in English only: an edition other than the default with lang=es is a 400. An id that the API does not know is a 400 with the type unknown-edition.

See the changes

Add include=variants to see the changes to each paragraph. Most paragraphs have none, and get [].

curl "https://api.urantia.dev/paragraphs/98:3.8?include=variants"

"variants": [
  {
    "year": 2024,
    "kind": "text",
    "before": "more than twoscore self-elevated human deities",
    "after": "more than two-score self-elevated human deities",
    "applied": true,
    "source": { "list": "adopted-corrections-1955-text", "report": "approved-2024" },
    "page1955": "1081.2",
    "reason": "The hyphenated form is the consistent usage elsewhere in the text. The decision was made to standardize on that form."
  }
]

Field	Meaning
`year`	The year of the committee report that adopted the change. `null` when no report lists it.
`kind`	`text`: words or punctuation. `format`: italics only. `printing`: a fault of the printed 1955 book that no electronic text had.
`before`, `after`	The words before the change (the 1955 wording) and after it.
`applied`	`true` when the default edition has the change.
`source`	The Foundation’s list of adopted corrections and the committee report. Both are `null` for a change that no list records.
`foundBy`	`"scan"` for a change that no list records, found in the photos of the 1955 pages.
`page1955`	The page (and paragraph) of the first printing.
`reason`	The committee’s reason, from the Foundation’s list.

GET /editions/variants lists all 181 changes. Filter with paper=98, ref=98:3.8, or kind=text.

How each edition is made

The API stores the default edition. It makes an older edition from it: it undoes each text change of a later year, newest first. The changes come from Urantia Foundation sources only: the list of adopted corrections and the committee reports on the text standardization page.

srt-2024 is the Foundation download 1.22, word for word.
srt-2021 is the same, word for word, as the Foundation download of January 2024 (download 21) in all 14,593 paragraphs. 26 table rows differ in white space only.
1955 was compared with the photos of each page of a first printing (archive.org). 178 of the listed changes match the photos. At 162:7.2 the 1955 page breaks “bond- / servant” at a line end, so the photo cannot show if the hyphen is part of the word. The scan has no pages 2092 to 2097, so 196:3.35 is not compared. A compare of the whole book found one change that no list records: in 1955, 27:6.4 has no comma in “every possible method of instruction including the higher graph technique”. The 1955 edition has that row, with foundBy: "scan".
srt-2009, srt-2015, and srt-2018 are made from the year of each report. No Foundation download of their time is available to compare them with.

Limits

htmlText of an older edition changes only the words of each change, so its markup stays. A format change (italics only) is not undone in an older edition.
A printing change is a fault of the printed 1955 book. No edition of the API has it.
Two listed changes are not in download 1.22: 58:1.7 (a comma, adopted in 2015) and the brackets of 119:8.9. They have applied: false, and the text of each edition has the 1955 wording there.
The references (2:0.1) are the standard references, the same in each edition.

To check a quote word for word, use Verify quotes.

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Get the text of an edition

See the changes

How each edition is made

Limits

​Get the text of an edition

​See the changes

​How each edition is made

​Limits

Get the text of an edition

See the changes

How each edition is made

Limits